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Vaccine Can Still Help as Flu Season Rages
The influenza virus is widespread in the Philadelphia region and throughout most of the country; Montgomery County expands free vaccination hours.
After last year's mildest flu season on record, influenza has returned with a vengeance. A "moderately severe outbreak" of "old-fashioned influenza" is filling emergency rooms across the region and the country. According to Dr. William Schaffner, Chair of the Department of Preventative Medicine at Vanderbilt University, this year's influenza outbreak began on the East Coast in November and quickly spread westward. The Philadelphia region, among other East Coast metropolitan areas, "is having a harder time" with the flu than many other parts of the country, Schaffner said in an interview with the Huffington Post. At Lehigh Valley Hospital, medical officials opened a "flu tent" outside the emergency room to handle the overflow. "If you …
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