H1N1 is going to be a really, really big deal this fall and winter. It's time to set up your H1N1 website, and start selling "I survived the swine" t-shirts.<p>I work as an ER nurse, and hospitals all over are expecting a huge influx of patients. It's going to be a miserable winter for me. :( The CDC is expecting 50% of the population to come down with it, close to a million hospitalizations and 90,000 deaths in the US alone. This out break already meets the WHO definition of pandemic flu.<p>Most people that come down with it have a bad case of the sniffles, a cough and feel miserable for a while. But the problem with this virus is that it randomly hits younger people (age 25-50) really hard and sends them to the ICU. We've had 10-12 young people in our ICU this summer on ventilators with H1N1. Two of those people were pregnant mothers.<p><PSA>
So, get your flu and swine flu shots this year. Wash your hands. Sneeze or cough into your elbow instead of your hands. If you're sick, for the love of health, please stay home and isolate yourself instead of sharing your germs with your coworkers. And, if you're having a hard time breathing, come to the ER sooner rather than later.
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