Swine Flu: Illinois Has 3 Confirmed Cases, Nearly 100 Probable

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) -- State health officials say Illinois has three confirmed cases of swine flu and 96 probable cases of the illnesses.

The Illinois Department of Public Health says the majority of cases as of Sunday morning are in Chicago and its suburbs.

Health officials say Illinois has enough drugs to treat more than one million people.

Meanwhile schools, gyms and churches in the Chicago area have stepped up efforts to stop the spread.

During Holy Name Cathedral's Sunday services in Chicago, officials announced that congregants could abstain from shaking hands if they were uncomfortable because of swine flue.

Starting Monday, any Chicago Public Schools student who has a fever and cough will be sent home and expected to stay there for seven days.

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On the Net: http://www.Ready.Illinois.gov

-ASSOCIATED PRESS

Comments

[TazoWolf]

12:18 AM on 05/05/2009

Decent Q&A about Swine flu here, backing up words with scientific explanations people can understand to dispel some fears and explain where the real concerns lie. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ma7IeWRH7y0

[justthomas]

10:29 PM on 05/03/2009

Swine Flu Virus did pick and choose illegal alinens and joined together with Republican Racial hate mongers to attack Hispanics in this country.

[AngieMom57]

10:39 AM on 05/04/2009

Stay strong in your compassion because hate has a way of spreading like a virus.

You have a new fan ;-)

[rchsod]

08:16 AM on 05/03/2009

we need to do this every year..as soon as a school kid or an adult comes down with the flu..close the school and the place where the adult works. public service people will have to wear hazmat face and hand protection.

we would save thousands of lives in this country every flu season

[CJWebber]

11:10 AM on 05/02/2009

This fear-mongering and over-hype by the media will create a REAL problem if an actual crisis occurs. Crying wolf over everything could backfire bigtime.

[isis]

10:56 AM on 05/02/2009

In Michigan, cases in Ottawa county. A sewage spill there recently....

[rwext]

10:26 AM on 05/02/2009

AAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ... 3 confirmed cases, less than 500 on the planet......there will be more women assaulted tonight in Chicago ,,, There will be more shootings,,,more kids will be beaten...there were 36,000 flu related deaths in this country last year,,,

[hashemrouhani]

12:02 AM on 05/02/2009

The situation does seem to be worsening. There have been several school closures in the San Francisco Bay Area as well. It’s important we keep a clear head and not get carried away but it’s still worth taking precautions. A good article I would like to share http://www.examiner.com/x-7528-SF-Top-News-Examiner~y2009m5d1-Swine-flu-symptoms-rise-more-Bay-Area-schools-shut-down

[KatieMN]

09:45 PM on 05/01/2009

Here's what I believe you need to do to avoid being made too ill by this or any other infection (assuming that you are in good general health).

Don't wash you hands excessively, touch your face/eyes/mouth any time you like, go to crowded places, take planes/trains/the bus, keep your home clean but not to laboratory standards, never use any of those household products that boast about killing germs. In short, live normally and don't fear what my mother (and now I, as I morph into her!) used to call 'clean dirt'.

Yes, it's the opposite of all the advice being given, but it means your immune system will constantly be primed with low level challenges and when something potentially risky does come along, it will be in a better state to deal with it. Do the opposite and your immune system is a neglected thing, unfit for purpose.

I've always followed this line and can't remember when I or any other person in my family had an infection. My sons (11 and 14) have never had a course of antibiotics in their lives.

[underthegun1]

07:19 PM on 05/01/2009

Get over it! This is a fake issue and a complete overreaction.

[Velocitor]

04:00 PM on 05/01/2009

Politicians are hyping this to distract you from the collapsing economy. As always, mainstream media obliges. It doesn't matter what the crisis is, the solution offered is always more government power, less rights for you and me. This time around, they are using it as a rationale to sell us on the idea of mandatory vaccines. Don't fall for it... 1) Google VAERS - the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System... there are thousands of serious vaccine reactions every year; 2) big pharma sells us enough dangerous and/or ineffective drugs when purchase is voluntary- imagine what sort of crap they're going to push on us when purchase is mandatory; 3) this violates two of the most time honored traditions of medicine: "Above all, do no harm" (see adverse vaccine reactions, above) and the principle of patient self-determination (the right to refuse treatment); 4) it sets the legal precendent for the idea that the government has the right to put things in your body, even against your will... a handy legal tool for the security-state crowd that wants to put RFID chips in us (like dogs).

See this for what it is: one more hyped-up crisis to push more police-state policies on an overly trusting public. Wake up and start participating in life, while you still can. "The only thing Evil needs to triumph is for good men to do nothing."

[JulieCarol]

03:19 PM on 05/01/2009

Why that link is like that, I don't know.

[JulieCarol]

03:18 PM on 05/01/2009

HP needs to put up a map. So many cases being reported (or not) so often, it's hard to keep up with which states have cases.

This one has not been updated in 2 days.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:H1N1_North_America_Map.svg

[Taratrue]

03:38 PM on 05/01/2009

http://www.jobrica.com/_RESOURCES/SwineFluAwareness.aspx

Thanks to Alex Bell. (below)

[MomfromTexas]

06:22 PM on 05/01/2009

I believe, they are updating this daily:

http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/

[gomommago]

01:20 PM on 05/02/2009

Even if CDC is updating this daily, how accurate is their reporting? By many accounts, the CDC cannot hope to keep up with the number of samples submitted by local health organizations:

http://www.miamiherald.com/1484/story/1026309.html
http://www.naturalnews.com/026179.html

Momma

[RichardWalden]

02:49 PM on 05/01/2009

Operation USA has 65,000 N95 biohazard masks to distribute to community clinics in California, Texas and the CA-Mexico border. These are going, along with latex gloves, hand sanitizer and soaps and cleaning materials to help hundreds of clinics--which treat the poor and medically uninsuired, and cope with flu outbreaks, however moderate or severe the outbreak. www.opusa.org for more.

[leonel]

01:51 PM on 05/01/2009

If pigs can continuously be producing new types of flu, than it stand to reason that they are the basic problem, like Muslims believe, and we will have to stop using them as source of food. If the logic here is correct, then it is just a matter of time.

[underthegun1]

07:19 PM on 05/01/2009

mmmm....bacon.

[CJWebber]

08:15 PM on 05/01/2009

mmmm...pork chops

[rwext]

01:45 PM on 05/01/2009

aaaggghh ... 3 confirmed cases in Illinois ... No Americans have died.... If you are a CPS student your odds of being shot dead are astronomically greater than getting the swine flu... even with Michelles cousin getting a patronage security gig

[Taratrue]

03:22 PM on 05/01/2009

You may be correct....so far. It is a changing virus. It could fizzle and come back with a vengence this fall.

[underthegun1]

07:20 PM on 05/01/2009

Maybe you should leave the country to avoid the scary virus...it's gonna get ya