{"id":20462,"date":"2018-02-27T11:13:18","date_gmt":"2018-02-27T16:13:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/?p=20462"},"modified":"2018-02-27T11:13:21","modified_gmt":"2018-02-27T16:13:21","slug":"chesco-coroner-flu-claims-at-least-11-lives-this-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/?p=20462","title":{"rendered":"Chesco Coroner: Flu claims at least 11 lives this season"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/ChescoCoronerLogo.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-6574\" src=\"http:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/ChescoCoronerLogo-293x300.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"293\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a>It appears that this season&#8217;s strain of influenza \u2014 the flu \u2014 is hitting Chester County harder than last year, with local health officials reporting a spike in deaths from the illness.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">The Chester County Coroner\u2019s Office has received reports to date of 11 deaths associated with influenza during the 2017-2018 reporting period, according to a statement issued Tuesday. By comparison, five deaths due to influenza were reported during the 2016-2017 flu season.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\">Influenza was the primary cause of death in 6 of the 11 cases and a contributory factor in 5 other cases. Influenza type A was identified in 3 cases; no typing was available for the other 8 cases.<\/p>\n<p>The actual number,\u00a0Dr. Christina VandePol, Chester County Coroner, said, may well be higher.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">\u201cAny influenza death is required to be reported to our office, but often we learn of a case only during our review of cremation permits, so the actual number of such deaths is probably higher than 11,&#8221; VandePol said. &#8220;Fortunately, it appears that influenza deaths and illness are finally starting to decrease after an unusually active season this winter.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Influenza A(H3N2),has been the most prevalent flu virus in the United States this year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\">Although the current vaccine is only about 25% effective against that particular strain, vaccination can still prevent thousands of cases of influenza, according to CDC.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">All but one of the 11 deaths associated with influenza in Chester County occurred in persons over 65 years of age, a population at higher risk of flu-related complications. No deaths due to influenza were reported in Chester County in two other high-risk groups, children under 5 and pregnant women.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It appears that this season&#8217;s strain of influenza \u2014 the flu \u2014 is hitting Chester County harder than last year, with local health officials reporting a spike in deaths from the illness. The Chester County Coroner\u2019s Office has received reports to date of 11 deaths associated with influenza during the 2017-2018 reporting period, according to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20464,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[7593,7594,3912,7592],"class_list":["post-20462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-chester-county-coroner","tag-christina-vandepol","tag-featured","tag-flu-deaths"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20462"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20462\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20463,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20462\/revisions\/20463"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}