CDC Telebriefing on Investigation of Human Cases of H1N1 Flu

Anne Schuchat: Good afternoon, everyone. The H1N1 virus continues to circulate in the United States and in many other countries. As you know the World Health Assembly has been meeting this week in Geneva and the Department of Health and Human Services are there. I understand there′s been excellent global cooperation to understand the virus and to take productive measures. There′s a reminder really in the meeting about the role of personal responsibility -- national responsibility and personal responsibility in addressing this issue. In terms of the personal responsibility we remind you that people who have flu-like illness shouldn′t be traveling. If your kids are ill, you should keep them home. If you′re ill, you should stay home from work. Those are simple necessary messages, but something we think is necessary at this point with the virus widely circulating.

The virus is still circulating here in the U.S. People are continuing to become ill, are continuing to be hospitalized, and unfortunately we do have some deaths. Twenty-two states are spreading activity. As many of you have heard that New York City and a few other places have been closing other places like schools as a result of a large number of children having influenza-like symptoms. Those steps that New York City are taking are consistent with the guidance we′ve issued around schools. There′s a need for localized responses, and when absentee rates are high or our staff are ill, it′s appropriate to close schools if they′re really not able to function.

I want to highlight two areas of particular interest. I want to focus a little more on protecting children during an outbreak, plus a series of hospitalized patients that were reviewed from California. Outbreaks of schools have been a big feature of this H1N1 virus in terms of our population experience. We are seeing outbreaks in a number of schools at a very late point in the season, very different from the picture with seasonal influenza where we so...