My girlfriend's 75-year-old, diabetic mother went to the doctor today for a checkup, hoping to get a flu shot in the process. No dice, the doctor told her. Try calling your Town Hall.
She says if she can't get a shot, she'll just stay home all winter to avoid the exposure. My own 80-year-old mother with cardiomyopathy doesn't know whether she'll be able to get one either.
It got me thinking: Come Spring, what will have been the toll? How many will have died due to the incompetence of the man who by then will be known as Influenza George?
36,000 people die of the flu every year even when one hundred million flu shots are available. What will be the toll now that we're 45 million shots short?
By then how many of ours soldiers will be dead, how many innocent victims in Iraq, how many of our own elderly and vulnerable, what will be the death toll wrought by Influenza George?
[Inspired by mcgrayc , who wrote of the same days ago.]