主题：美帝真的这么没有底线吗？ -- 曾自洲

Health officials say that this is a particularly bad year for an extended influenza season since flu symptoms and some of the symptoms of the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, are the same (fever, cough, shortness of breath), according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Last week, the CDC said it will begin testing individuals with influenza-like-illness (ILI) for COVID-19 at public health labs in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Seattle, and New York City. The CDC hopes to extend the initiative nationally.

“This is an extra layer of our response that will help us detect if and when this virus is spreading in the community,” Nancy Messonnier, MD, director of the CDC’s Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told reporters last Friday. “All of our efforts are now to prevent the sustained spread of the virus in our community, but we need to be prepared for the possibility that it will spread.”

That said, CDC officials underscore that Americans have more cause to be worried about the flu than COVID-19. Flu activity has increased for the fourth consecutive week. So far this season there have been at least 26 million flu illnesses, 250,000 hospitalizations, and 14,000 deaths from flu, according to the CDC.

In addition, there have been elevated and levels of outpatient ILI, although hospitalization rates remain similar what is usual this time of the season, except that the rates for children and young adults are higher now than in recent seasons.