Flu is an every-year occurrence and kills an estimated 23,000 people per year in the U.S. if we go back as far as 1976 in figuring the average. However, if we go back only 10 years, to 2007, the annual average jumps to 32,000 deaths. The 2003-2004 flu season was more deadly with a toll of 48,000. That is a lot of death for a single country, and why is death increasing?
To get updates on flu season you can visit this page on the CDC website. (click links to go to page)
In an article written by Jeffrey Rubin | Fox News so far, this flu season has claimed 42 lives in California alone, The Los Angeles Times reported on Saturday. The death tally began in October, when flu season officially gets rolling across the country. The season runs through May and typically reaches its height in February, the outlet said.
Half the deaths in California this season are among people over 65, the paper reported, citing state data. Older people are more likely to develop severe complications, such as pneumonia, after catching the flu.
In California and nationwide, the flu strain going around is H1N1, a kind of Influenza A also referred to as swine flu. Nationally, H1N1 has dominated among flu cases, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
H1N1 tends to be most dangerous for children and pregnant women, Los Angeles County chief medical officer Dr. Jeffrey Gunzenhauser said, according to the Los Angeles paper.
Nationwide, there have already been two high-profile deaths this influenza season.
The Bible is full of plague, disease and pestilence used as judgements against mankind. In Revelation, it comes upon mankind through the fourth horse of the apocalypse and bowl judgments:
I looked, and there before me was a pale horse! Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth.
Revelation 6:8 NIV
When the angels are called to empty their bowls of judgment, one-by-one, on the earth, the first bowl judgment is disease and sounds a bit like smallpox. It affects only those who have taken the Mark of the Beast in the last days so they could purchase goods and sell their wares, and worship the antichrist.
I am not sure how a virus or disease could be specific enough to affect only those with the mark, but it can happen. The first instance of Passover happened when a plague was so selective it killed the Egyptian firstborn children and animals while passing over the Hebrew people who painted lamb’s blood as a mark on the door, at God’s instruction.
This fatal plague, like the flu, happened in less than a day. Is this a disease that has a part in the final act of Revelation?
The Bowl 1 plague:
The first angel went and poured out his bowl on the land, and ugly, festering sores broke out on the people who had the mark of the beast and worshiped its image.
Revelation 16:2 NIV
The Two Witnesses bring plague:
They have power to shut up the heavens so that it will not rain during the time they are prophesying; and they have power to turn the waters into blood and to strike the earth with every kind of plague as often as they want.
Revelation 11:6 NIV
Could the Black Death revive? The black death killed as many as 200,000,000 in Europe and Asia in the 14th century, 25% of the world population, and then virtually disappeared. Until recently.
I get flu shots but only in recent years. I have actually had the flu a couple of times in my life, and each time I promised I would never miss another flu shot; but I did anyway. I am fortunate that I never got one of the really bad ones, like H1N1 in 1918-1919.
The flu pandemic of 1918 killed more people than World War I with estimates as high as 50,000,000-100,000,000 dead in a two-year period. Medical researchers have cited the Spanish Flu as the most devastating epidemic in world history. In only one year, more people died from the Spanish Flu than from four years of Black Death in Europe, 1347-1351.
The flu was especially hard on the 15-34 age group, 20-times higher than in previous flus.
There is a story of four women playing bridge late one night. The next morning, three of the four had died. One would get the flu and die within a few hours.
One physician at the time recalled that the influenza patients "died struggling to clear their airways of a blood-tinged froth that sometimes gushed from their nose and mouth."
In Washington, DC, 1918, William H Sardo, Jr. recalls pine caskets stacked in the family living room of the funeral home. The epidemic in the U.S. was so bad that church services were banned, and most businesses were closed. People would get symptoms in the morning and die by night.
We better pay attention! God is sending plenty of signs our way. The world is sick and in need of a doctor, and the Doctor is on the way. I am sure.
Jesus told the apostles, when telling them about the very last days, that had he not returned at this time in history, everyone would be dead. It just cannot be that long. Hopefully.
Sources: Fox News and CDC
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