New York swine flu death toll rose to 15
City's swine flu response expected to cost $100 million
BY MICHAEL FRAZIER | michael.frazier@newsday.com
9:11 PM EDT, June 11, 2009
As the swine flu death toll in New York rose to 15, health and emergency officials said Thursday the city will spend an estimated $100 million on its ongoing response to the outbreak.
At a City Council hearing, the officials said $10 million has been spent already since the outbreak started in Queens in April.
Dr. Thomas Farley, who has served as the city's health commissioner since Monday, said his agency alone has spent at least $4 million on a response to the new viral strain.
"Resources are tight," he said in his first public health briefing on H1N1 swine flu.
Farley, along with other city officials who testified, acknowledged the city wouldn't be able to fight the virus alone if the outbreak became more severe. Hospitals, the Health Department, the Office of Emergency Management and other city agencies would need assistance from the federal government and perhaps other states, the officials said.
City Council members serving on public health and safety committees probed health officials about the city's response to the virus and its communicable disease preparedness plan.
Councilman Peter Vallone (D- Astoria) harshly criticized the Health Department for withholding details on swine flu-related deaths beyond merely age and sex.
"This smells like a cover-up to me," Vallone said.
Farley said the agency provides the public with necessary information about the flu while protecting patients' privacy.
Typically, the agency releases only the gender and age range of the person reports whether he or she had an underlying health condition. It doesn't specify the health problem, which can make catching swine flu more dangerous.
The HIPAA Group, based in Orlando, Fla., said the department, at its discretion, can lawfully provide more personal information about the people who have died from swine flu, such as a name, hometown and a general medical condition, the group said.
The HIPAA Group, named after the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, is a for-profit firm that consults on patient privacy policy, among other things.
The department's announcement Thursday that swine flu deaths have reached 15 came on the same day the World Health Organization said it was declaring a swine flu pandemic - the first global flu pandemic in 41 years.
Among the most recent swine flu deaths in the city, one case is a child younger than 2. The other two cases include a person between the ages of 10 and 20 and another between 30 and 39 years old.
All of the city's swine flu deaths involved people who had underlying health problems, officials said.
Since the initial outbreak in April at St. Francis Preparatory School in Flushing, Mayor Michael Bloomberg's administration has been criticized for its handling of the situation.
Public officials and parent associations questioned Bloomberg's case-by-case method of closing schools and the department's effort to control the spread of swine flu.
Bloomberg has maintained closing schools helps slow the spread of flu. He also said closing the entire school system was not practical for working parents who would have to scramble for costly child care, said Stu Loeser, Bloomberg's chief spokesman.
In a public health briefing last month, Bloomberg acknowledged the difficulties of combating the novel viral strain.
"We can't stop the virus from spreading," he said.
School closings were made on a case-by-case basis, Bloomberg said.
The criteria used in deciding school closures include the number of documented flu-like symptoms and the severity of the symptoms, health officials said Thursday. Absenteeism is also part of the process but not a chief consideration, they said.
"We can't give you an exact checklist on how we decided on any particular school," Bloomberg said during the May 18 briefing at City Hall.
Farley, a former professor at Tulane University, replaced Dr. Thomas Frieden, who resigned when President Barack Obama named him to lead the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
According to the most recent figures released by the CDC, New York City leads the nation in swine flu deaths. The majority of the confirmed swine flu cases have had mild symptoms, and many of those sickened by swine flu have recovered within a few days.
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