Swine Flu Kills Two More New Yorkers

There have been two more confirmed deaths from swine flu in New York City, health commissioner Dr. Thomas Frieden confirmed during a press conference today. A 41-year-old Queens woman and a 34-year-old Brooklyn man have died since Friday; both had underlying medical conditions. The fatalities bring the NYC death toll to four; earlier this month Mitchell Wiener, an 55-year-old assistant principal at a Queens middle school, and a Queens woman in her 50s both died from swine flu. (The two recent victims are notably younger than the others.) During the press conference, Frieden also announced the closure of another school in Queens, a 42-student special-education program where children have flu-like symptoms. Frieden, who is President Obama's choice to lead the C.D.C., said that city emergency rooms are getting more than 2,000 visitors per day—the typical number of visits is usually under two hundred a day per E.R. But he also stressed that although swine flu is more contagious than seasonal flu, it is not more deadly (so far). According to City Room, roughly 1,000 city residents die each year die from complications of seasonal flu. Mayor Bloomberg even says swine flu victims should consider themselves lucky.