I was thinking, don't the athletes get flu shots? That's not aboslute,
but does cut down the chances enormously. However, I don't know that
it's really the flue.

Gene


"David L. Webb" wrote:

In article ,
Gene Goldenfeld wrote:

Any of our European correspondants have a sense of what's going on with
the illnesses? It's been variously described as a cold, a flu-like cold
and the flu. Any sense of which it is. Obviously, traveling, training
regimens and close quarters make athletes especially suceptible to
illness, but I am curious, since a flu vaccine has been available this
year and in the U.S., at least, cases are not running high yet.

Gene

That depends upon where you are -- it has been locally very bad in
some places. E.g., in east Tennessee, where I have family, many city
and county school systems have been closed, some for a week or so,
because of the flu epidemic; this includes Blount, Anderson, Sevier,
Loudon, and Knox counties, as well as several city school systems in the
area. Before closure, absenteeism at some of the worst affected schools
was around 30%, and in some of the systems, so many faculty were sick
that it would have been virtually impossible to find enough substitutes
to staff the schools even if the absentee rate among the students had
been under control. Area hospitals have also cancelled visiting hours
for patients, many area businesses with high employee absentee rates
have been scrambling to handle the work load, etc.

Given that ski racers' immune systems are probably "on the edge" much
of the time due to the demands of racing, training, and travel, as you
noted, I can easily imagine that a similar localized "mini-epidemic"
might affect a good many potential competitors at the championships.