Utah reports no swine flu deaths in the past week

An article in the Herald Journal on Nov. 13 focuses on the swine flu. The Utah Department of Health shares some information concerning number of deaths, number of people diagnosed with the flu and number of hospitalizations. This article is a good example of public affairs in action. The Department of Health, a branch of the government who's mission includes preventing the spread of infectious diseases, was probable happy to report that there were no deaths from the flu in the past week. The article does have some negative statistics however that the department can't be proud of. Since the flu season started on Aug. 30, there have been 14 flu related deaths. There have been 623 hospitalizations associated with the flu as of the week that ended Saturday. This is an increase of 103 over numbers reported the previous week.

Even though the Department of Health is a government program, they must feel pressure from the public who pay taxes to do their job of maintaining Utah health. They are probably happy to see that the headline of the article focuses on the positive.