Few cases of flu reported so far
Flu season is starting slowly in the Inland Northwest, with one confirmed case reported in Spokane and three in North Idaho, health officials said.
Influenza season typically runs from October through March, usually peaking in February.
A few scattered cases were reported earlier in Idaho and Washington, but local laboratories hadn’t confirmed cases until last week.
“We keep urging people to get their flu shot now because it has lots of time to save them,” said Cynthia Taggart, spokeswoman for North Idaho’s Panhandle Health District.
Influenza is not a reportable disease, so the number of total cases is not available. Instead, local and national health officials rely on laboratory reports and “sentinel physicians,” doctors who keep track of flu cases in their practices, said Phyllis Shoemaker, an epidemiologist with the Washington State Department of Health.
Informal record keeping allows health officials to monitor the type and severity of the illness, as well as the effectiveness of vaccines.
As many as 500 confirmed cases are reported in Washington in an average flu season, although the actual number of cases is much higher, Shoemaker said.
Coeur d’Alene
CdA man’s jackpot tops $746,000
A funny thing happened to Coeur d’Alene resident William Hennings as he waited to take a bus home from the Coeur d’Alene Casino just before midnight Dec. 4. He plugged money into a nearby Power Ball slot machine and won more than $746,000.
“My family’s going to have a real nice Christmas,” Hennings, 47, said in a news release from the casino.
Hennings’ $746,948.68 jackpot is the second largest in the casino’s nearly 14-year history. In 2004, an anonymous Spokane man won slightly more than $1 million.
A Montana native, Hennings is unemployed but had worked at the smelter operation in Kellogg.
Hennings said he’s already bought a new truck and a new house. He estimates he only spent $25 or $30 playing the game for about 20 minutes before he struck it rich.
“I couldn’t sleep for the first 36 hours, but I’m sleeping real good now,” Hennings said, according to the news release.
Spokane
Beijing cardiac team visiting
A crew of cardiac doctors and specialists from Beijing, China, is in Spokane this week, learning to perform robotic heart surgery from experts at Sacred Heart Medical Center.
The six-member group from the People’s Liberation Army General Hospital and the Institute of Cardiac Surgery of the Chinese PLA is that country’s first robotic surgery team, spokesman Tobby Hatley said. They’re spending three days watching Sacred Heart experts Dr. Leland Siwek and Dr. Branden Reynolds demonstrate minimally invasive surgery conducted with Intuitive Surgical’s da Vinci robotic device.
Siwek is one of five doctors in the United States who teaches colleagues to use the robotic equipment. Sacred Heart’s Robotic Center of Excellence added a second $1 million robot this year.
The Spokane doctors plan to travel to China in early 2007 to assist and instruct during China’s first robotic surgery.
The Chinese surgery team includes Dr. Gao Chang Qing, a professor in the department of cardiovascular surgery at the PLA General Hospital in Beijing and director of the institute; Dr. Yang Min, Gao’s surgical assistant; Dr. Wang Gang, an anesthesiologist; Dr. Wang Jia Li, a perfusionist; and Zhao Yue and Li Li Xia, surgical nurses.