Although it may seem that everyone around us is falling prey to the flu, the Santa Barbara County Public Health Department says otherwise. “There is no data saying [this flu season] is unusual,” said Susan Klein-Rothschild, assistant deputy director of the agency. Currently, the flu is said to be widespread in California, but not more so than previous years. Santa Barbara, she said, remains in the realm of normalcy, with numbers that are to be expected. “At this point in time we’ve had a little more than 5 percent of patients complaining of flu symptoms,” said Klein-Rothschild, remarking this year has seen no flu-related deaths.
