PORT ANGELES — Three people have died of influenza at Olympic Medical Center, all of the victims elderly persons with compromised immune systems.
Dr. Tom Locke, health officer for Clallam and Jefferson counties, informed the Clallam County Board of Health on Tuesday about the deaths and said the flu season has yet to peak.
That should happen in the next two to three weeks, he said.
“This is a bad flu season,” Locke told health commissioners, because the A-Texas strain that the current flu vaccine guards against has “drifted” to a variety known as A-Switzerland.
“If everything had gone right, it would have been about 65 percent effective,” Locke said of the vaccine.
“As it is, it is about 25 percent effective.”
No deaths have been reported at Forks Community Hospital or Jefferson Healthcare hospitals.
Nor have any deaths been reported among infants, the other segment of the population especially at risk from influenza.