The North Olympic Peninsula is in the initial stages of an influenza outbreak as the illness is becoming widespread throughout the state.
Educators are seeing as much as 25 percent of students absent from schools in Jefferson County, and health officials in Clallam County are reporting increases in hospital admissions and viral pneumonia.
“This is the early stages of an influenza outbreak,” Dr. Tom Locke, health officer for Clallam and Jefferson counties, said Friday.
The flu season started earlier this year than it has in past years, and the first cases on the Peninsula were confirmed about a week ago at Jefferson General Hospital in Port Townsend.
In Clallam County, health officials are also seeing people with flu-like symptoms and have just started performing cultures that will confirm if it is influenza.
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The rest of the story appears in the Sunday Peninsula Daily News.