Earlier today, the Texas Department of State Health announced that a woman in Texas had died from the swine flu virus. According to their announcement, her death took place earlier this week. The woman was a resident of Cameron County, Texas. Her death comes as the first death of a US resident caused by the swine flu virus. If you had thought another US resident had already died from swine flu, you are not alone in being confused about this issue. Although a young boy died in a Houston hospital last week, he was visiting the United States from Mexico City. Therefore, while his death was the first swine flu related death to take place in the United States, this woman’s was the first death of an actual US resident.

Although the death of the first US resident shows that the swine flu virus still poses a potentially fatal threat, Texas Department of State Health officials have tried to calm the fears of others by providing a few details to show that this woman was in a higher than normal risk category. While they did not provide a lot of information about this woman, they not only stated that she lived along the US-Mexico border (which would increase her risk for being exposed to the swine flu virus in the first place), but also had additional chronic health problems (which they implied played a major role in her inability to recover from her swine flu exposure).

While these are all the details we have at the time, be sure to check back regularly as we will keep you updated once any additional information becomes available.

Can you imagine walking up to the hotel desk on the last day of a trip to check out, only to be told by the hotel staff that not only will you be unable to check out, but you are going to be quarantined in the hotel for the next seven days?  While this might sound like something that you would see in an episode of The Twilight Zone, this scenario has become a reality for around three hundred and fifty guest of a hotel in Hong Kong.

On Friday, the government of Hong Kong made the decision to quarantine all the guests of the Metropark Hotel (which is a four-star hotel that is frequented by tourists and business travelers).  The reason that the government made this decision is because they confirmed that a guest of the hotel had the swine flu virus.  The guest was from Mexico, and this became the first confirmed case of swine flu in Hong Kong.

After the quarantine was imposed, doctors were sent in to check all of the other guests, as well as providing them with doses of Tamiflu.  While the guests can go wherever they want within the hotel, under no means will they be able to go outside during the course of the quarantine.

Although this is obviously a very serious decision and issue, there is one humorous element to this story.  For whatever reason, the Hong Kong government decided that the guests would appreciate being sent fruit baskets, chocolates and Calvin Klein underwear during the course of their time under quarantine!