The State - News from Dec. 31, 1986

Taiwan-A flu has been reported in at least eight California counties, including Los Angeles, with most of the outbreak at elementary and high schools, state health officials said. “It definitely has hit,” Dr. Loring Dales of the state Department of Health Services’ disease control center said. Dales, chief of the center’s immunization section, said one school in Lassen County closed two days before Christmas vacation because a third of the students were sick. “We have confirmed the virus in most of these outbreaks and expect confirmation of the others,” he said, adding that tests to identify the virus can take a week or more. “With school out for the holidays, one of our best measures of flu is not available, but I expect it is spreading,” Dales said. There were also confirmed or suspected outbreaks in Marin, Sacramento, Sonoma, Ventura, Riverside and Butte counties.