It's the last week of February 2020 and though today's show starts with a report on a virus, it's not the new Corona virus that's been so much in the news lately.

This report is on the old fashioned flu, and overall it's been much worse than the Corona virus.

There have been at least 29 million flu cases in America since the flu season got going in late September.

The U.

S Centers for Disease Control says the virus has been widespread in every region of the country, and as of last week, 48 states in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico all reported high levels of flu activity.

The numbers are closely watched because health officials are trying to get a sense of when the season will taper off.

There are some signs it could be starting to slow down office visits related to flu like symptoms and people who have tested positively for the flu both decreased a little bit in mid February as opposed to early February.

It's been an especially bad flu season for Children.

The most of those who have died from the flu are elderly.

What about the vaccine?

The latest numbers from the CDC haven't been finalized yet, but they indicated that this year's flu vaccine has been about 45% effective overall in preventing doctor visits for the flu.

CDC says the vaccine is typically between 40 and 60% effective at that.

So while doctors continue to recommend that people get the vaccine, they admit it's not perfect.

When public health officials describe this flu season so far, they're describing it as having started early, early as in September, as opposed to typically in October and also being particularly hard on kids.

You know, we've been talking a lot about the Corona virus this year, but let me show you flew numbers so far this flu season in the United States alone, some 29 million illnesses, 280,000 hospitalizations and 16,000 debts.

When you looked at hospitalization number, the most hospitalizations occurring people who are 65 older, but the next biggest category is newborns to four years old.

So you know, this flute could be particularly hard on kids, and this year so far has been the worst year for kids.

If you take out 2009 which was the H one n one flu pandemic.

This now becomes one of the worst years on record for kids with regard to the flu.

I want to show you again just quickly looking at flew numbers here, which I just shared with you and Corona virus again because we've been talking about Corona virus so much on the left.

Those air US numbers on the right are global numbers for Corona virus, and you can see obviously flu does cause a lot more illness and a lot more death in the United States and around the world.

The reason.

There continues to be such concern about Corona viruses because it is a new virus.

And whenever you have a new virus, you're not exactly sure how it's gonna behave, how it's gonna trend or if it's going to continue to mutate.

So those are things that researchers are keeping an eye on, but certainly here in the United States, we gotta keep an eye on flu as well.

Can't take our eye off the ball, and it's still not too late to get the flu shot.

Something we talk about a lot come stock load.

A rich deposit of silver was discovered in what U S State Nevada, Colorado, California or Alaska.

In 18 59 silver was found on Nevada property, owned partly by Henry Comstock.

Makes sense.

It's the silver state in the eight Democrats still in the U.

S presidential race.

We're hoping to strike it rich in delegates on Saturday, when the Nevada Democratic caucus was held, the state's Republican Party is not holding a contest.

Incumbent President Donald Trump is expected to receive all of Nevada's GOP delegates.

But for the Democrats, CNN projects that U.

S Senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont had a commanding win in the Nevada caucuses, followed by former vice president Joe Biden in second place and in third.

Pete Buddha Judge Ah, former mayor of South Bend, Indiana.

This makes Senator Sanders the front runner in the Democratic nomination process and gives him more mo mentum going into the next vote.

That's a primary scheduled for this Saturday in the state of South Carolina.

It's on Lee for Democrats like Nevada.

South Carolina is also skipping a Republican contest, regardless of what happens in the Palmetto State, though several of the remaining Democratic hopefuls are already focusing on what's known as Super Tuesday, March 3rd.

So everyone knows about the Super Bowl and the Super Friends and Super Markets, and even some book nerds know about the great book Super Sad True Love story.

But do you know Super Tuesday?

Do you?

Even Super Tuesday, bro?

That's what we and by we I mean political nerds are calling March 3rd.

The day went 14.

14 states and American Samoa will cast their votes in the 2020 Democratic presidential race.

It's the closest thing we will have doing.

National Primary Day with states in the West, South Midwest, Southwest, Mid Atlantic And, yes, even New England all voted.

Here's the full list.

Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont and Virginia Boone.

So, yeah, it's a lot of states like a super lot.

And it's not just the number of states that matters.

It's their size to.

California, has the most delegates up for grabs of any state in the country, with 415 and Texas is third with 228.

New York is second, by the way, in fact, there will be 1357 delegates at stake across the 14 contests on Super Tuesday.

That's more than 1/3 of all the delegates available in the entire nomination fight and almost 77 0% of the 1991 delegates a candidate would need to secure the nomination.

Now V.

I s a k a very important sidebar.

It's very, very unlikely that any one candidate dominates the delegate hunt on Super Tuesday.

And here's why Democrats have a rule that any candidate that gets either 15% of the vote statewide or in any congressional district in the state will win at least some delegates.

It's called proportional allocation, and what it means, practically speaking, is that a bunch of the leading candidates are going to secure some chunk of delegates, and none of them are going to win them all or even close to them all.

And V I s very important now.

How did so many states wind up all voting on a single day?

Good question.

So the Democratic National Committee decided that four states Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina were the only states that would be allowed to hold votes in February of this year.

There's lots of reasons for that decision, but the main one is that the states have been voting first in presidential contest for a long time now, and they protect that status.

New Hampshire I'm looking at you very, very carefully.

So the DNC decree meant that the earliest date you could schedule a presidential vote if you didn't live in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada or South Carolina was Tuesday.

Smart third, which is what a whole lot of states did.

Why?

Well, because the earlier in the nominating calendar your state votes, the more attention read money it gets from candidates and the Mork coverage your state's race gets from the media.

It's just attention dollars, folks.

And the biggest mover in this calendar shakeup was California, which went from a June primary near the bitter end of the nomination fight all the way up to March 3rd quote.

Historically, we've been so late in the primary schedule that the nominees for president have been determined by the time California to go to the polls.

That's California Secretary of State Alex Padilla talking to CNN in 2018 and he went on to add this By moving that up, we hope to have a real say in determining nominees for president of all parties and quote Well, judging by the amount of attention Democratic candidates have been lavishing on California, the plan worked.

Both Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg have spent time and loads of money in California over these last few months.

Make no mistake, campaigns will be made and broken on Super Tuesday, which makes March 3rd super important.

Okay, and that is the point.

I'm gonna loosely quote Mister Rogers to kick off today's 10 a 10 segment.

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood.

Monrovia, California is located on the edge of Angeles National Forest, so it's not entirely unusual for residents to spot a bear.

But this one meandered through the suburbs so calmly and casually that it got people buzzing and taking pictures.

Eventually, wildlife officials tranquilized the £400 animal and relocated it.

It certainly was a spectacle, if not a spectacle bear.

It was a polarizing cite.

Some would call it a grisly discovery, while others might give it Cody accolades for having the spirit to bear the suburbs, even if it was a bit slow, Awful.

Must have gotten too much Sunday Bear seeing is believing, and I'm sure folks were asking Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see?

Hey, we cease of Belkin's air watching today Hello to our friends at Coral Academy of Science.

It's in Las Vegas, Nevada, and I'm Carla Zeus for CNN.