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GREENSBORO — There's plenty of statistical evidence out there to prove this flu season is worse than normal, but none of the cold, hard numbers meant anything to Melvin Lowe.

All he knew was he felt sick.

Sick enough to stay home from work at KFC. Sick enough to let his girlfriend drag him to Moses Cone Urgent Care Center on Tuesday. Sick enough to spend 55 minutes in a crowded waiting room.

Sick, sick, sick.

"I'd rather be at work," Lowe, 19, said from his seat on the examination table. "It started about three days ago. I've been sleepy and weak. My body hurts. My chest is sore from coughing. I didn't get any sleep last night. It was bad."

It didn't get any better.

"I came home from work early to check on him," Shapale Watlington said. "I came in, and the heat was cranked all the way up, and he's under the covers shivering. I said, 'Enough, you're going to the doctor.' "

Plenty of people have gone to the doctor throughout the Piedmont Triad with flu or flulike symptoms in the past couple of weeks.

"We've had a four- to fivefold increase in flu cases," at the emergency room or urgent care center, said Lori Mason, public health epidemiologist for Moses Cone Health Systems. "For the past two weeks it's remained steady at 150 confirmed cases per week. In weeks leading up to that, we had maybe 30 or fewer."

Dr. Mark Macpherson, who examined Lowe, said the urgent care center broke a record Monday when it saw 155 patients, many with flu or flulike symptoms.

"We're running out of flu tests," Macpherson said. "Really, we're almost out. ... There's 70 different kinds of flu. We only test for the ones that are likely to be there."

And it's not just flu, Macpherson said.

"Since the flu hit Greensboro, we've seen an upswing in other types of communicable disease, things like strep throat," Macpherson said. "It makes sense. If the immune system is busy fighting off the flu, it might not be able to fight off other things."

Why are there so many flu cases this year? It could have something to do with the virus itself. There's speculation some strains of the flu out there are resistant to vaccine from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"There's so many different forms, so many different strains of the flu virus," said Diane Reaves, High Point Regional Hospital spokeswoman. "The year before they make the vaccine, they try to anticipate what strains will be prevalent. They're guessing — not like you and I guess — but they're guessing. They do a lot of research and most times they get it right. Sometimes they don't.

"You should still have a flu shot," Reaves said. "It will protect you from those strains, and even if you get another strain it can speed the recovery."

Reaves said High Point Regional diagnosed 12 to 14 confirmed flu cases in its emergency room from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday.

"Last week we didn't have any," Reaves said.

Contact Jeff Mills at 373-7024 or jeff.mills@news-record.com

Contact Lex Alexander at 373-7088 or lex.alexander@news-record.com