Drivers With Hands Full Get a Backup: The Car

Annie Tritt for The New York Times

Jesse Levinson of Stanford develops safety and self-driving systems like one on this Volkswagen Toureg that detects obstacles.

PALO ALTO, Calif. — Driving around a college campus can be treacherous. Bikes and scooters zip out of nowhere, distracted students wander into traffic, and stopped cars and speed bumps suddenly appear. It takes a vigilant driver to avoid catastrophe.

Advanced Systems
Are on the Move

New technologies are changing the way cars are driven.
— John Markoff

Already in Some Cars

Antilock brakes

Electronic stability control

Lane keeping

Lane departure warning

Pedestrian detection

Driver fatigue/distraction alert

Cruise control/adaptive cruise control

Forward collision avoidance

Automatic braking

Automated parking

Adaptive headlights

Traffic sign detection

Coming

Traffic jam assistance

Super cruise control

Night assistance thermal imaging

V2X communications

Intersection assistance

Traffic light detection

Jesse Levinson does not much worry about this when he drives his prototype Volkswagen Touareg around the Stanford University campus here. A computer vision system he helped design keeps an unblinking eye out for pedestrians and cyclists, and automatically slows and stops the car when they enter his path.

Someday soon, few drivers will have to worry about car crashes and collisions, whether on congested roads or on empty highways, technology companies and car manufacturers are betting. But even now, drivers are benefiting from a suite of safety systems, and many more are in development to transform driving from a manual task to something more akin to that of a conductor overseeing an orchestra.

An array of optical and radar sensors now monitor the surroundings of a growing number of cars traveling the nation’s highways, and in some cases even track the driver’s physical state. Pedestrian detection systems, like the one that Mr. Levinson, a research scientist at Stanford’s Center for Automotive Research, has helped design, are already available in luxury cars and are being built into some midrange models.

The systems offer auditory, visual and mechanical warnings if a collision is imminent — and increasingly, if needed, take evasive actions automatically. By the middle of this decade, under certain conditions, they will take over the task of driving completely at both high and low speeds.

But the new systems are poised to refashion the nature of driving fundamentally long before completely autonomous vehicles arrive.

“This is really a bridge,” said Ragunathan Rajkumar, a computer science professor who is leading a Carnegie Mellon University automated driving research project partly financed by General Motors. “The driver is still in control. But if the driver is not doing the right thing, the technology takes over.”

Although drivers — at least for now — remain responsible for their vehicles, a host of related legal and insurance issues have already arisen, and researchers are opening a new line of study about how humans interact with the automatic systems.

What the changes will mean to the century-old American romance with the car remains to be seen. But the safety systems, the result of rapid advances in computer algorithms and the drastically falling cost of sensors, are a practical reaction to the modern reality of drivers who would rather talk on the phone and send text messages than concentrate on the road ahead and drive.

Four manufacturers — Volvo, BMW, Audi and Mercedes — have announced that as soon as this year they will begin offering models that will come with sensors and software to allow the car to drive itself in heavy traffic at speeds up to 37 miles per hour. The systems, known as Traffic Jam Assist, will follow the car ahead and automatically slow down and speed up as needed, handling both braking and steering.

At faster speeds, Cadillac’s Super Cruise system is intended to automate freeway driving by keeping the car within a lane and adjusting speed to other traffic. The company has not said when it will add the system to its cars.

Already actions like steering, braking and accelerating are increasingly handled by computer software rather than the driver.

“People don’t realize that when you step on antilock brakes it’s simply a suggestion for the car to stop,” said Clifford Nass, a director at the Center for Automotive Research at Stanford. How and when the car stops is left to the system.

The automobile industry has been motivated to innovate by growing evidence that existing technologies like the antilocking braking systems and electronic stability control have saved tens of thousands of lives.

In November, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recommended that all new cars be equipped with collision avoidance technologies, including adaptive cruise control and automatic braking. Two states — California and Nevada — have passed laws making it legal to operate self-driving cars as long as a human being is inside, able to take over.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recently reported that one system, electronic stability control, or E.S.C., which digitally detects the loss of traction and compensates automatically, saved 2,202 lives from 2008 to 2010. Federal safety regulations began phasing in electronic stability control on small trucks and passenger vehicles in 2007.

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French Hostage Killed in Somalia Raid, Defense Ministry Says

PARIS (Reuters) - Denis Allex, a French soldier held hostage in Somalia since 2009, was killed during a raid on Friday night by French troops trying to rescue him, the French defence ministry said on Saturday.

Two other French soldiers and 17 Somalian fighters were killed in the fighting, the ministry said in a statement.

"Faced with the intransigence of the terrorists, who refused to negotiate for three and half years and who were holding Denis Allex in inhumane conditions, an operation was planned and carried out," said the ministry.

"During the assault, violent combat took place. Denis Allex was killed by his captors."

(Reporting by John Irish; writing by Leila Abboud; editing by Andrew Roche)

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Japan Approves $116 Billion for Urgent Economic Stimulus

TOKYO — The Japanese government approved emergency stimulus spending of ¥10.3 trillion Friday, part of an aggressive push by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to kick-start growth in a long-moribund economy.

Mr. Abe also reiterated his desire for the Japanese central bank to make a firmer commitment to stopping deflation by pumping more money into the economy, which the prime minister has said is crucial to getting businesses to invest and consumers to spend.

“We will put an end to this shrinking and aim to build a stronger economy where earnings and incomes can grow,” Mr. Abe said. “For that, the government must first take the initiative to create demand and boost the entire economy.”

Under the plan, the Japanese government will spend $116 billion on public works and disaster mitigation projects, subsidies for companies that invest in new technology and financial aid to small businesses.

Through these measures, the government will seek to raise real economic growth 2 percentage points and add 600,000 jobs to the economy, Mr. Abe said. The package announced Friday amounts to one of the largest spending plans in Japanese history, he said.

By simply talking about stimulus measures, Mr. Abe, who took office late last month, has already driven down the value of the yen, much to the relief of Japanese exporters, whose competitiveness benefits from a weaker currency. In response, Tokyo stocks have rallied.

But the government’s promises to spend its way out of economic stagnation also raise concerns about public debt, which has already mushroomed to twice the size of the Japanese economy and is the largest in the industrialized world.

At the root of Japan’s debt problems was a similar attempt in the 1990s by Mr. Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party to stimulate economic growth through government spending on extensive public works projects across the country. The effort did little to bring growth to the wider economy.

On Friday, Mr. Abe said that the spending this time around would be better focused to bring about growth through investment in innovation. He said the government would also invest in measures that would help mitigate the decline in the Japanese population by encouraging families to have more children.

“To grow in a sustainable way, we must help create a virtuous cycle where companies actively borrow and invest, and in so doing raise employment and incomes,” Mr. Abe said.

“For that, it is extremely important that we adopt a growth strategy that gives everyone solid hope that the future of the Japanese economy lies in growth.”

Mr. Abe has assembled two panels of chief executives and academics, including Hiroshi Mikitani, chief executive of a major e-commerce company and a harsh critic of the old guard of economic policy makers, and Heizo Takenaka, a former economy minister and outspoken academic known for his disdain of pork-barrel spending.

Meanwhile, a more aggressive monetary policy designed to beat deflation could fall into place when the Bank of Japan’s board meets Jan. 20-21 for its monthly review.

Mr. Abe has leaned on Japan’s central bankers — whom he has criticized as too cautious — to commit to an inflation rate of at least 2 percent, which would help convince businesses that Japan would not arbitrarily reverse course on its easy money policy. For more than a decade, the rate of inflation has been flat or negative, reflecting languishing personal incomes and corporate profits.

Some at the central bank, still wary of the tremendous asset bubble that loose monetary policy set off in the late 1980s, have warned of the dangers of stoking inflation. The Bank of Japan’s governor, Masaaki Shirakawa, has also bristled at the idea of bankrolling public spending by buying more government bonds.

With its benchmark interest rate already near zero, the bank has few options left, other than to buy up government bonds and other financial assets if it is to inject money into the economy.

In an interview with the Nikkei business daily published Friday, Mr. Abe said he would seek in writing an agreement from the bank to pursue a target of 2 percent inflation, though he said the agreement would not set a deadline. He also said the bank should consider policies that would increase employment as much as possible.

Mr. Abe said that he hoped to pick as Mr. Shirakawa’s successor someone who shared the government’s position on inflation and employment, according to the interview. The central bank governor’s term runs out in April.

Hajime Takada, chief economist at the Mizuho Research Institute, said in a note to clients Friday that there were still too many unknowns to assess the effectiveness of Mr. Abe’s economic push.

But by setting a clearly pro-business policy agenda, Mr. Abe has started to change the mind-set of investors and corporations who had all but given up on growth — and for that, the new prime minister scores high, Mr. Takada said.

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Parental Consent Rule May Proceed for a Circumcision Ritual, a Judge Says

New York City health officials may proceed temporarily with a plan to require parental consent before an infant may undergo a particular Jewish circumcision ritual, a federal judge ruled Thursday.

City officials say 12 cases of herpes simplex virus have likely resulted from the procedure, known as metzitzah b’peh, since 2000, including one Brooklyn case reported this week. Two infants died, and two suffered permanent brain damage. Most Jews no longer practice metzitzah b’peh, in which the circumciser uses his mouth to suck blood from the wound, but it remains common among some ultra-Orthodox communities.

Citing the risk of infection, health officials in September introduced a regulation that would require parents to provide written consent stating that they were aware of the health risks.

But the Central Rabbinical Congress of the United States and Canada, Agudath Israel of America, and the International Bris Association sued in October to stop the rule from taking effect, calling it an infringement of their constitutional rights. They also denied the procedure posed a risk and asked a federal court to put the rule on hold while the litigation proceeded.

In denying the request for a preliminary injunction, Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald of the United States District Court for the Southern District wrote that the risks were clear.

“In light of the quality of the evidence presented in support of the regulation, we conclude that a continued injunction against enforcement of the regulation would not serve the public interest,” she wrote.

City lawyers said they were gratified by the ruling, but Andrew Moesel, a spokesman for the plaintiffs, said the groups would appeal. “We continue to believe that this case is a wrongful and unnecessary intrusion into the rights of freedom of religion and speech,” he said.

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Parental Consent Rule May Proceed for a Circumcision Ritual, a Judge Says

New York City health officials may proceed temporarily with a plan to require parental consent before an infant may undergo a particular Jewish circumcision ritual, a federal judge ruled Thursday.

City officials say 12 cases of herpes simplex virus have likely resulted from the procedure, known as metzitzah b’peh, since 2000, including one Brooklyn case reported this week. Two infants died, and two suffered permanent brain damage. Most Jews no longer practice metzitzah b’peh, in which the circumciser uses his mouth to suck blood from the wound, but it remains common among some ultra-Orthodox communities.

Citing the risk of infection, health officials in September introduced a regulation that would require parents to provide written consent stating that they were aware of the health risks.

But the Central Rabbinical Congress of the United States and Canada, Agudath Israel of America, and the International Bris Association sued in October to stop the rule from taking effect, calling it an infringement of their constitutional rights. They also denied the procedure posed a risk and asked a federal court to put the rule on hold while the litigation proceeded.

In denying the request for a preliminary injunction, Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald of the United States District Court for the Southern District wrote that the risks were clear.

“In light of the quality of the evidence presented in support of the regulation, we conclude that a continued injunction against enforcement of the regulation would not serve the public interest,” she wrote.

City lawyers said they were gratified by the ruling, but Andrew Moesel, a spokesman for the plaintiffs, said the groups would appeal. “We continue to believe that this case is a wrongful and unnecessary intrusion into the rights of freedom of religion and speech,” he said.

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Visit by Google Chairman May Benefit North Korea

BEIJING — As a work of propaganda, the images that North Korea circulated this week showing Google’s executive chairman, Eric E. Schmidt, touring a high-tech incubation center are hard to beat.

Adrian Bradshaw/European Pressphoto Agency

Eric E. Schmidt, Google’s executive chairman, at left wearing a tie, and former Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico spoke to reporters in Beijing on Thursday after returning from North Korea.

With former Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico at his side, Mr. Schmidt, who is fond of describing the Internet as the enemy of despots, toured what was presented as the hub of the computer industry in one of the world’s most pitiless police states. Both men gazed attentively as a select group of North Koreans showed their ability to surf the Web.

It is unclear what the famously hermetic North Koreans hoped to accomplish by allowing the visit. But the photos of the billionaire entrepreneur taking the time to visit the nation’s computer labs were bound to be useful to a new national leader whom analysts say needs to show his people that their impoverished nation is moving forward.

It will matter little, those experts say, that the visitors were bundled against the cold, indoors — a sign of the country’s extreme privation — or that the vast majority of North Koreans have no access to computers, much less the Web beyond their country’s tightly controlled borders.

The men’s quixotic four-day trip ended Thursday much the way it began, with some analysts calling the visit hopelessly naïve and others describing it as valuable back-channel diplomacy at a time when Washington and Pyongyang are not on speaking terms (again).

“I’m still spinning my wheels to figure out a plausible motivation for why they went,” said Daniel Pinkston, a North Korea specialist at the International Crisis Group.

Mr. Schmidt and Mr. Richardson insist they accomplished some good — showing the world has not forgotten the plight of an American detained in the North, and at least trying to nudge the tightly sealed nation a bit closer to the fold of globally connected nations.

“As the world becomes increasingly connected, their decision to be virtually isolated is very much going to affect their  physical world, their economic growth and so forth,” Mr. Schmidt told reporters after arriving at Beijing International Airport. “We made that alternative very, very clear.”

The unofficial visit, however, raised hackles in Washington, and provided rich fodder for commentators and comedians. Even before the Americans left Pyongyang, someone created an account on Tumblr, the popular social blogging site, called “Eric Schmidt looking at things,” that parodied sites (themselves parodies) featuring the country’s leaders earnestly inspecting livestock, soldiers or leather insoles. (Mr. Schmidt is shown looking intently at computer screens, “the back of a North Korean Student,” and Mr. Richardson.)

Others were less kind. Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, took to Twitter to call the self-appointed delegation “useful idiots,” and John R. Bolton, a former United Nations ambassador, said the delegation was unwittingly feeding the North Korean propaganda mill as it sought to burnish the credentials of Kim Jung-un, the nation’s leader, who is in his 20s.

“Pyongyang uses gullible Americans for its own purposes,” Mr. Bolton wrote in The New York Daily News.

The State Department said it did not think the timing of the visit was “particularly helpful,” given efforts by the United States to rally international support for tougher sanctions following North Korea’s recent launching of a rocket that intelligence experts say could help in the development of missiles that could one day reach the United States.

As if on cue, the North Korean news media hailed the visit by “the Google team” — which included Jared Cohen, who leads Google’s think tank — highlighting their visit to the mausoleum where Mr. Kim’s grandfather and father lie in state. There, Mr. Richardson and Mr. Schmidt “expressed admiration and paid respect to Comrade Kim Il-sung and Comrade Kim Jong-il,” the North’s main party newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, said.

Choe Sang-Hun contributed reporting from Seoul, South Korea, Claire Cain Miller from San Francisco, and Edward Wong from Beijing.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: January 11, 2013

An earlier version of this article paraphrased incorrectly State Department comments about the visit to North Korea by Mr. Schmidt and Mr. Richardson. The Department said it did not think the timing of the visit was “particularly helpful.” It did not call the visit “not particularly helpful.”

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Report on Savile Sexual Abuse Scandal Is Released

LONDON — British police and the country’s leading children’s charity offered a horrific picture on Friday of six decades of sexual abuse of children as young as eight years by television host Jimmy Savile, and prosecutors admitted for the first time that they could have prosecuted him before his death in 2011 but failed to do so.

The “footprint” of abuse by the television star — once depicted as a zany national treasure and devotee of charitable works — was “vast, predatory and opportunistic,” said Peter Spindler, a police commander, as he released a report by Scotland Yard and the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.

Mr. Savile used his status as a national celebrity to “hide in plain sight” as he committed 214 criminal offenses in 28 police jurisdictions, the report said. The locations included the premises of the British Broadcasting Corporation, Mr. Savile’s employer, and 14 medical facilities such as hospitals, mental health units and a hospice for the dying. The accusations spanned the period from 1955 to 2009.

At the same time, the Crown Prosecution Service acknowledged that victims who accused Mr. Savile of abuse in 2009 were not taken seriously enough. “I would like to take the opportunity to apologize for the shortcomings in the part played by the Crown Prosecution Service in these cases,” Keir Starmer, the director of public prosecutions, said in a separate statement.

The joint report by the police and the children’s charity said Mr. Savile’s victims were between 8 and 47 years old. The majority — 73 percent — were children. After 450 people came forward to accuse Mr. Savile since October 2012, police concluded that the number of crimes of which he is accused totals 214, 34 of them rapes.

“He cannot face justice today,” Commander Spindler said. “But we hope this report gives some comfort to his hundreds of victims. They have been listened to and taken seriously.”

The abuse scandal has convulsed the BBC, Britain’s public broadcaster, drawn in a mounting tally of suspects and raised questions about the protection of children from predators.

The scandal began to emerge shortly after Mr. Savile died October 2011 at age 84. A few weeks later, “Newsnight,”a flagship current affairs program on the BBC, canceled an investigation into allegations of sexual abuse by Mr. Savile shortly before the BBC broadcast Christmas tributes to him.

As the scandal grew, it forced the resignation of the former director general of the BBC, George Entwistle. Police officials said last month that 589 people have made accusations related to the scandal mostly relating to Mr. Savile but including other high-profile figures. Police investigations have also questioned 10 men about sexual accusations that they all deny. Six more men, who have not been identified by name, are under investigation.

Before the report was published, John Cameron, the head of child protection for the children’s charity, told The Guardian: “It is very clear that Savile assaulted very young children and that he was a prolific pedophile, there is no doubt about that. We want this to mark a cultural shift so that if a child speaks out about someone, we take what they are saying seriously and we act upon it always in future.”

A report commissioned by the BBC concluded last month that lax leadership hampered by “rigid management chains” left the corporation “completely incapable” of dealing with the crisis.

A 200-page report by Nick Pollard, a veteran British broadcast executive, strongly criticized the editorial and management decisions that prompted the BBC to cancel the broadcast in 2011 that would have exposed decades of abuse.

But Mr. Pollard absolved top management of applying “undue pressure” in the decision to stop the broadcast.

The report also did not challenge the assertions of Mark Thompson, then head of the BBC, that he had no role in killing the Savile investigation and was unaware of the sexual abuse accusations until he left the BBC this September. Mr. Thompson is now president and chief executive of The New York Times Company.

The report’s central conclusion was that confusion and mismanagement, not a cover-up, lay at the heart of the decision to drop the Savile segment on “Newsnight.”

A second BBC inquiry into the culture of the BBC over decades of abuse is continuing.

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Consumers Win Some Mortgage Safety in New Rules

WASHINGTON — Banks and other lenders will be prohibited from making home loans that offer deceptive teaser rates or require no documentation from borrowers, and will be required to take more steps to ensure that borrowers can repay, under new consumer protections to be announced on Thursday.

The rules, being laid out by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and taking effect next January, will also set some limits on interest-only packages or negative-amortization loans, where the balance due grows over time. Banks can make such loans, but the new rules would not protect them from potential borrower lawsuits if they do so.

And mortgage originators will in most cases be restricted from charging excessive upfront points and fees, from making loans with balloon payments and from making loans that load a borrower with total debt exceeding 43 percent of income.

With the sweeping rules, financial regulators are trying to substantially overhaul the market for home mortgages by creating a legal distinction between “qualified” loans that follow the new rules and are immune from legal action, and “unqualified” mortgages that continue practices that regulators have frowned on. The new rules are also aimed at getting banks to lend again, something they have been slow to do since the financial crisis and since the Dodd-Frank Act required new limits on bank activities.

Gone, the regulators hope, will be the unbridled frenzy that encouraged lenders to ignore whether borrowers could repay as long as the lenders could sell the mortgages to third parties, usually investment firms that sliced them up and resold them as part of complex financial derivatives.

By following the new rules, banks will be given a “safe harbor,” which ensures that they cannot be successfully sued for reckless or abusive lending practices, federal officials said Wednesday. Lenders must document a borrower’s ability to repay a loan; one way of doing that is to follow several guidelines issued Thursday that make a loan a “qualified” mortgage.

“When consumers sit down at the closing table, they shouldn’t be set up to fail with mortgages they can’t afford,” said Richard Cordray, the director of the consumer bureau. “Our ability-to-repay rule protects borrowers from the kinds of risky lending practices that resulted in so many families losing their homes.”

Mortgage bankers generally applauded the new regulations, saying that they clear up uncertainty that has hung over the home lending business since the financial crisis. In fact, most of the types of loans now being restricted, which were rampant during the inflation of the housing bubble, have been relatively rare in the last couple of years because many banks have tightened lending since the financial crisis.

“These rules offer protection for consumers and a clear, safe environment for banks to do business,” David Stevens, chief executive of the Mortgage Bankers Association, said in an interview. “Now everybody knows if you stay inside these lines, you are safe.”

He added that he believed the consumer bureau “did a great job listening to stakeholders” in shaping the rule.

The new rules will not necessarily lead to an immediate expansion of credit, Mr. Stevens said, because nearly all mortgage loans being made currently are being sold to government-sponsored enterprises like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Their underwriting standards are not affected by the new rules.

In certain circumstances, the new lending rules can be bypassed for up to seven years, regulators said. New loans can be considered to be a “qualified loan” even if the borrower has a debt-to-income ratio of more than 43 percent as long as the loan is eligible for purchase or guaranteed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, for example, or by one of several executive branch agencies, like the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The consumer bureau said that the exception was created “in light of the fragile state of the mortgage market as a result of the recent mortgage crisis.” Without the exception, the bureau said, “creditors might be reluctant to make loans that are not qualified mortgages, even if they are responsibly underwritten.”

Similarly, the new rules allow balloon payments in mortgages that are originated by and retained in the portfolio of small lenders that operate primarily in rural or underserved areas.

The legal protections offered to lenders by the qualified mortgage rule are not absolute. Lenders do not receive complete immunity from lawsuits in all circumstances. Some higher-priced loans, given to consumers with weak credit, can be challenged if the borrower can prove that he did not have sufficient income to pay the mortgage and other living expenses. And the rules do not affect the rights of consumers to challenge a lender for violating other federal consumer protection laws.

“We believe this rule does exactly what it is supposed to do,” Mr. Cordray said in a statement prepared for delivery Thursday morning in Baltimore, where the rules are being announced. “It protects consumers and helps strengthen the housing market by rooting out reckless and unsustainable lending, while enabling safer lending,” he said.

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Flu Widespread, Leading a Range of Winter’s Ills

It is not your imagination — more people you know are sick this winter, even people who have had flu shots.

The country is in the grip of three emerging flu or flulike epidemics: an early start to the annual flu season with an unusually aggressive virus, a surge in a new type of norovirus, and the worst whooping cough outbreak in 60 years. And these are all developing amid the normal winter highs for the many viruses that cause symptoms on the “colds and flu” spectrum.

Influenza is widespread, and causing local crises. On Wednesday, Boston’s mayor declared a public health emergency as cases flooded hospital emergency rooms.

Google’s national flu trend maps, which track flu-related searches, are almost solid red (for “intense activity”) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s weekly FluView maps, which track confirmed cases, are nearly solid brown (for “widespread activity”).

“Yesterday, I saw a construction worker, a big strong guy in his Carhartts who looked like he could fall off a roof without noticing it,” said Dr. Beth Zeeman, an emergency room doctor for MetroWest Medical Center in Framingham, Mass., just outside Boston. “He was in a fetal position with fever and chills, like a wet rag. When I see one of those cases, I just tighten up my mask a little.”

Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston started asking visitors with even mild cold symptoms to wear masks and to avoid maternity wards. The hospital has treated 532 confirmed influenza patients this season and admitted 167, even more than it did by this date during the 2009-10 swine flu pandemic.

At Brigham and Women’s Hospital, 100 patients were crowded into spaces licensed for 53. Beds lined halls and pressed against vending machines. Overflow patients sat on benches in the lobby wearing surgical masks.

“Today was the first time I think I was experiencing my first pandemic,” said Heidi Crim, the nursing director, who saw both the swine flu and SARS outbreaks here. Adding to the problem, she said, many staff members were at home sick and supplies like flu test swabs were running out.

Nationally, deaths and hospitalizations are still below epidemic thresholds. But experts do not expect that to remain true. Pneumonia usually shows up in national statistics only a week or two after emergency rooms report surges in cases, and deaths start rising a week or two after that, said Dr. Gregory A. Poland, a vaccine specialist at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. The predominant flu strain circulating is an H3N2, which typically kills more people than the H1N1 strains that usually predominate; the relatively lethal 2003-4 “Fujian flu” season was overwhelmingly H3N2.

No cases have been resistant to Tamiflu, which can ease symptoms if taken within 48 hours, and this year’s flu shot is well-matched to the H3N2 strain, the C.D.C. said. Flu shots are imperfect, especially in the elderly, whose immune systems may not be strong enough to produce enough antibodies.

Simultaneously, the country is seeing a large and early outbreak of norovirus, the “cruise ship flu” or “stomach flu,” said Dr. Aron J. Hall of the C.D.C.’s viral gastroenterology branch. It includes a new strain, which first appeared in Australia and is known as the Sydney 2012 variant.

This week, Maine’s health department said that state was seeing a large spike in cases. Cities across Canada reported norovirus outbreaks so serious that hospitals were shutting down whole wards for disinfection because patients were getting infected after moving into the rooms of those who had just recovered. The classic symptoms of norovirus are “explosive” diarrhea and “projectile” vomiting, which can send infectious particles flying yards away.

“I also saw a woman I’m sure had norovirus,” Dr. Zeeman said. “She said she’d gone to the bathroom 14 times at home and 4 times since she came into the E.R. You can get dehydrated really quickly that way.”

This month, the C.D.C. said the United States was having its biggest outbreak of pertussis in 60 years; there were about 42,000 confirmed cases, the highest total since 1955. The disease is unrelated to flu but causes a hacking, constant cough and breathlessness. While it is unpleasant, adults almost always survive; the greatest danger is to infants, especially premature ones with undeveloped lungs. Of the 18 recorded deaths in 2012, all but three were of infants under age 1.

That outbreak is worst in cold-weather states, including Colorado, Washington, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Vermont.

Although most children are vaccinated several times against pertussis, those shots wear off with age. It is possible, the authorities said, that a new, safer vaccine introduced in the 1990s gives protection that does not last as long, so more teenagers and adults are vulnerable.

And, Dr. Poland said, if many New Yorkers are catching laryngitis, as has been reported, it is probably a rhinovirus. “It’s typically a sore, really scratchy throat, and you sometimes lose your voice,” he said.

Though flu cases in New York City are rising rapidly, the city health department has no plans to declare an emergency, largely because of concern that doing so would drive mildly sick people to emergency rooms, said Dr. Jay K. Varma, deputy director for disease control. The city would prefer people went to private doctors or, if still healthy, to pharmacies for flu shots. Nursing homes have had worrisome outbreaks, he said, and nine elderly patients have died. Homes need to be more alert, vaccinate patients, separate those who fall ill and treat them faster with antivirals, he said.

Dr. Susan I. Gerber of the C.D.C.’s respiratory diseases branch, said her agency has not seen any unusual spike of rhinovirus, parainfluenza, adenovirus, coronavirus or the dozens of other causes of the “common cold,” but the country is having its typical winter surge of some, like respiratory syncytial virus “that can mimic flulike symptoms, especially in young children.”

The C.D.C. and the local health authorities continue to advocate getting flu shots. Although it takes up to two weeks to build immunity, “we don’t know if the season has peaked yet,” said Dr. Joseph Bresee, chief of prevention in the agency’s flu division.

Flu shots and nasal mists contain vaccines against three strains, the H3N2, the H1N1 and a B. Thus far this season, Dr. Bresee said, H1N1 cases have been rare, and the H3N2 component has been a good match against almost all the confirmed H3N2 samples the agency has tested.

About a fifth of all flus this year thus far are from B strains. That part of the vaccine is a good match only 70 percent of the time, because two B’s are circulating.

For that reason, he said, flu shots are being reformulated. Within two years, they said, most will contain vaccines against both B strains.

Joanna Constantine, 28, a stylist at the Guy Thomas Hair Salon on West 56th Street in Manhattan, said she recently was so sick that she was off work and in bed for five days — and silenced by laryngitis for four of them.

She did not have the classic flu symptoms — a high fever, aches and chills — so she knew it was probably something else.

Still, she said, it scared her enough that she will get a flu shot next year. She had not bothered to get one since her last pregnancy, she said. But she has a 7-year-old son and a 5-year-old daughter, “and my little guys get theirs every year.”

Jess Bidgood contributed reporting.

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Flu Widespread, Leading a Range of Winter’s Ills

It is not your imagination — more people you know are sick this winter, even people who have had flu shots.

The country is in the grip of three emerging flu or flulike epidemics: an early start to the annual flu season with an unusually aggressive virus, a surge in a new type of norovirus, and the worst whooping cough outbreak in 60 years. And these are all developing amid the normal winter highs for the many viruses that cause symptoms on the “colds and flu” spectrum.

Influenza is widespread, and causing local crises. On Wednesday, Boston’s mayor declared a public health emergency as cases flooded hospital emergency rooms.

Google’s national flu trend maps, which track flu-related searches, are almost solid red (for “intense activity”) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s weekly FluView maps, which track confirmed cases, are nearly solid brown (for “widespread activity”).

“Yesterday, I saw a construction worker, a big strong guy in his Carhartts who looked like he could fall off a roof without noticing it,” said Dr. Beth Zeeman, an emergency room doctor for MetroWest Medical Center in Framingham, Mass., just outside Boston. “He was in a fetal position with fever and chills, like a wet rag. When I see one of those cases, I just tighten up my mask a little.”

Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston started asking visitors with even mild cold symptoms to wear masks and to avoid maternity wards. The hospital has treated 532 confirmed influenza patients this season and admitted 167, even more than it did by this date during the 2009-10 swine flu pandemic.

At Brigham and Women’s Hospital, 100 patients were crowded into spaces licensed for 53. Beds lined halls and pressed against vending machines. Overflow patients sat on benches in the lobby wearing surgical masks.

“Today was the first time I think I was experiencing my first pandemic,” said Heidi Crim, the nursing director, who saw both the swine flu and SARS outbreaks here. Adding to the problem, she said, many staff members were at home sick and supplies like flu test swabs were running out.

Nationally, deaths and hospitalizations are still below epidemic thresholds. But experts do not expect that to remain true. Pneumonia usually shows up in national statistics only a week or two after emergency rooms report surges in cases, and deaths start rising a week or two after that, said Dr. Gregory A. Poland, a vaccine specialist at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. The predominant flu strain circulating is an H3N2, which typically kills more people than the H1N1 strains that usually predominate; the relatively lethal 2003-4 “Fujian flu” season was overwhelmingly H3N2.

No cases have been resistant to Tamiflu, which can ease symptoms if taken within 48 hours, and this year’s flu shot is well-matched to the H3N2 strain, the C.D.C. said. Flu shots are imperfect, especially in the elderly, whose immune systems may not be strong enough to produce enough antibodies.

Simultaneously, the country is seeing a large and early outbreak of norovirus, the “cruise ship flu” or “stomach flu,” said Dr. Aron J. Hall of the C.D.C.’s viral gastroenterology branch. It includes a new strain, which first appeared in Australia and is known as the Sydney 2012 variant.

This week, Maine’s health department said that state was seeing a large spike in cases. Cities across Canada reported norovirus outbreaks so serious that hospitals were shutting down whole wards for disinfection because patients were getting infected after moving into the rooms of those who had just recovered. The classic symptoms of norovirus are “explosive” diarrhea and “projectile” vomiting, which can send infectious particles flying yards away.

“I also saw a woman I’m sure had norovirus,” Dr. Zeeman said. “She said she’d gone to the bathroom 14 times at home and 4 times since she came into the E.R. You can get dehydrated really quickly that way.”

This month, the C.D.C. said the United States was having its biggest outbreak of pertussis in 60 years; there were about 42,000 confirmed cases, the highest total since 1955. The disease is unrelated to flu but causes a hacking, constant cough and breathlessness. While it is unpleasant, adults almost always survive; the greatest danger is to infants, especially premature ones with undeveloped lungs. Of the 18 recorded deaths in 2012, all but three were of infants under age 1.

That outbreak is worst in cold-weather states, including Colorado, Washington, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Vermont.

Although most children are vaccinated several times against pertussis, those shots wear off with age. It is possible, the authorities said, that a new, safer vaccine introduced in the 1990s gives protection that does not last as long, so more teenagers and adults are vulnerable.

And, Dr. Poland said, if many New Yorkers are catching laryngitis, as has been reported, it is probably a rhinovirus. “It’s typically a sore, really scratchy throat, and you sometimes lose your voice,” he said.

Though flu cases in New York City are rising rapidly, the city health department has no plans to declare an emergency, largely because of concern that doing so would drive mildly sick people to emergency rooms, said Dr. Jay K. Varma, deputy director for disease control. The city would prefer people went to private doctors or, if still healthy, to pharmacies for flu shots. Nursing homes have had worrisome outbreaks, he said, and nine elderly patients have died. Homes need to be more alert, vaccinate patients, separate those who fall ill and treat them faster with antivirals, he said.

Dr. Susan I. Gerber of the C.D.C.’s respiratory diseases branch, said her agency has not seen any unusual spike of rhinovirus, parainfluenza, adenovirus, coronavirus or the dozens of other causes of the “common cold,” but the country is having its typical winter surge of some, like respiratory syncytial virus “that can mimic flulike symptoms, especially in young children.”

The C.D.C. and the local health authorities continue to advocate getting flu shots. Although it takes up to two weeks to build immunity, “we don’t know if the season has peaked yet,” said Dr. Joseph Bresee, chief of prevention in the agency’s flu division.

Flu shots and nasal mists contain vaccines against three strains, the H3N2, the H1N1 and a B. Thus far this season, Dr. Bresee said, H1N1 cases have been rare, and the H3N2 component has been a good match against almost all the confirmed H3N2 samples the agency has tested.

About a fifth of all flus this year thus far are from B strains. That part of the vaccine is a good match only 70 percent of the time, because two B’s are circulating.

For that reason, he said, flu shots are being reformulated. Within two years, they said, most will contain vaccines against both B strains.

Joanna Constantine, 28, a stylist at the Guy Thomas Hair Salon on West 56th Street in Manhattan, said she recently was so sick that she was off work and in bed for five days — and silenced by laryngitis for four of them.

She did not have the classic flu symptoms — a high fever, aches and chills — so she knew it was probably something else.

Still, she said, it scared her enough that she will get a flu shot next year. She had not bothered to get one since her last pregnancy, she said. But she has a 7-year-old son and a 5-year-old daughter, “and my little guys get theirs every year.”

Jess Bidgood contributed reporting.

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