Generate an explanation for the given claim using the provided supporting material from the paragraph. Please consider the following points while generating an output. 1) The claim will always have supporting proof in the paragraph, and the paragraph will have a clear point of view supporting the claim. 2) There can be instances where direct correlation to the claim is not available. Make use of the sentences in the paragraph to provide a corresponding output supporting the claim. 3) The explanation should be at least one and at most twelve sentences long.

Input: Consider Input: Paragraph: An early barrage of illness in the South has begun to spread more broadly, and there’s a decent chance flu season could peak much earlier than normal, health officials say. The last flu season to rev up this early was in 2003-2004 — a bad one. Some experts think the early start may mean a lot of suffering is in store, but others say it’s too early to tell. “It really depends on what viruses are circulating. There’s not a predictable trend as far as if it’s early it’s going to be more severe, or later, less severe,” said Scott Epperson, who tracks flu-like illnesses for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There are different types of flu viruses, and the one causing illnesses in most parts of the country is a surprise. It’s a version that normally doesn’t abound until March or April. That virus generally isn’t as dangerous to older people — good news, since most flu hospitalizations and deaths each winter occur in the elderly. However, such viruses can be hard on children and people younger than 50. Louisiana was the first state to really get hit hard, with doctors there saying they began seeing large numbers of flu-like illnesses in October. Children’s Hospital New Orleans has already seen more flu cases this fall than it saw all of last winter, said Dr. Toni Gross, the hospital’s chief of emergency medicine. Last month was the busiest ever at the hospital’s emergency department. Officials had to set up a triage system and add extra shifts, Gross said. “It is definitely causing symptoms that will put you in bed for a week,” including fever, vomiting and diarrhea. But the hospital has not had any deaths and is not seeing many serious complications, she said. Health officials tend to consider a flu season to be officially underway when — for at least three weeks in a row — a significant percentage of U.S. doctor’s office visits are due to flu-like illnesses. That’s now happened, CDC officials said this week. The agency on Friday estimated that there have already been 1.7 million flu illnesses, 16,000 hospitalizations, and 900 flu-related deaths nationally. The most intense patient traffic had been occurring in a six states stretching from Texas to Georgia. But in new numbers released Friday, CDC officials said the number of states with intense activity rose last week to 12. Flu is widespread in 16 states, though not necessarily at intense levels in each, the CDC said. Last flu season started off as a mild one but turned out to be the longest in 10 years. It ended with around 49,000 flu-related deaths and 590,000 hospitalizations, according to preliminary estimates. It was bad, but not as bad as the one before it, when flu caused an estimated 61,000 deaths and 810,000 hospitalizations. Those 2017-2018 estimates are new: The CDC last month revised them down from previous estimates as more data — including actual death certificates — came in. In both of the previous two flu seasons, the flu vaccine performed poorly against the nasty predominant virus. It’s too early to say how well the vaccine is performing right now, Epperson said. Epperson said there’s a chance the flu season will peak this month, which would be unusually early. Flu season usually doesn’t hit fever pitch until around February. The early start suggests a lot Americans may be sick at the same time, said Dave Osthus, a statistician who does flu forecasting at Los Alamos National Laboratory. “This could be a precursor to something pretty bad. But we don’t know,” he said. Gross is pessimistic. “I, personally, am preparing for the worst,” she said. ___ The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Claim: US flu season arrives early, driven by an unexpected virus.

Output: The U.S. winter flu season is off to its earliest start in more than 15 years.


Input: Consider Input: Paragraph: "As gun policy takes a central role in New Hampshire’s U.S. Senate race, Democrat Maggie Hassan is warning that terrorists are trying to exploit federal laws to obtain firearms. Hassan brought up the point in the first televised debate against Republican incumbent Kelly Ayotte. ""With her solution, terrorists can still today — and by the way ISIS knows it, they have been advertising it — buy guns online and at gun shows in the United States of America,"" Hassan said on the debate stage at New England College. Is it really a point terrorists are spreading? Let’s look. PolitiFact has already looked into Hassan’s claim that Ayotte voted against a proposal to expand background checks and found it . Here we are going to look at what ISIS says about buying guns in America. Hassan’s camp pointed us to a series of news articles in which members of various terrorist groups talk about the ease of getting guns in the U.S. A former Islamic State recruit told the New York Times in August that the terrorist group tries to draw its recruits from within the U.S. because they can buy guns without a middleman. ""For America and Canada, it’s much easier for them to get them over the social network, because they say the Americans are dumb — they have open gun policies,"" Harry Sarfo told the Times from a German prison, when explaining attitudes within the terror group. ""They say we can radicalize them easily, and if they have no prior record, they can buy guns, so we don’t need to have a contact man who has to provide guns for them."" Hassan’s camp also directed us to a 2011 video featuring American-born al Qaeda spokesman Adam Gadahn in which he talked about lax gun laws in the U.S. and urged followers to take advantage of them. ""America is absolutely awash with easily obtainable firearms,"" Gadahn said, according to CNN. ""You can go down to a gun show at the local convention center and come away with a fully automatic assault rifle, without a background check, and most likely without having to show an identification card. So what are you waiting for?"" Gadahn was with al-Qaeda, not ISIS. Still, he urged terrorists to buy guns in the United States and use them against Western governments. Those two examples are enough to show that terrorists have advertised the U.S. gun laws, and ""it is something they think about internally,"" said Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a terrorism specialist at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Still, it’s difficult to determine if these are part of a widespread advertising campaign, or just isolated examples. A lof of ISIS communication is never circulated on the internet, Gartenstein-Ross cautioned. On other occasions, PolitiFact has examined whether people can buy guns without background checks. Currently federal law requires prospective gun buyers undergo background checks when they buy guns from federally licensed dealers -- but there are notable exceptions. Anyone who repeatedly buys and sells firearms ""with the principal motive of making a profit"" has to get a dealer’s license, whether they deal out of a brick-and-mortar store, at a flea market, or online, according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Licensed firearm dealers must run background checks on non-licensed buyers before selling them a gun. But the law does not require a dealer’s license for private hobbyists and others who occasionally buy and sell guns for the purpose of enhancing or liquidating a collection. So if an individual buys a gun from a hobbyist over the Internet, or at a gun show, he or she would not be subject to a background check. It’s worth noting that private sales, online or otherwise, cannot take place across state lines, so the buyer and seller must be in the same state. And there are many restrictions on shipping guns, so the actual transfer of the gun is likely to take place in person. Second, it is illegal for private sellers to transfer a gun to someone they either know or reasonably believe is prohibited from owning a gun, for example, if the seller knows the buyer is a felon. But online sellers ""can give themselves plausible deniability by not asking the necessary questions,"" Garen Wintemute, a professor of emergency medicine at the University of California Davis, has previously told PolitiFact. Additionally, several states — California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington — and the District of Columbia require background checks for all private gun sales. There is a sizeable online market for private, background check-free gun sales, according to a 2013 study by Third Way, a center-left think tank. Focusing on the website Armslist.com, a sort of Craigslist for firearms and accessories, in 10 states, Third Way found 2,000 ads from individuals looking to purchase guns from private sellers specifically. Congressional efforts to expand background checks for purchases made at gun shows or online have failed. A recent review by the New York Times found the majority of guns used in 16 recent mass shootings were obtained legally, including the attack in Orlando that left nearly 50 people dead. The shooter in that incident, Omar Mateen, pledged allegiance to the Islamic State before he gunned down patrons at the Pulse nightclub. Our ruling Hassan said the Islamic State knows its followers can buy firearms ""online and at gun shows"" and is ""advertising it."" An interview in the New York Times with a former Islamic State recruit shows group members acknowledge American recruits can buy guns, so long as they don’t have a record. And a 2011 video from an al Qaeda spokesman urges terrorists to buy guns in the United States and use them against Western governments. There is little evidence to suggest a widespread advertising campaign, but it’s hard to tell, because not all ISIS communication is on the Internet, either." Claim: With her solution, terrorists can still today — and by the way ISIS knows it, they have been advertising it — buy guns online and at gun shows in the United States of America.

Output: "Hassan said the Islamic State knows its followers can buy firearms ""online and at gun shows"" and is ""advertising it."" An interview in the New York Times with a former Islamic State recruit shows group members acknowledge American recruits can buy guns, so long as they don’t have a record. And a 2011 video from an al Qaeda spokesman urges terrorists to buy guns in the United States and use them against Western governments. There is little evidence to suggest a widespread advertising campaign, but it’s hard to tell, because not all ISIS communication is on the Internet, either."


Input: Consider Input: Paragraph: The poor and elderly are most threatened by worsening climate change, but there remains “glimmers of progress” especially after the 2015 Paris agreement to limit heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions, according to a new big study published Monday in the British medical journal Lancet. Comparing the report to a health checkup, four researchers and several outside experts described Earth’s prognosis as “guarded.” “There are some very severe warning signs, but there are some hopeful indicators too,” said co-author Dr. Howard Frumkin, a professor of environmental health at the University of Washington. “Given the right treatment and aggressive efforts to prevent things from getting worse, I think there’s hope.” The report highlighted health problems stemming from more frequent heat waves, disease spread by insects, air pollution and other woes. While the disasters have been costly, deaths haven’t been increasing because society is doing a better but more expensive job adjusting to the changing conditions, the researchers noted. A team of 63 doctors, public health officials and scientists from around the world wrote what they considered the first of a regular monitoring of the health of the planet, similar to having a “finger on the pulse of the patient,” said Dr. Hugh Montgomery, an intensive care specialist and director of the University College of London’s Institute for Health and Performance. Based on 40 indicators, the study said “the human symptoms of climate change are unequivocal and potentially irreversible.” While other disease rates are dropping, cases of dengue fever — a mosquito-borne disease — has doubled every decade since 1990 with 58.4 million cases and 10,000 deaths in 2013. Frumkin, a former environmental health director at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said climate change, which allows mosquitoes to live in more places and stay active longer with shorter freeze seasons, is part but not all of the reason. The same goes for the increase in tick-borne Lyme disease in the United States, Frumkin said, adding “the ticks do better with warmer weather.” Between 2000 and last year, the number of vulnerable people — those over 65 or with chronic disease — exposed to heat waves increased by about 125 million, the study said. It also highlighted the increasing likelihood of food shortages as climate change worsens. Columbia University’s Madeline Thomson, who wasn’t part of the study team, praised the work, saying “climate is a stress multiplier” so it is important to monitor this way. Acting on climate can have side benefits, Frumkin said. Cutting coal takes smog and soot out of the air,  while eating less meat and bicycling and walking more to use less electricity means fewer accidents and reduced obesity, he said. ___ Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter at @borenbears. His work can be found here. Claim: Doctors: Global warming is taking a toll on people’s health.


Output: Global warming is hurting people’s health a bit more than previously thought, but there’s hope that the Earth — and populations — can heal if the planet kicks its coal habit, a group of doctors and other experts said.