of deaths led to corpses being stored in subway tunnels, and in West Germany, garbage collectors had to bury the dead because of a lack of undertakers. In total, East and West Germany registered 60,000 estimated deaths. In some areas of France, half of the workforce was bedridden, and manufacturing suffered large disruptions because of absenteeism. The UK postal and rail services were also severely disrupted. United States After a major epidemic of H2N2 during the 1967–1968 flu season that resulted in outbreaks in all but four states, the Communicable Disease Center (today the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) in June 1968 forecasted little or no activity in 1968–1969. The vaccines for the upcoming season would incorporate the then-circulating seasonal flu strains, and the CDC's recommendations for their use extended mainly to individuals in older age groups (over the age of 45) and the chronically ill. Following the outbreak in Hong Kong and the recognition that it had been caused by a new variant of influenza, the CDC on 4 September revised its prediction for the 1968–1969 season. An extensive outbreak across the country was now more likely. It repeated more strongly its recommendation that existing vaccines go only to those at highest risk and recommended vaccinating or revaccinating this group once the monovalent vaccine specific to the new variant became available. The first cases of the virus were reported in Atlanta on 2 September. The first was a Marine Corps major returning from Vietnam, who fell ill four days after arriving back in the US. Two days later, his wife, who had not left the country, fell ill as well. The first outbreak occurred in a Marine Corps school in San Diego that same week. Before the end of the week, influenza surveillance was heightened all across the country, and summaries of the data were thereafter reported regularly by the CDC each week in its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. Further outbreaks among military personnel with connections to southeast Asia were soon to follow during the middle of September. Isolated cases, mostly in those recently returning from the Far East, seeded the virus across the country throughout September. The first outbreaks in the civilian population occurred in late September and in October, and activity increased markedly throughout November, affecting 21 states by Thanksgiving. The epidemic became widespread in December, involving all 50 states before the end of the