Swine-sationalizing the flu

Flickr Creative Commons  

Take My Word For It

I think I’m finally ready to deal with the arrival of the dreaded swine flu. I just spent about $100 on alphaghetti, Mr. Noodle, and animal crackers (in case campus is too contaminated and I have to invoke a self-imposed quarantine), $75 on Lysol and mini Purell bottles (one bottle for each pair of pants I own and every room in the house), and $10 on Latex gloves (for whenever I am brave enough to trek up to campus). Once I start panicking a bit more, I think I’ll be ready to handle H1N1.

Swine flu is really serious stuff, I’m glad I’m almost prepared. It’s hard work getting ready for a pandemic virus though.

Thankfully the media has done a great job providing balanced and reasonable coverage. The Globe and Mail, CBC, and others haven’t been alarmist at all in their reporting, and I think they’ve kept me relatively calm.
My roommates and I have instituted a no coughing in communal spaces rule, and the only acceptable physical contact is props. Lil Wayne would be proud.

The Globe had a big headline last week telling me not to panic, and then talked about how two healthy children died from swine flu in Toronto, and how many schools were being closed in Canada. It really settled my nerves, I’ve been worried sick about swine flu (literally I worried so much I couldn’t sleep, and then woke up with a cough and runny nose).

In September and October the media spent lots of time and energy talking about the problems with the vaccine, but now are insisting we should all get it. They told me I’m selfish and a bad person if I don’t, but now I have to wait until everyone who’s higher risk than me gets it first.

I’m glad the media has provided such clear and consistent information about such a serious issue. They’re really keeping me well informed with their balanced reporting.

In fact I don’t think I’ll be going downtown anytime soon either. Nicky Zee’s has probably turned into Nicky Sneeze, and who knows what kind of germs are lurking in Swinewaters next door. No, it’s definitely best to avoid any physical contact until flu season ends in March.

It’s also good that the government has handled the roll-out of the vaccine so well. I get cranky and impatient waiting five minutes to pay for my groceries. You can imagine how exciting the prospect of a five-hour wait for a flu shot is. Maybe I’ll bring a couple essays to finish.

Actually, now that I think about it, I may not need the vaccine after all. I think I may have had swine flu already. I had almost all the symptoms. I thought my aches and pains were the consequence of my drunken wrestling and fence-climbing competition, and was ready to blame John Player for the cough I woke up with. I blamed Alexander Keith’s fine brewing for my nausea and diarrhea, but alas, it appears Mexican pigs were the real source of my malaise.

But really, swine flu is serious stuff. If you’re healthy, you’re 20 times less likely to die from swine flu than a car crash this year. Those are scary odds. Apparently swine flu has a similar death rate to seasonal flu, killing anywhere from 0.007-0.045% of people it infects. Early reports actually say swine flu’s mortality rate is lower than the normal flu’s ~0.1%. Too bad we can’t get seasonal flu shots until January in every province that’s not New Brunswick. Some reports have swine flu killing 1 out of every 100,000 people it infects. Yikes.

I cannot for the life of me imagine what I would do if we had a highly contagious, not very lethal flu virus to worry about every year in Canada. Oh, wait...