Swine flu fun!

[CrazedClerkthe2nd]

lol anyone remember SARS? people were afraid of elevator buttons. sadly this nation wide panic attack is causing some racism. My mother teaches a GED class for adults, she also teaches ESL (english as a second language). most of her students are mexican, and she heard them talking about how one of them had gone to a restaurant and as he parked his car, another car quickly backed out from the spot next to him and moved to a different spot farther away. then when he was seated at a table, the waiters couldn't get anyone to accept tables near him. (note, he wasn't coughing or anything)

That's very sad, but predictable. I feel sorry for otherwise healthy Mexicans being discriminated against for such a reason.

[SG15Z]

We're sold out of sanitizer and there's notes everywhere about us washing our hands. People are making this much bigger than it really is, and is almost annoying.

[boringscreenname]

At work we have a box of surgical masks, a container of hand sanitizer, and a container of Clorox wipes. I wonder how much I could get for them on Ebay?

[finlayfox]

yes i found out about case number one in NE... and oh how i wish it was in my town right now. just to play it up you know.
but yeah.... 1 person in this state of a god damn million. wait, i am in the bible belt. one person in this God blessed state of .75 million Lord fearing proper Christians and properly smited heathens

[lineswine]

hmmm your husband better call this author and let him know his peer-reviewed research is wrong then-especially as it's used as a reference for infection control in hospitals.......

I read the article & I also saw just how long it took high concentrations of Ethanol to inactive viruses, especially human influenza virus.
I'm not sure of the percentage of Ethanol in those gels...is it likely to be 60% pharmaceutical grade Ethanol?
Besides, people just don't have those hand gels on for the 2 minutes+ it took.

[sarasquirrel]

turns out all our cases in CT are negative.

and its simple basic handwashing people!! stuff you learn before school. no need to panic

[fireheart]

In SA (South Australia folks, not Sacramento), there are seven suspected, no confirmed cases as far as I know (edible or Ny, can you guys confirm?), but following that...

-We haven't been going nuts on hand sanitizer, gloves etc.
-Work provides hand sanitizer for us anyway (ethanol based)
-They've also put up sheets EVERYWHERE advertising the difference between cold/flu, urging us to stay home if we're sick etc.
-No racism but given that a majority of my customers are Arabic, Asian, Aboriginal or Caucasian, that's unlikely.
-A few people have been harped at but more as a joke everytime someone coughs.

Me? I've just been following basic hygiene. I've taken to spritzing my hands with the ethanol stuff everytime I've touched my nose because I do get a quite itchy nose.

[HawaiianShirts]

Various strains of the flu always have been and always will be around. Each strain is just as "deadly" as the next, especially to the very young, very old, and those with compromised immune systems. The practice of basic hygiene is the best thing to help slow the spread of virii, and the average person will be over the flu in a few days, anyway.

I work for a microbiology lab now, though I'm in one of the office support groups instead of the labs. Conversations overheard at lunchtime yesterday suggested to me that the swine flu is no more or less dangerous than any other flu virus.

On the company's intranet I found a statement from the lab manager telling us that the best way to avoid getting the swine flu was to wash our hands and practice other good hygiene habits. One response was: "So, since we handle potentially infectious microorganisms anyway, we should just keep doing what we do every day?"

Then it became something of a joke. Now the owner of the company has a picture hanging on his door. The caption is, "The real source of the swine flu." It shows a kid of about three years old on some farm, leaning through the bars of a fence to give a pig a kiss on the snout.

It may be an exaggeration, and I'm sure plenty of people are panicking unnecessarily, but I'm not going to complain much when something like this promotes cleanliness.

[Lil Bunny]

yes i found out about case number one in NE... and oh how i wish it was in my town right now. just to play it up you know.
but yeah.... 1 person in this state of a god damn million. wait, i am in the bible belt. one person in this God blessed state of .75 million Lord fearing proper Christians and properly smited heathens

YAY I've been properly smited!!!!

Oh we've come up with a drinking game.
Mention of Swine = 1 shot.
Mention of Swine with slight speculation = 2 shots.
Mention of Swine with mass hysteria inducing speculation = Invite Greg Crites and down a Fifth.

*joke not valid in all states, joke assumes that listenee has or will soon know who Greg Crites is, joke also reserves rights to submit alcohol as sees fit. caution, joke may cause nasal drainage and male pattern baldness.

[Cat]

turns out all our cases in CT are negative.

and its simple basic handwashing people!! stuff you learn before school. no need to panic

Go Nutmeg State!


I have never gotten the regular flu, I have never gotten Lyme (and I'm from CT and play in the woods all the time), never had anything bad (yet). And I have never gotten a flu vaccine. I've been pretty lucky.

Weirdest thing I got was Fifth's disease,

(though I have have just cursed myself....watch me get all sorts of lovely diseases)

[AccountingDrone]

to put it into perspective, IIRC a level 5 pandemic is confirmed cases of the same bug in 3 countries ...

so I could catch a nonswine flu, give it to my friend from Germany, one of my British buddies and my friend Anysia from Perth, and if they each infect their spousal unit, it qalifies as a pandemic because one source infected 3 different countries ...


Honestly, the original spanish flu infected something like 50% of the worlds population, and 16 million [? cant remember but I think that was the butchers bill on that outbreak]

We have how many confirmed cases, it has been around since March and how many deaths?

Big whopping meh out there to the panic mongers. I dont see why we need to take any precautions different from any normal flu outbreak from any year.

[simplyanother]

"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it. "

Spoken 12 years ago and still applies today.

And confirms, all we really need is Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith to come and make it all better (and uh, I may have used that quote in a conversation just yesterday...heh).

There are two confirmed cases in my state, both no where near me. I know that if there are more, people will freak the fuck out and pandemonium will result.

Rationally, I know I'm fine, I know my family is fine, I know that everything will probably be just fine and dandy. The irrational part of me wants me to hoard food and water, take my older kid out of school (the younger one isn't in school yet), and just never leave the house again.

So far, my rational side is winning. But the irrational side keeps reminding me that I've read The Stand a few too many times...

What gets me, is that we--if it does get bad, if there is something that requires us to stay home-- we'll get screwed over. Part timers more so that full timers--because at least they have some sick time (which I'm sure they are penalized for using). We're told, if you get sick, stay home, don't spread it to everyone else. But work says "uh, no, you want to keep your job, you need to show up...don't care how sick you say you are". Or they'll ask for a doctors note.

Which many of us can't get, because we don't have insurance, and with hours being cut right and left--don't have the cash to pay to see a doctor (and gah, how to explain to my sons school, no, not every "stay home from school illness" requires a doctors note. Sometimes, a kid is too sick to go to school, but not sick enough to see a doctor. Same with adults. )

Maybe there will be something come from this, regarding sick time, and working retail. Sure, people will abuse anything, but meh, people come to work sick all the damned time. Maybe they'll be able to NOT.

I know what will happen though, people with "real jobs" will be at home because of suspected flu, and instead of staying the hell home, they'll go to the craft store, or to the mall, or to the movies and sneeze on us. They do it now with the regular seasonal flu, so what's going to change 'em now.

Yes, I'm concerned about the swine flu, but it's not an all consuming overwhelming concern. Here's hoping the rational side continues to win.

[Lace Neil Singer]

We keep getting panicky emails from head office telling us to make sure we sneeze into tissues and throw said tissues away after; wash our hands all the time, and of course, if we get sick, to go home and ring NHS direct, NOT visit the doctor in case we have it and infect everyone, oh noez!

The reason why this is retarded, is that while the staff may do this, the flipping customers are still sneezing all over the shop, coughing into their hands and passing us money, and basically making sure that any effort we do is negated. I saw something in a paper that compared swine flu to bubonic plague. Lolwut?

[RayvenQ]

Here's my way of reassuring people about swine flu.


Aren't we already all supposed to be dead from bird flu? *shrug*

There you go, another mass media hysteria scare that more than likely won't be the doom they harp on about.

[Lace Neil Singer]

Here's my way of reassuring people about swine flu.


Aren't we already all supposed to be dead from bird flu? *shrug*

There you go, another mass media hysteria scare that more than likely won't be the doom they harp on about.

You forgot mad cow disease. Ooh, ooh, and salmonella!