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Monday, June 15, 2009

Stop sneezing on me

At a couple of recent parties I attended, a typical conversation:

Expat 1: I hate the Hong Kong government. They are making such a big fuss of the Swine-Flu. Two kids go down with a Flu in a school and they shut down the entire school for 14 days.

Me (thinking to myself): Would you have liked a few 100 going down before they took that step.

Expat 2: Yeah, they are crazy. My secretary has taken two weeks off to stay with her child since most day-cares are either not accepting more kids or have shut down themselves.

Me (thinking to myself): Poor U!!! Having to get your own coffee – must be a lot of hard work!!!

But again, with all these measures, if the number of swine-flu cases has reached 100 in HK and rapidly rising, one begins to wonder what these numbers would have looked like if people were left to fend for themselves and Swine-Flu was treated as any other flu (as some of these people seem to suggest should be the case). That probably also explains why a bulk of the cases coming into India and China are from countries like US and UK. They don’t understand the seriousness of this. After all, its a flu. Suggestion to the WHO: Next time, please choose a scarier sounding name.

Last heard, the Indian Government warned its citizens against visiting US (probably a step taken more to get back at the US for warning its citizens against visiting India because its terror-prone) after the number of confirmed swine-flu patients in India crossed 30 and most of them were students/visitors returning from US. And it’s reached Bangalore too!!! So friends back in Bangalore, watch out for the guy who’s just returned from an overseas trip who’s not feeling very well.

Before my rant is over, I need to say something about the title. Well, the thing that really disgusts me is the way some people sneeze openly into the environment and direct their sneeze in a particular direction (e.g. onto the ground) as though they were doing us all a favour by doing so. Time to spread the culture of using tissues in India? What say? Compare this to the paranoia and dirty looks one gets here in HK whenever you sneeze even if you are using a tissue.

PS: I am allergic to dust. So I do end up sneezing (a friendly one) once in a way. Please don’t assume its a case of swine-flu and report me.

Related Posts:

Swine Flu – Better Safe than Sorry