Information
here & UK medical advice
here. BBC overview
here. We must remember other flu strains kill thousands every year.
It’s also useful to remember a pandemic is so-called because of its potential spreadability, not necessarily its virulence.
The answer on this occasion seems to be basic hygiene and common sense awareness. Panic is not helpful.Newspaper reporting has not been glorious. Take this example, from Thursday’s
Evening Standard:
A 22-year-old London man with swine flu was today “in a bad way” in hospital. The student, the first person in the capital diagnosed with the virus, had been on holiday with friends to Cancun in Mexico. Health chiefs said on Wednesday the man from Barnet, who has not been named, was only suffering “mild” flu-like symptoms.
But today his spokesman revealed the 22-year-old patient at the Royal Free hospital is now experiencing severe sickness and vomiting. Agent Max Clifford told the Evening Standard: “He’s in a bad way at the Royal Free and is suffering from awful sickness and vomiting. It’s not good news.”
So hang on. The hospital say he has mild flu-like symptoms, but his publicist says he’s in a bad way and suffering from awful sickness and vomiting.
Whom do we believe, the hospital or the PR man? It seems that print media have been no more reliable as sources of information than others, to put it mildly. You have to ask,
is there a place for publicists in public health? As people sign up to tell their stories, we can only imagine the full horror:
Day 109:30 Sneezed10:00 Now feeling
a bit snuffly. Should have shunned man wearing Sombrero on bus...
10:30 Wife sneezed.
11:15 Wife now feeling a bit snuffly. Making cup of tea
11:45 Phoned NHS direct. They said I was probably OK, but if anxious I should consult a doctor. Explained that was what I was trying to do when I ruddy phoned them. Lady said she wasn’t actually a doctor but doing her best to handle inceased volume of calls. Reassured. Not.
12:15 Wife realised we were out of Beecham’s Powders.
Situation becoming Critical.
12:30 Wife popping out for Beecham's Powders
13:15 snoozed off in front of telly with pint and bag of Pork Scratchings. Aw, what the hell... I might as well die happy.
17:15 Feed a cold and starve a fever.
No pie for tea! At least this thing isn't slowing the wife down... yet!
19:15 2nd lot of Beecham's powders: began to feel better
21:15 Ovaltine and early night:
22:30 Rage against dying of the light. Will I ever see the dawn? (Max suggested this bit)
Day 206:15 Missed Dawn.
Slept through.
Probably for the best.10:30 Feeling a bit better but
still slightly snuffly11:45 Feeling a lot better, actually.
Last lot of Beecham’s powders.
13:45 Er...17:15 ...that’s it.18:45 Cat sneezed. Does our contract with Max cover domestic animals? Could be critical if this thing mutates...
Ill (in bed, and riding the porcelain horse) with a food poisoning style bug, thanks to which I was able, in only a few hours, to lose almost 3 Kilos.
Is this Swine flu? Well I had no fever, although I could report 3/8 other symptoms off the list on the NHS website, and some say fever isn’t a necessary symptom. Any of the eight could be caused by a wide variety of possible baddies. So how do I know? It appears that as far as UK authorities are concerned if you have a few common symptoms and think you’ve got Swine Flu, that’s what you’ve got.
So the question becomes, do I want to think I’ve got it? If I were the sort of person to get someone to pick up some Tamiflu and stick it on eBay, probably yes. As it is, I’m not the type. Confronted by a pack of tamiflu I’d feel duty bound to take it. 
Well, to paraphrase T. S . Eliot, the point of all our journeying is to arrive back at the place from which we started but knowing how we got there. 
