In the words of Senorita BeckySharper: N SRIO. Via Alaina B. @ Flickr.
I may not need to address this to our regular readers, who seem to be an eminently sensible, educated lot, but as we’ve seen, we get a lot of weird search terms, and I hope that someone searching “OMG I’M GOING TO DIE OF SWINE FLU!” will happen upon us and take me seriously when I write the following:
PLEASE, CHILL THE FUCK OUT ABOUT SWINE FLU.
Can we call it H1N1, too? It isn’t strictly “swine flu,” it’s a hybrid virus, and the “dangerous” element is a strain of the avian flu that freaked everybody out a year or so back.
If you want to feel like you’re doing something, then listen to the president, who asks that we “be vigilant” how? By washing our hands and not sneezing and coughing on each other. You know, just like we should be doing every other goddamn day of our lives. It’s fucking common sense. That is all we need right now, and yet it seems like sense is far from common.
Too common, utterly non-sensical: stocking up on Tamiflu or Relenza–or sweet fancy moses, Cipro; slathering yourself in alcohol-based germ-killing goo; quarantining yourself or your family members at home, or wearing flimsy face masks when out in public, throwing out your pork products, panicking about your possibly infectious neighbors with Mexican heritage, or mistaking your seasonal allergy sniffles for the Beginning of the End.
I mean, seriously. There is ZERO need for freak-outs. Thus far, there are only 51 cases in NYC, and approximately 95 confirmed cases in the States. OUT OF MORE THAN 304 MILLION PEOPLE WHO LIVE IN THIS COUNTRY. I am not discounting the deaths that have occurred in Mexico and the one in the US, I’m asking for a little fucking perspective.
Think about how many people die of the regular old, nothing-to-do-with-pigs flu every year, on average: 36,000. OMG PANIC!!! THE NOT-SWINE FLU WILL KILL US ALLLLLLLLLL!
No. No it won’t. It will kill a small percentage of the very young, the very old, and the very immuno-compromised. Just like the flu always does. That doesn’t make the deaths that occur ”no big deal,” but it does mean you can stop online shopping for HazMat suits and calling your family across the country to make sure they haven’t started sprouting tusks and bristles, or whatever other fearmonger-y nonsense is going around.
Turn off the 24-hour news feed, make yourself a nice dinner, and instead of Tamiflu, you might wanna get your hands on some Klonopin, or maybe just a bottle of wine, and take.a.powder.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled feminist caterwauling.
The fact that I live in Manhattan is now making my mother very nervous. She urged me to try and avoid large crowds and maybe stay off the subway. Yeah, like that’s even a possibility. Honestly, I kind of just do what I do everyday, like not requesting that people sneeze directly on me.
I so wish I could send this to the lady standing next to me on the B train last night who was wearing a surgical mask and gloves. The panic is apparently not widespread among B train riders, because she was getting a lot of BISH PLZ looks.
(I totally love that chill pill photo! N SRIO!)
I want to cough directly on every single person who gives me a dirty look for sniffling and say ENJOY THE OINKS!
That picture? Is actually a greeting card. Which my mom sent me once when I was in college.
So I didn’t need to call in sick to work, slather myself with Baconnnaise and hide under my bed today? Color me embarassed!
Thank you for this. Seriously. This shit is making me crazy.
Honestly I just can’t take any more media “OMG THERES A NEW DISEASE EVERYBODY PANIC YOU ARE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!” panic seriously, and tend to giggle at the news becaue most of those people will be FINE.
All this panic and overreaction is insane. One minor detail: H1N1 is rare in that it is more harmful to those with healthy immune systems because your body overreacts to the virus, so you’re more likely to be adversely affected if your in your teens, 20s, or 30s. At least that’s what Dr. Gupta tells me. That’s still not a reason to bathe in Purell, stock your home with a million doses of Tamiflu, and become a bubble person.
BUT BUT BUT
You mean I have no excuse for sitting at home in my sweatpants, decidedly *not* getting any writing done on my dissertation because I am reading your blog?
Ha! My mom and I actually discussed this the other day. We’re way more interested in other people’s freak outs than we are in the actual flu itself. That being said, my dad does have an auto-immune disorder and the drugs he takes for it suppress his immune system. He travels a lot for work, so a “level 5 pandemic” is, legitimately, a little scary for someone like him. But he’ll be alright, I’m sure.
We’ve been laughing about it all day at work. Every time any of us coughs, bossman says “swine flu!”. And since half of our office suffers from seasonal allergies, there’ve been a lot of coughs.
And obviously I have a childish sense of humor, because when I see H1N1, I read it as “hiney” and can’t help but laugh.
What would be awesome is if “swine flu” not only gave xenophobes another opportunity to hate on Mexicans, but encouraged people to eat less swine – or at least buy their pork products from local farmers or something.
But the pork producers are not going to let the media inform the public about the dangers of factory farming, so probs a long shot.
My manfriend’s office just gave everyone a big bottle of hand sanitizer and some face masks and urged people to wear them. He says a lot of people are using them. *sigh*
I hope this whole thing will get people to actually wash their hands after using the bathroom. (Yeah, I’m looking at you, woman who didn’t even pretend to wash up after peeing. Peehands!)
I have really bad allergies which are in full effect right now and I am getting seriously annoyed by getting the evil eye from passberbys every time I sneeze (into a tissue) or, god forbid, cough (while covering my mouth) while walking in public. I want a T-shirt. “It’s not the swine! I’m just allergic to spring.”
@ CarlyB:
I totally understand. My allergies are in full effect too and since I am brown, I am getting not only the glares but also some nasty snide remarks.
Seriously though, I think the reason people are overreacting is because it ‘came’ from Mexico – this is just another excuse to be open about their xenophobia! And thanks media for being SO DRAMATIC about it every three seconds.
Laugh it up, people. You won’t be so snarky when the Global Pandemic KILLS US ALL.
J/K. I work at a (well, the) large, famous U.S. public health organization, and we’re not even freaking out that much internally. Although we do keep receiving e-mails reminding us to wash our hands and stay home from work if we’re feverish, coughing, or achy. I’m considering calling in sick with post-yoga aches…
As of a couple of minutes ago, 91 people have gotten sick in the US and 1 person has died. So, if I can do math at all, if you get sick you have less than a 1% chance of dying and more than a 99% chance of getting better. Um . . . what’s there to be scared of here?
I’m in Mexico and, funnily enough, the only media freakin’ out I’m getting is when I read English language news online.
It would help if the rest of the world could get their head around the idea Mexico is more than just drugs + germs.
“I think the reason people are overreacting is because it ‘came’ from Mexico – this is just another excuse to be open about their xenophobia!”
I want to ask (since I wasn’t paying ANY attention at the time), did a similar xenophobic sentiment run against Asians during the big bird flu scare?
I really don’t understand this idea that people and diseases only travel from “there” to “here”. Stupid egocentric idea.
Totally off topic, but Mary, I love the term “manfriend”
I was in a meeting this afternoon with a woman of Chinese descent (not sure if she was born in China or U.S.) and another woman who grew up in Colombia. The Chinese woman actually said, “Hey, we [i.e., the Chinese] had to deal with all the SARS outbreak, now it’s your turn [i.e., brown people].” Except, y’know, Colombia is not Mexico. I guess maybe the first lady’s point was that anyone who looked Asian was treated as suspect during SARS, so now anyone who looks Hispanic will get the same response re: swine flu…but still, it was an odd thing to say in mixed company!
If I can’t panic about it and make everyone around me panic about it then how am I suppose to use it to get out of going to a birthday party I don’t want to go to?
What do I do???? (haha, i can panic about anything, it’s a gift.)
AmandaS:
I think there is a historical meme about Asians that was re-stirred up when SARS hit, and also when the lead-paint toys, anti-freeze mouthwash, etc. was happening. That meme is: Noxious things come from the Orient. *Insert images of men with Confucian moustaches peering over steaming cauldrons and people wasting away in opium dens*
What you’ve said here is needed and appreciated, myself being something of an admitted alarmist. And now that things are simmering down, you’re actually easier to believe. One correction, however… this flu was getting young healthy folks, similar to prior pandemic-type flus, not just the young, old, and immuno-compromised.