Swine Flu

I've been listening to a lot of CBC Radio 1 lately, where one of the hot topics has been Swine Flu, which they prefer to call the H1N1 virus. The medical community is clearly on the side of the populace on this one, as I hear that you can now be diagnosed over the phone by a real doctor for a paltry sum of $16, or you can visit him or her in real life and be diagnosed for about $40.

So, if I call the Swine Flu/H1N1 Hotline and I don't have the virus, is the call free? If I visit my doctor and it turns out my symptoms aren't Swine Flu, do I save $40? It would be bad enough to have the virus and be violently ill, but worse to relinquish your credit card number once the doctor decides out you have it!

There was an interesting article on the front page of last weekend's Province. (If newspapers were people, The Star might hang out with the Vancouver Sun, and The Province would have play dates with the Toronto Sun. The Globe and Mail would be the chaperone.) It stated that Swine Flu is hitting BC early, and that certain groups are being encouraged to limit the amount of physical contact shared between members. The headline and leader went something like this:

Swine Flu hits BC Early: Sports teams and Churchgoers are being asked to limit physical contact.

I've always wondered why people seem to hug each other in church a lot. Not being a touchy person, it makes me a tad uncomfortable when people I rarely see go in for the hug. It seems that as soon as you walk through the doors of a church, hugging becomes a socially acceptable activity between two strangers. Happily, for the next few months, I can politely stick out my hand when they lean in, and say "Don't worry, it's not personal. You just may have Swine Flu."

The theme that I get from all the H1N1 coverage is that the whole country can be immunized if needed, and there's nothing to be worried about. But isn't it when they tell you not to worry that we should be really scared?

I think I'll roll the dice and skip the immunizations this time around, and simply shy away from indiscriminate hugging instead.