Please Doctor, Shoot Me (With a Gun)

The topic of the week (and month, and year…) has been H1N1. I walk through the halls at school, hear it from a hundred lips; go to work, talking about it there too; commercials on TV tell me how to wash my hands; ads in the newspaper tell me not to breathe; posters on the walls tell me I will die; and so on. The U.S. has declared a National Emergency.

Does anyone else think they’re making far too big a deal of all this? Perhaps I feel so because it’s a strain of influenza. “The flu” doesn’t exactly strike fear into my heart. Fever, vomiting, yeah, yeah, yeah. Stay home a couple of days, you’re good to go. It just seems like all this hullabaloo is over something simple and petty.

Despite all the REALLY BIG headlines and panic, I can’t seem to find any statistics that validate the absurdity. There have been a total of 89 deaths in Canada from H1N1. 77% of these people had underlying medical conditions. (Found those numbers here and here.) How many cases have there been, though? Hundreds? Thousands? Certainly enough that the number of deaths compared to the number of infected people has to be minuscule.

They began vaccinating people two days ago. There are (I believe) five clinics in the whole city. The line-ups stretched out of the clinics and around the corner. This is insane. I’m amazed this many people are so concerned that they’re going for the vaccine.

I’m not getting it. No one I’ve told this to has appeared shocked. I’m in a high risk group for the virus, I work with the public on a daily basis, and I spend hours in a crowded school. Yet, I’m not worried. Am I naïve, or stupid? I don’t think so. I think this is fear-mongering, and things being blown out of proportion, and that I will be just fine without it. (On top of that, I hate injections. IV in my wrist? Totally cool. Needle in my shoulder? Not a chance.)

Enough of that. More exciting news (with no vomiting involved): NaNo in three days! My excitement has reached unprecedented levels. We have an LRT-riding-novel-writing event on Sunday, so I’m going on an LRT-adventure with a friend tomorrow in the hopes of calming my terrible public-transport fears. Yes, you read that correctly. Some people have spiders; I have ETS.

This event will be the single time this year that I’ll be using my U-Pass. All students are required to pay 90-some dollars for it as part of our tuition . I drive; therefore, no bus. There is no opt-out. Bitter? Not at all.

Barring any influenza-like-symptoms (gag me, please) I will hopefully survive the week.

P.S. Go listen to Collapsing at Your Doorstep by Air France. It’s incredible.