It was the time (of) Swine Flu !
For a few months now we have been hearing about 'Swine flu' or technically proper term 'H1N1'virus . The current form of the pandemic had originated in Mexico and has since then slowly spread across the world - . The first recorded case was in Hyderabad way back in May
As expected after a while it started spreading to other parts of the country . But the entire system which was aware of this still waited and only when it reached the panic button was pressed. Panic started in Pune where lot of cases started getting reported then it slowly spread to Mumbai. Even though authorities stepped in handled things well their actions were more of reactionary , pro activeness was unfortunately missing. Whether the virus was spreading or not , the panic was spreading very fast ! To make matters worse , testing for this could be done only in govt labs and only certain hospitals could treat the patients all this just increased the pressure and panic. Even the correct masks to be used were also in short supply.
Elsewhere in city , administrators surprisingly arranged an SMS poll to general public to gather inputs on whether schools should shut down or not in the wake of a possible epidemic. The whole idea of 'sms poll' was ironically thrashed in mainstream media through a couple of other opinion polls ! Its hard to disagree with the majority view in those programmes that it was totally unnecessary to ask confused public for directions !
At my work place most of us were unperturbed , though there were still a few people sporting masks. However all the hell broke loose one afternoon when someone from my floor was suspected of having contracted the virus. Some family member of that person had tested positive and that person also had got tested and was awaiting result. Even before any confirmation came people were not prepared to take chances and in a matter of a few minutes the entire workforce in my floor had disappeared. Thankfully HR in my company was prepared for the situation and do's and don't s related to the virus were quickly circulated ! Next couple days were memorable as lots of people did not report to work or came dressed like bandits ! People moving around in masks , handkerchiefs and duppattas covering their faces was fun but the smell of the eucalyptus oil which was supposed to ward off the flu (as per sms fwds) was so horrible !!!
I was reminded of scenes from various zombie movies where entire population gets infected by strange virus and go crazy , for while it seemed like all those crazy things will indeed become reality
But all the hoopla and media frenzy lasted just a week by end of the week the 'swine flu scare' had slowly faded away and out went those dirty handkerchiefs and surgeon's masks sported by general public. At its peak during that one week , the panic had totally altered many things affecting Business ,education and entertainment . School kids ,TV channels , medical shops and black-marketers/entrepreneurs selling these masks benefited from this . People disappeared from public places , avoided restaurants , those commuting to office started avoiding trains which were perceived to be crowded , multiplexes couldn't release new movies as there were no viewers and had to shut down for a few days . Slowly by end of the week panic had subsided , lot more meaningful information started being available and rational people started getting more footage in TV channels and in newspapers. Suddenly lot of statistics were dug up which showed that mortality rate of this flu is much lower compared to other diseases and importantly a lot of meaningful debates started getting triggered on how our country was ravaged by so many other diseases which is not given enough attention.
Even though it was un natural panic reaction , the awareness about the disease spread quickly and general sanitation and outlook improved and maybe in a way helped contain a much wider outbreak. However out in the streets , after a couple weeks things returned to normal and all those masked crusaders disappeared !
3 comments:
Reminds me of SARS in China, except that there it was a lot more deadly with some 1000s dying if I remember right, and then there was also this WHO thing where they claimed that the reds were misinforming them of the numbers and it was much much more and that when they went to inspect the number of cases there were many that had been put out on the street in ambulances so that they don't get counted and all that...
Of course there the Govt was trying to put down any panic by claiming it was something simple, to ensure their exports don't get affected :), it kind of helped cut down rumor mills too...
while here the hype only increased...
Also, saw this article
Very good post ...
Speaking of the title, I came across this interesting joke on swine flu ...
An ex-US president, in one of his campaign speeches against racism in US, said "The day America has a black president, pigs will fly". Needless to say, Obama is the president now and there is swine flu flying all over the place !!!
@ I think the difference between SARS outbreak in china and swinu flu panic in India (both developing nations with huge populations) is that even if Chinese had better infrastructure , they chose to shut the lid and officially pretended (as per several reports) that it was a minor event. Only when it got really worse did they come clean. While in India the panic ensured hygiene was pretty high and all infected people got tested quickly and in a way this arrested further spread. Recently read this book 'Smoke and Mirros' which is written by Indian jouralist who was living in China at that time , interesting read about this and many other things in China
@ MJ , ya tht was a popular joke doing rounds when swine flu hit US ! :)
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