Much sweating, real and virtual, about swine flu which is sweeping newsrooms and parts of the nation. Despite claims that up to sixty thousand people could die, and the tragic deaths already associated with the virus, I can't help but be sceptical. Part of this attitude is stupid bravado. I've had flu many times, goes my reasoning, so bring it on. Let's test the mettle of this so called dread phage against the antibodies already residing in the Hendosystem.
And I have problems with the advance publicity for this thing. I spent half the nineties thinking I was doomed to die of Mad Cow Disease because I'd had a dodgy sausage or two. And another part of it stems from watching Newsnight the other day when Simon Jenkins suggested we were being driven into hysteria by a self interested health care system.
I don't dread the virus so much as the time it'll take out of one of the nicest stretches of the year. Who can bothered being ill when the weather's so clement? There's nothing we can do save send our 'flu friend' for the tamiflu. Which according to one GP blogger doesn't work anyway.
1 comment:
But Neil, darling, although you say you've had flu several times, you've actually been suffering from man flu, which is an altogether different strain!
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