Must be a busy few months in the World Health Organisation(WHO) and the various Ministries of Healths(MoH) in countries around the world. They need to juggle between “crying wolf” or letting the ball drop by having H1N1 mutate to a deadly strain and killing a lot of the infected. I have been busy elsewhere too, so have not been blogging much.

The problem with H1N1, the virus formerly known as Swine Flu, is that it just is not deadly enough. Yes, we do have a global pandemic, and the WHO was probably doing the right thing when it kept raising its alert status all the way up to the pandemic level. It did not want the world to be unprepared if the virus became deadly. But this confused all the MoH around the world, they were not seeing people dying in droves, and H1N1 seems like normal seasonal flu to them. With the global media, the people are aware of WHO’s alert levels, so how could MoH not raise their alertness too.

But the MoH and hospitals are on the ground burning resources dealing with what appears to be a normal flu, and running the risk of having a “cry wolf” scenario when the population gets blase about all that high alertness. The issue is that H5N1, the virus formerly known as Bird Flu, was deadly. But there was no pandemic. There is a H1N1 pandemic, but it is not deadly.

Of course, the greatest fear is a pandemic of a deadly flu. That has not happened for many decades, and with global travel the way it is, could kill millions in a matter of weeks. One way an individual can protect themselves against a pandemic of a deadly flu virus is to lock themselves at home, seal all the windows and doors, and have 3 months worth of food and water to ride out the flu season. Does any of us have that? With dispenser bottled water, instant noodles and canned food, it is feasible to have a 3 month supply stored up. People who behave like that are considered insane by the rest of the population, so perhaps the insane would inherit the world.

At this point, H1N1 seems to take only those already weakened by other illnesses. Much like how seasonal flu does. Other medical conditions are commonly written about in the papers. There is a joke going around with the headline “26 year old dies of H1N1 in a traffic accident.” Not in particularly good taste, but it has its pulse on the sentiment of the people on this whole H1N1 situation.

With the Ministry of Education periodically making students in Singapore take their temperature as part of the precaution procedure, I have recently had to deal with a little of this dilemma. They have a little list of questions every student have to answer, such as, Is your temperature >38.5C? Have you traveled to USA, Canada, Mexico, Melbourne Australia, etc.

Of course, the big question is, Are you showing any flu-like symptoms? Uh, half my class is showing flu like symptoms. All through the day, I hear sniffles, coughs, sneezes and the blowing of noses. Should I risk being in charged of a new epi-centre of a local infection, or should I send 12 guys home from school with flu-like symptoms everyone in Singapore gets at some point in the day from sitting to close to an air-conditioner, or coming in from a hot day into a cold office?

Just yesterday I was on a bus and had to sneeze once because the air-conditioning blower was right on my face. Oh shit, what if the lady sitting next to me gets freaked out about H1N1? I stifled my sniffles throughout the bus trip, and when I alighted, I was strangely glad to see that the lady had taken my seat instead, apparently unafraid of infection. Who knows, I might just have spread H1N1 to some stranger on a bus? Who knows, I might already have H1N1? I get flu-like symptoms every day before 9a.m.