I am not an alarmist, nor do I necessarily believe this will do anywhere near the damage the normal Flu Season does every year. BUT! When I get an email from a trusted source saying a GLOBAL CORPORATION has sent the following to ALL EMPLOYEES to be careful and start taking drastic steps to mitigate their exposure, then I want to bring it to peoples attention.
As the type A/H1N1 influenza continues to spread in multiple regions around the world, we would like to remind you about what you can do to keep yourself and our workforce healthy.
What you should do to stay healthy when the flu is in your area:
Continue to practice personal hygiene – both at home, in the community and at work, especially when you are sharing surfaces such as public transportation, conference room tables, copy machines, telephones, keyboards, door handles, hand rails, tools or steering wheels. Here are a few examples of what you can do:
• Assume the virus is present on shared surfaces.
• Try not to touch your face, if you have not cleaned your hands first. You could introduce the flu or other germs into your body through your eyes, nose or mouth.
• Use a disinfecting wipe to clean surfaces of common areas such as door handles, phones, keyboards, conference tables or tools.
• Wash your hands with warm water and soap or alcohol-based hand cleaner after touching or cleaning hard surfaces and coughing or sneezing.
• Always wash your hands before eating.
• Stay away from crowded public places, whenever possible.
• Cover your mouth with a tissue or surgical mask when you cough or sneeze. Sneeze into your sleeve instead of your hands, if tissues or a mask are not available.
• Distance yourself by at least two meters, (or six feet) from others who are sneezing, coughing or obviously ill.
• Get a seasonal flu vaccine, if available. This is likely to protect you from seasonal flu in your area; it will not work for the type A/H1N1 influenza.
Understand how the virus spreads:
• The virus spreads when an infected person coughs or sneezes, causing respiratory droplets to fall onto another person or surface.
• The virus can also spread when you touch an object contaminated with the virus and then eat, or when you touch your eyes, mouth or nose before washing your hands.
What you should do if you feel ill:
Do not come to work if you have flu-like symptoms such as fever, head ache, fatigue, weakness, extreme exhaustion, cough or chest discomfort.
If you are at a high risk or have pre-existing medical conditions, you should seek guidance from your personal health care provider whenever influenza is reported in your area.
You’re a behind the times alarmist. Even the WHO has stopped tracking the A/H1N1 flu as it’s milder than the regular flu.See: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/17/world/17flu.html?ref=health
Larry,
Mixed opinions on that one. The flu could still mutate further.
What is scary is that survivors of the Spanish Flu are immune to this new flu. And it is targeting young people. That too happened during the Spanish Flu.
In general, we should be practicing good hand hygiene right now.
People are dying of the flu all over the world, and here in the USA and California.
The US sent 11 million bio-weapon flu vaccinations to California, I guess all of the important government officials got their shots, and their families and important friends and some doctors and medical administers. I do not know of a single person in Santa Ana who was given a shot, My guess is Santa Ana is expendable.
If you take the death rate and divide by infection rate and times that by population this flu has the potential to kill millions in the USA alone. Not 16,000 per normal flu killing old people, but like 16 million of healthy young adults.
Art,
The Spanish flu was in 1918 so of course anyone born then or before and still living would naturally have a great immune system.
Cook,
Once symptoms develop it’s too late for Tamiflu (the only preventative for A/H1N1) to be effective so that treatment was reserved for health care workers. Actually, about 36,000 people die each year from the Flu, so A/H1N1 was only a statistical blip. Of course any flu can mutate at any time, but if it kills too fast it won’t spread which is sort of self limiting. Also, any of those 1,000+ species of bacteria on our skin could mutate at anytime too and eat us alive – scary, yes.