"Have Any of You Been Taught the Proper Way to Sneeze?"

Today at the School of Her Majesty I was warmly greeted in every class by a loud yellow paper with the words – IMPORTANT NOTICE - on it. As the Professors made sure to deliver one to every student I was curious as to what could be so pending. As it turns out it was the always-fearful H1N1. This was all part of the University’s attempt to help stop a “pandemic” and make sure students could be contacted in the case of an outbreak.

Every student in the school today was given this little piece of paper in every class they attended, in order to make sure that they checked their university email account, making sure it was at least forwarded to another account such as Gmail.

Which begs the question, how, and I’ll paraphrase what Texas asked in class today - if there is a pandemic at the school are we supposed to filter through our 400 other pieces of junk mail in our inboxes to discover that we should not attend school today for fear of losing our lives? There was no response.

And so The Count proceeded to tell the class that this was the school’s way of letting us know we are a valued asset to the school and that The Queen is prepared with a plan…just in case.

Which leads me to my point; does any of this H1N1 hysteria sound anything like the time of Y2K? I don’t mean to be unsympathetic to anyone who has lost a loved one to the virus, and it is not my point to make light of that. But it is my point to try and figure out just why this flu is receiving the press that it is. I understand that the ‘Second Wave’ is on it’s way (apparently) but how come we decide not to look at Australia who is just finishing it’s flu season and learn that there were relatively few problems? Would this not help to calm some of these seemingly irrational fears that are plastered all over the news?

And why is it that we are always investing money in something because it’s “the responsible thing to do?” Understand that I really shouldn’t mind investing money in a flu shot, or equipping my workplace with an absurd amount of sanitizing product that would fend off a worldwide outbreak of the virus. But if I do not do what I’m told, what the ‘responsible’ thing to do is, then I will be looked down upon, and my employees will feel unappreciated, and want to never work for me again (seriously?). And so the cycle continues.

Fear of some global crisis.
Stockpiling of (fill in the blank)
Nothing substantial occurs
Some company makes a lot of money
REPEAT CYCLE

I would be interested to know which company is responsible for creating the flu vaccine, and I would love too look at how well their profits are for next quarter.
So remember that if you have a cough, a sneeze, sore throat or a runny nose you might have H1N1. And while you probably don’t, and you will most likely be fine, be ’responsible’ and go by something to take care of yourself.

For everyone else sake…

Right…