Hubby's pilot friend, Mark flew into Melbourne the other day. Besides having lunch with us, he was also our courier, bringing over some items we had purchased through a friend in Singapore. Along with the goodies, he left us with a copy of The Straits Times, Wo Bao and Today. Wow! You know, we can get Singapore news online anytime but there is NOTHING like a hard copy of The Straits Times to make you feel like home!
From the papers, I noticed that there is a lot of public anger and emotional response over the recent behaviour of some people who had contracted swine flu and went about doing things that risk spreading the disease to others. In particular, the 2 foriegn guys who attended a concert and business meetings respectively, got the most flak.
Honestly, I think these people in S'pore are overreacting and paranoid. I actually sympathise with these 2 guys. As if being infected and sick is not bad enough, they are now Public Enemy #1 and #2 in a land far away from home. Come on, give them a break. They're victims too. And I'm not saying this because I come from the "swine flu capital of the world".
Just put yourself in their shoes. If you had bought tickets to a concert, paying good money and anticipated the event for months, would you miss the concert just because you've got the sniffles? Or if you had flown twenty over hours and thousands of miles to attend some meetings that had been schedule weeks ahead, involving various important people you have to meet, would you stay in your hotel to sleep cos you've got flu? How are you gonna account to your boss? I know lots of people in my ex-company who go to work with the flu instead of resting at home. We wish they can stay away from us but I know it's usually because they had no choice. Who wouldn't like to rest in bed?
Well, that doesn't mean we can be complacent and let this swine flu invade our lives. Hubby and I are cautious here with so many cases. Though it's been reported that the flu has been mild so far, we are not so sure the course it will take if more and more people gets it. We are trying not to go to crowded places and gatherings but we are not hermits. We still meet up with friends, small groups at a time, for dinner. We make sure that we all wash our hands after coming home and disinfect our hands with hand sanitizers before meals but we don't wear a mask outside. In fact, I haven't seen anyone wear one here yet. And we haven't heard of anyone we know who has gotten the swine flu yet. We are playing it safe but this doesn't guarantee us immunity. There're just too many ways that the germs can be spread and there's no way you can control the movement of people. Life still goes on. There's grocery shopping to be done, letters to be posted, petrol to be topped up.... At the end of the day, it boils down to your luck and immune system.
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