Piggy, Piggy: Fluish Spews

• The flu may be spreading, but fear of it is spreading faster.  My daughter's school made the news as it lost half of its attendance this week--not so much because of real flu sufferers (although they have a couple) but because parents are keeping their kids at home so that they are not exposed. 
  

• Oh, and ignorance is spreading faster as well, given internet-based fears of the vaccine.  The internet is good for a great many things, but getting the best medical advice may not be one of them.

• I don't think anyone's health care system is really up to the task.  Quebec has announced its schedule for vaccinations, with the average folks getting theirs December 7th or afterwards.  Read into the symbolism of Pearl Harbor Day what you will, but December will be pretty late in this game, it sounds like.  Especially for those lecturing to 600 disease-carrying/spreading undergrads.
  

• The good news is that much of family might be semi-immune.  My wife and daughter might had it last June while I was in Europe.  The bad news, of course, is that I am almost certainly not immune and will almost certainly get exposed (the aforementioned 600 plague carriers).  Strategically, it would have been far sounder to be really boring and lame the first week or two of class so that students would either drop or just not attend, minimizing my exposure.  Unfortunately, I am an attention-seeking hound (or else this blog might not exist).  Plus changing my beginning lectures to make them less interesting might require some work and imagination.  
  

• I am just very glad I am not in the health care profession.  This has got to be awful--not just the risk of getting the flu, but having to deal with the volume, the panic, the criticism, etc.  International relations and ethnic strife remind me that not all problems are solvable and even those that can be remedied take time, patience, resources, intelligence, imagination and wisdom.