Everybody Panic! The swine flu is here! Or should we say, the swine flu es aqui! Yes, people everywhere are buying surgical masks, Purell, and even swine flu “kits,” which are being sold on Amazon.com for $25. Here’s the rub from USA Today:
Among the items: masks, safety goggles, gloves, wipes and hand sanitizer. Company owner Ben Perl says he decided last weekend to make swine flu kits. “I’ve worked around the clock,” he says.
Of course, if you don’t want to spend all that dough — because hey, $25 is a pretty hefty price to pay for, you know, staying alive — the CDC has some handy tips that’ll help keep you safe. These are their actual tips:
1. Avoid close contact
2. Stay home when you’re sick
3. Cover your mouth and nose
4. Clean your hands
5. Avoid touching your eyes, nose or mouth
6. Practice other good health habits
Got all that? In other words: don’t be a slob, try to not stand really close to me when we’re talking, and maybe take up yoga (WTF, No. 6?).
Meanwhile, back in Mexico, officials are hot on the trail of Patient Zero. According to the LA Times, authorities are focusing on “a 4-year-old boy and a pig farm.”
The boy lived near a pig farm run by a U.S.-Mexican company, Granjas Carroll, in the municipality of Perote, in Veracruz state on the Gulf of Mexico. He contracted the disease on April 2, Cordova said, one of a group of residents who came down with what was at the time labeled a particularly bad case of the flu.
Well, hey, if that’s the case, and that nino really is the one responsible for all this insanity, then maybe the Israelis are onto something with this nugget:
The outbreak of swine flu should be renamed “Mexican” influenza in deference to Muslim and Jewish sensitivities over pork, said an Israeli health official Monday.
Deputy Health Minister Yakov Litzman said the reference to pigs is offensive to both religions and “we should call this Mexican flu and not swine flu,” he told a news conference at a hospital in central Israel.
First of all, Mr. Yakov Litzman, that’s racist! Secondly, ugh, fine, Mexican flu, it is.
And speaking of Mexican flu, let’s make one more run for the border for today’s last story. It comes to us from the Washington Post, and features Olympic divers! Ooh la la!
Nine U.S. divers competed last weekend at an event in Mexico City featuring the sport’s biggest stars and nearly two dozen Olympians. No one, however, showed up to watch the competition.
The U.S. diving team ran headlong into the scare over the outbreak of swine flu, which triggered the cancellation of Friday’s opening ceremonies and the barring of spectators from the 10,000-seat host arena during the two-day event. It also led to the distribution of medical masks to athletes, officials and arena workers.
Coaches were told to bump elbows rather than shake hands on the pool deck, athletes were ordered to stay in their hotel rooms when they weren’t competing and police guarded the arena to ensure fans did not sneak in.
There you have it, everyone. Be afraid, but for God’s sake, be safe! Don’t shake hands; bump elbows. Buy some Purell, and, please, whatever you do, don’t go watch any Olympic diving.
Mexican flu.
[...] November 10, 2009 by Dave And by that we mean: Billy Corgan, we don’t give a shit about your opinion. Billy’s the latest sort-of-famous person we’re adding to the category “Celebrities weighing in on something about which they have zero knowledge.” (The list includes Jenny McCarthy and anything, John Ratzenberger and health care, and Warren Beatty and the 2003 recall of Gray Davis.) This week’s topic: SWINE FLU! [...]