Welcome to Document 2

Welcome to Document 2. Please remove your shoes before entering. Once inside please relax and make yourself comfortable, an amusing anecdote will be along shortly, if you have any complaints about the service please report them to a member of staff who will be pleased to deal with your enquiry, here at Jeaunsetalk we take our clients opinions very seriously.

Important Notice: Jeaunsetalk regrets to inform its clients that there has been an unforeseen technical issue with the provision of amusing anecdotes, however the management is doing its utmost to resume normal service as soon as possible. In the interim there will be a series of ill thought out, biased and frustrated rants.

Swine Flu in India.

These days, I really look forward to the Times of India arriving each morning just prior to my breakfast, I have developed a morbid fascination with monitoring the ways in which the Indian media and the Indian government continue to get the whole H1N1 thing soo wrong. I keep meaning to make a list of the flatly contradictory statements that I find in every edition, provided to the readership under the guise of ‘education’, oh and a note of the governments astonishingly inept handing of the situation which appears to me to be carefully designed to maximize the spread, the mortality and panic amongst the population.

Firstly, the media here is taking every possible opportunity to use the word ‘Panic’ it occurs, not only on the front page every single day but also see pages 3,4,6,7 etc. Usually its printed in Bold, often in a nice spot colour so as to ensure that it has maximum impact, I mean, we wouldn’t want anybody to miss out on the fact that, for example there is no need to.... PANIC!!! now would we… This is nicely set off by the smug and self congratulatory tone with which we are informed that India is keeping the ‘dreaded’ and ‘virulent’ bug at bay whilst also berating the government for being ‘clueless’! Self appointed ‘experts’ are popping up everywhere telling people that, for example, if you take antivirals when you haven’t got the virus you’ll damage your vital organs. This morning I read that it is very important to wear masks, that only N95 spec masks work, that all masks are useless and all in the same paper.
To be fair there is some balanced comment and some commentators are now suggesting that it cant be stopped.
Yesterday I was told that the airport was using high tech ‘laser’ scanners to monitor all immigrants, indeed somebody who had recently arrived from Dubai told me that they had been ‘scanned’. This morning I read that Mumbai airport will be getting temperature monitors ‘soon’. There seems to be the generally held belief that the spread of the virus can be somehow ‘stopped’ and there are regular calls to the authorities to shut schools and ban gatherings in public places as if this will ‘stop’ the spread. I was told that ‘they did it in Mexico’ and it was successful…. Really? I see, so there is now no H1N1 in Mexico then…?

My colleagues reactions vary from ‘Couldn’t really care less’ ( a bit like me ) to ‘there is going to be a catastrophe’. There is real fear however, as many people do believe that the virus is ‘deadly’. There is absolutely no understanding of the difference between a bacterium and a virus, I really think that most people think the two are synonyms, lots of people think that Tamiflu is an antibiotic. There is also a confusion between the Common Cold and Seasonal Flu ( just as there is at home, the amount of times I’ve heard that somebody has a ‘touch of flu’ when all they have is a cold, the piss off is of course when you actually do have flu and you’re in bed for a few days people think you are a pathetic malingerer. Same with people who will insist on calling a headache a migraine, I bet that really gets on the tits of real migraine sufferers.
So I’m watching and waiting and am intrigued to see how this all pans out… Hey what do I know, they may even sort it out and prevent H1N1 from spreading.
Yeah right.