Why H1N1 cannot be contained?

In the first place, should H1N1 be contained? Should it be allowed to run its course? .... since many people laugh it off as just another harmless flu.

Well, schools are hotbeds for infections, and a very conducive one, if I may add. Confined and cooped up together for more than 6 hours together, it's not hard to see how infectious diseases can have a field day. Everyone rubbing shoulder (as in literally) to spread the disease! And kids are least likely to stay clear of each other.

So in a pandemic such as the one we're in.. our educational institutions would be the hotbeds for them to spread. Alor Setar has not been spared from the H1N1 spread too. The hospitals are full... the clinics too. People are worried. I am too. This wave of infection came about after the higher institutions closed due to H1N1. And the fully infectious people were sent home, back to their kampungs. The virus travelled with them. That helped sped up the infection rate. What were the people up there thinking?

Plus at some schools the measures just don't quite measure up. Students who are sick are not checked for their temperatures... the MOE's promise of gadgets to check temperatures still has not materialized. In some cases, the sick students are just left to mingle with the well ones. Masks are encouraged in some schools but students are not taught how to use them properly... in the end, the masks become a source of infection as well; as happened during the SARS outbreak. And you cannot expect small kids to use the masks and not be scratching their noses. Somehow the nose seems to itch a lot when you don a mask.

In my school, the absenteeism rate has been quite high... add that to the fact that the recalcitrant students are taking this opportunity to skip school, it's hard to know the actual figure. But going by just where I am and also those schools that I know of... I'd say many people are sick. I've not seen so many students falling sick at one time.

And how to contain too also when parents are more concerned about their children sitting for their tests (it's test season now). So, those with sick children let their children go to school. You know what they say... never mind, send them for the exam then we take them back. Even when their children are sick, education comes first! Can you beat that? Another Malaysia Boleh! We 'perah' our kids to the limit also? I find it so prevalent in my gal's school. Exams are like do or die thing. We are selfish cos we do not think that our children may cause other kids to fall very sick.....

So, those who are not sick catch the infection from the sick ones. The teachers also sow ignorance... cos they ask the sick kids to come to school to take their exams; how to contain? The vicious cycle perpetuates itself because of our kiasu-ness; all for the fear of missing out tests, that their kids are losing out. Wonder, wonder.... but while wondering I've decided to take my lil one out from school for a while. It's a difficult decision as it will affect her overall position... and she'll probably drop to a worse class.

And the increasing death toll (the DG says that is also expected to rise given the high number of those down with pneumonia in ICUs all over the country) does seem to paint a rather worrying picture. Today it stands at 32. Of course there are other diseases which kill but right now this cloud seems bigger. And also natural disasters. The Typhoon Marakot in Taiwan in one blow buried more than 500 under a mudslide. More lives lost there in couple of minutes than a month of H1N1!

Anyway, H1N1 can't be contained as long as we have this tidak-apa attitude. Either that or we wait for the virus to run its course... that's from my narrow viewpoint! BTW, the Chinese government says if there is a second wave, it'll most likely hit next August. Beats me how they came up with that assumption. Maybe they know something we don't.