As I am writing this, we’ve just learned King County has been hit with its first suspected cases of swine flu. Several schools in the region have been shut down in precautionary measures, and officials in Kent are bracing for what could become the world’s next pandemic.
And I’m sitting here at my desk nursing the start of a cold.
Or is it a cold?
To me, this is the perfect example of how a lot of us will be thinking, now and for the next several months, as this virus runs its course across the map.
As far as my symptoms go, I’m not worried about it. It’s a cold until I have good reason to feel otherwise.
It’s also good to realize that in spite of the ominous headlines, Americans, by and large, seem to be handling the illness without much suffering.
According to the Associated Press, “so far in most U.S. cases people are recovering without even needing a doctor’s care.”
And at a Congressional hearing this week, Dr. Anne Schuchat of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stated the U.S. is up to the task of combatting the virus.
“At no time in our nation’s history have we been more prepared to face this kind of challenge,” she said.
While there isn’t a specific vaccine at this point, we have other medications that can boost our bodies’ immunities, as well as drugs designed to tackle viruses. For all intents, these seem to be working.
And while I’ve heard the correlation between swine flu and the Spanish flu (the illness that killed so many adults during World War I) we need to remember there is a difference between that era and our present one.
We’ve got more technology, better medication, mostly better nutrition (okay, Americans could be eating A LOT better) and more opportunities to receive health care.
This is not the Spanish flu.
In the meantime, as the shutdowns in Mexico have shown, the best thing we can do is to be ahead of the curve in prevention.
Avoiding the flu sure as heck beats getting over it.
This means practicing basic things: staying home when you are sick, washing your hands frequently, covering your mouth when you cough, taking vitamins and eating right.
As President Obama stated this week, it also means keeping your child at home, instead of taking them to daycare, if his or her school closes due to swine flu.
These next few weeks are going to be critical in how this country combats swine flu. Let’s all promise to take these preventative small steps, to avoid the bigger problem of spreading a major illness.
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