H1N1 in RP!

The Straits Times, 26 June 2009

An open letter to Mr H1N1
You're a sneaky little fellow, unlike Mr Sars who was upfront with us
By Bertha Henson, Associate Editor

DEAR Mr H1N1,

First question: What are you? They say you are a combination of human, bird and pig material. So are you more man than bird? Are you just chicken and what sort of swine, please?

You've been sliced, diced and spliced and it seems we are still pretty slow at coming up with a weapon to break down your internal defences.

You know, the Sars bug was rather more upfront with us. At least, it did not sneak up on us, quietly colonise clusters and lurk around in our insides. Rapidly, we knew its intentions - it wanted to hurt people bad, kill them and those who come close to them, including the medics.

So, we launched a full-scale frontal assault against Sars. Ring-fence the island. Isolate the victims. Quarantine the contacts. A lot of disinfectant and discipline later, we won and the disease died.

But you, Mr H1N1, are a different kettle of fish.

You sowed so much confusion worldwide when you suddenly turned up on Planet Earth in April. You conned the health authorities worldwide and here into thinking that you could do a lot of damage by your initial attacks on Mexico.

We thought you were the second coming of Sars.

We held our breaths as the pandemic siren sounded...3, 4, 5...

Then when it blared out 6, we wondered if we should really go hiding in our bomb shelters, or risk a peek out.

The truth is, while you've managed to invade huge swathes of land, you can be mild as a kitten. In some parts of the world, you act more like a sneaky illegal immigrant than an evil invader.

But you seem to be picking off the easy targets: pregnant women and those who are already suffering in some other way. Shame on you.

Over here, you keep attacking our young people, but they keep bouncing back. It must be demoralising to know that their force-field hasn't shattered.

As for our older people, I suppose you gave up even thinking of tackling them because, chances are, they've met your like before - even if they do not know it.

Is that you causing that itch in my throat? Did you just force me to sneeze? Not you? Maybe?

I guess I'll know when the white lab coats are done bleeding me and poking stuff up my nose and down my throat.

In any case, thank you for not making us on this side of the world vomit and purge. You seem to prefer inflicting that sort of pain on the Americans.

(By the way, have you realised that they've decided that you are no longer news and are treating you like some common terrorist?)

But, still, you're not playing fair.

With Sars, at least we knew exactly when the bug hit, because we started burning up. You, on the other hand, have the camouflage skills of a chameleon, so good that even the white lab coats have difficulty locating you and flushing you out.

Apparently, you are so lizard-like, they can't even tell if you are dead or alive.

How can we unleash our secret weapon on you when we don't know where you are? Mind you, we prefer not to waste our precious Tamiflu bullets and run down our stockpile.

So what are we to do with you, Mr H1N1?

So far, we've coloured ourselves Yellow, although, really, we're not. Serious.

We did go all Orange, but decided that maybe, you didn't deserve such close surveillance. It's tough for the troops to be on high alert all the time. They'll turn blue in the face.

We've decided that we should form militias, and send them to the front lines to confront you. They're armoured, mind you. Masked, gowned, gloved and even specially shod. Plus, they each carry a thermometer.

They call themselves the PPC, short for Pandemic Prevention Clinic.

We've kept the specialist troops for the time when they're really needed. Please note that they are battle-hardened veterans of the war against Sars - so you'll have a hard time coming up against them even if you do get past the militia.

We've also decided that the children should still go to school on Monday, but there will be guards at the gate to make sure you don't take it into your head to sneak in as one of them.

Try it, and you will be unceremoniously tossed out and banned for up to seven days. Even if you manage to get a host body, let's see how you fare with the twice daily temperature roll-call.

And don't think that just because we have to shut a class or two, a school or more, here and there, now and then, that our students can't ace the International Mathematics Olympiad.

They'll be boning up on their lessons at home, unless another one of your viral friends decides to attack us on the cyber flank. But let's not go there yet.

Just to let you know, some of us have been confined to our homes, because we took the chance of venturing into countries that we did not know had been designated as 'war-torn'.

But we are not really sure what to do at home. Should we still be sleeping with our spouses and hugging the baby?

And even though we are in war mode, we still worry about whether our bosses will count those days as medical leave (yay!). Or no-pay leave (yet another pay cut...). Or annual leave (which none of us have enough of).

I suppose better the option of staying home, than the pain we have had to inflict on others who landed on our sunny isle in the hopes of a Uniquely Singaporean experience. Instead of visiting the Orchard Road malls for the Great Singapore Sale, they are staring at four walls and the television set. At least, they are not in Guantanamo Bay. Just in Aloha Loyang.

Anyway, we know you're already here.

The thing now is to decide if we should adopt the American strategy, and ignore you. Or keep to the Asian way, which is to terminate you with extreme prejudice.

In any case, Mr H1N1, you know you're not welcome.

Regards, Just a Singaporean



Found this interesting from my school webmail. Hahaha. (:
My school today had 18 cases of confirmed cases of H1N1! FYI, it was 9 cases ytd. See how rapidly it spreads? And can you imagine I'm still in school risking the contracting of the virus? (TOUCH WOOD) Saw in the mail that the RP students were being rejected by the cabs when heard that the destination was RP. How funny lah!