I can’t imagine there is anyone on earth that has not heard about the latest epidemic called the "swine flu." It’s even become one of the MOST talked about topics on twitter. Wow. It’s like the plague.
You know something is bad when a country like Egypt orders the slaughter of ALL pigs, roughly 300,000, as a PRECAUTION. I mean, seriously, they had no reason to suspect that it would spread to them but said "hey, to be safe, lets just KILL them all." Not for food, not for our survival, just to be on the safe side. A bit extreme wouldn’t you say?
When I think precaution, I think a vaccine or rigorous testing of all animals and food but death to all…not so much. To me, playing it safe would be ordering all residents in the area to be checked and vaccinated to protect them from the flu. I wonder…did they slaughter all the cows when the epidemic was "mad cow" disease? How many other countries are on the track?
What would happen if someone living there had leprosy? Would they destroy the whole city, taking it back to biblical times? Hmm what would Jesus do? Ahh just kill them all. In my world this would be known as a "red flag." A big one.
But this fear is hitting closer to home than most would like to believe. Locally, two high schools were shut down in Ft. Lauderdale because a few students were believed to be infected. Lets be happy they just closed schools.
At my graduation, my mother repeatedly reminded me not to hug ANYONE or shake their hands…just in case. She had me so spooked I almost cried when they guy sitting next to me informed me he had just gotten back from Mexico…he was just kidding. I think. Even my school took the precaution of sanitizing ALL students hands before walking on stage. These, to me, were reasonable ways to play it safe. A bit much was our graduation gift from the school, a bottle of hand sanitizer.
I’m hoping it’s due to the flu and not because MDC thinks the students could use a little sanitation. But hey, that’s between us.
Jennifer M Lima 