Health Warning

From a school district newsletter:

"We continue to see cases of H1N1 or flu-like illnesses"

Now there's a surprise. One's a pandemic and 'tis the season to get sniffles (falalalala lalalala).

Vaccination

Americans love vaccinations.

Year after year, the norm seems to be for everyone, adults and children alike, to get vaccinated for seasonal 'flu, thereby protecting themselves against one more illness their bodies could easily fight off unaided.

The Swine 'Flu epidemic has therefore got people in a real panic, and medics (undoubtedly aided and abetted by pharmaceutical companies) are encouraging people - including pregnant women, I might add - to get a Swine 'Flu jab as well as their usual seasonal 'flu vaccination.

This is patently ridiculous, not least because the Swine 'Flu vaccine is not effective in protecting the only sectors of the population - young children and the aged - likely to suffer ill effects from contracting the disease.

Don't get me wrong: I'm all in favour of immunisation, especially since it has helped eradicate many serious illnesses that we simply couldn't survive otherwise. But I do feel that knee-jerk vaccination is one of the reasons why Americans have a far higher prevalence of allergies - i.e. over-reaction by their immune systems to harmless substances - than Europeans, for example.

Avoiding Infection

Americans are obsessed with cleanliness, being safe and personal space. Shopping trolley handles are sanitised, towels are used only once, children are routinely encouraged to "make good choices", and hugging is the greatest sign of affection you can get from the locals (why else did you think the "high five" was so popular?). Even children are forbidden from kissing each other at school.

Not surprisingly therefore, the Swine Flu* outbreak has raised fears of physical contact and infection to near-panic levels. Although it appears that the virus is no more dangerous than the common cold**, the fact that it is now officially approaching pandemic level*** has seen entire school districts closed willy-nilly, and children who have visited Mexico being barred from attending school for 7-10 days.

Most bizarre and yet quintessentially American among the kneejerk reactions I have come across thus far is an article entitled "Don't Gimme Five!" that appeared today on the NPR Web site. Apart from passing on the nigh-impossible advice of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention that people "maintain a 3 to 6-foot distance" from one another (though not the CDC's recommendation that people wear facemasks and use respirators in crowded areas), the article lists in text and large images what you should and should not do at the present time.

Handshakes, kissing and hugging are definitely out. So too is the young person's greeting of choice: the hand- or fist-bump. In their place are odd, contrived greetings like the wave, the foot smack (i.e. footsie), the curtsy and the forearm-to-forearm bump favoured by TV "warrior princess" Xena.

Don't forget your ruler!

But my hands-down favourite for the title of Daftest Quasi-Greeting Of All Time has got to be the self-hug.

Whatever will they think of next?

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* Following a complaint from the pork industry that the name "Swine Flu" could cause a downturn in sales, the illness has officially been renamed "novel influenza A (H1N1)", though one plucky Reuters correspondent has suggested several more witty names, including "Bacon's Revenge" and "The Flu Formerly Known as Swine Flu".

** The only two deaths in the US so far have been of a 22-month infant and a person who already had chronic underlying health problems.

*** Even Phase 6, the highest level on the WHO's influenza infection scale, merely indicates that there is widespread human infection and says nothing about how deadly a flu virus is.