Just stay at home!

Here we are, still enjoying summer but already being prepared by the media for a flu epidemic of a special kind.

We now know that there will not be enough flu vaccine on the island to cover the whole population. Thanks to some specialists we also know what medication we have to take.

But what I have missed so far is some basic information in order to avoid an epidemic outbreak:

1) When you feel the first symptoms of flu, stay at home!

2) Do not pump yourself or your children up with paracetamol or asprin and head to work or send the kids to school. All you manage to do is to make sure that you are spreading your virus around.

3) Avoid closed areas with climate control. Climate control systems simply circulate the existing air but do not filter the air from bacteria or viruses. Every year we have a flu outbreak. Every year you find sick people still at their workplaces sniffing and coughing, popping in one Panadol after another. Every year we eventually find classrooms half empty due to children who were sent to school anyway, either not to miss out on lessons or simply because both parents are working. Every year you find people at the cinema or at night clubs coughing and sneezing down your neck.

Oh yes, and every year the pharmaceutical industry gets richer by selling to millions of consumers worldwide something for the throat, something for the nose, something for the cough and something for the fever and the headaches.

Perhaps, due to the bird flu scare, people will finally change their bad habits and - for the sake of every single one of us - stay at home in bed when they are ill.