Apr 28
Casting my pearls
Today was the day that Pig Death Flaming Doom Syndrome struck Scotland.
Pig.
Death.
Flaming.
Doom.
Or Swine Flu. Or Swine Fever, or something. I kinda prefer the term “Swine Fever”, because it makes me think of pigs in white sequinned suits dancing in a 70’s stylee.
All together now…
“Swine fever, swine fever, we know how to do it…”
This morning I listened to the media tell us: “Death! Pig death! Pigs lick you and you die! People in Scotland are dying RIGHT NOW! Don’t eat bacon sandwiches! Or watch Green Acres! Don’t read Charlotte’s Web! Don’t eat Mexican food! Don’t even think Mexican thoughts! Have you ever enjoyed a pinata? You’re gonna dieeeeee”
And then I went into work, where there was a bulletin issued that said “Well…yeah…there might be a wee bit of death. You should all wear sensible PPE, face mask, big white suit that makes you look a bit like a 90’s rave reject and goggles. Oh…and gloves…and totally wear these before you go in - that’s if the patient has been to any of the following places and has flu-like symptoms. We’re not sure how you’re meant to know if the patient is a Swine Fever risk (and thusly, that you should put on your PPE) without talking to them first. Hmmm…that might be an issue…ooh, look, kittens!”
And with that, the bulletin ran out of the room, then came back to shout “Also, don’t take them to A&E! Leave them at home!” before pointing at the kittens again and running away with “Peeeyoing” noises, leaving little clouds of dust.
It’s hard to take an impending pandemic seriously when the radio keeps saying “The people who have been tested positive for this, who we described as “well and stable” this morning have been improving in their condition all day.”
The media is, effectively, saying “You should be really, really scared about this disease, because the people that have got the disease? They’re not very sick at all. Really. They have the sniffles.”
But, you know, we’re professionals, so we assessed each call as it came up, thinking “Does this sound like someone who might have Swine Fever?”
And then we decided that, no, the 92 year old woman who’d fallen out of bed? Probably not just back from Cancun. And the man whose heart was beating a hundred and eighty times a minute? Probably isn’t phoning because he was all shivery and feeling a bit down-in-the-dumps.
The thing that made me laugh most, however, was the big posters on the front door of both the ED and PlayMobil Hospital. The posters on the door of the ED said “If you are the sort of person that the ambulance service might have to wear silly clothes for? Please tell us right now before walking around licking patients or coughing on people. Thanks”
The sign at PlayMobil hospital said “If you have recently returned from Mexico, USA, Canada or New Zealand, please inform reception.”
Which is brilliant, because NOBODY else was saying anything about New Zealand. I think PlayMobil Hospital was just totally against Kiwi people.
They’re just exploiting the medico-political situation, I tell you.*
*Is absolutely not true - I’m sure PlayMobil Hospital are dead nice, non racist people.
April 28th, 2009 at 8:23 pm
I’m sure that couple from Polmont are lying in bed, drinking tea and eating Hob Nobs and knotting themselves laughing at the media hype. “Look! Reporters are outside the hospital waiting for us to ……sneeze?!”
April 28th, 2009 at 8:29 pm
Hi Kal,
Sorry to do this on a comment but I cannot locate an email for you!
I am the administrator of an EMS/ER blog carnival called “The Handover” its only been running for 3 months so far but is really picking up speed. I am trying to compile an email list of all relevant bloggers who may wish to contribute posts/host future editions and I was wondering if you would be interested?
Its all above board, this is no scam, but its a fab way of promoting your blog to like minded readers. Kim from emergiblog has just hosted edition 3, and Michael at rescuing providence is hosting edition 4 at the end of May. More details can be found on my blog. If you would like to become part of “The Handover” community, we would love to have you.
My email is mglencorse@yahoo.co.uk
April 28th, 2009 at 8:42 pm
Speaking to my brother on the phone last night, he said he felt a bit fluey and had checked out swine flu online. Has he been abroad this year, never mind to the affected areas? No. Does he know anyone who’s been to the affected areas? No. Does he know anyone who knows anyone…? No.
Man flu then!
April 28th, 2009 at 8:44 pm
never had to “dress up” to transport a patient with suspected VHF? That is some serious PPE. Could barely contain the laughter when I saw that gear!
April 28th, 2009 at 8:59 pm
You remember or even KNOW Greenacres. I loved that programme can not believe it maybe you are not so young as you make out or just better cultured than realised
hehehehe
By the way l wish they would stop blaming pigs for this outbreak. I understand that it came about as the first people to get it lived near a smelly pig farm.
April 28th, 2009 at 9:39 pm
we’re calling it bacon cough in my A&E
April 28th, 2009 at 9:58 pm
“Green Acres?” My father, Richard L. Bare, 95, directed every “Green Acres” ever made. I grew up on that set. There were seven seasons and six different Arnolds. And they were so smart. What a hoot!
April 28th, 2009 at 11:10 pm
I keep trying to write lucid and intelligent comments and the whisky is getting in the way….
I am torn between “virologist Mercury” who wants to tell everyone that if it is a true epidemic then it does have the potential to be REALLLY nasty (with three Ls, that’s how bad it will be),and Mercury who spent her day being fucked around and totally enable to do her job because everyone in the greater Glasgow area is panicking needlessly and running to their GP because they can’t distinguish a hangover from the flu.
Damn that whisky….
April 28th, 2009 at 11:21 pm
NZ have too many cases here!!! Damnit we are more isolated than Scotland - how did we get hit so fast lol
Interesting someone up there actually noticed this!
I have started contingency plans - it is already here in Christchurch… I can see a holiday from work looming as a pandemic response kicks in - work will close… I will be forced to teach online - at home, with my feet up - hopefully with no more than a mild snivel and a headache! Dreams are free.
April 28th, 2009 at 11:39 pm
Oh crap!!!!!!!!!!!!
1. not long back from usa
2. drank maragaritas
3. got bacon in the fridge
I’M DOOMED!. Doomed i tell ya!!….
April 29th, 2009 at 8:17 am
Ooh, Piggy Flu. We spent all day at work talking about it. I’m looking forward to dying of something interesting and getting my name in the Daily Mail!! sniff…
April 29th, 2009 at 8:19 am
Oh K! In the stylee of the Heat magazine letters page you made me choke on my cinnamon bagel!
April 29th, 2009 at 9:41 am
It could be worse - it could make you turn into a Piggy Person, like the ones on Dr Who when the Daleks got them… actually, it probably is a cunning plan by the Daleks… that one was set during the Depression…… OMG!!!!!!!!!!
April 29th, 2009 at 10:32 am
I really, really want a bacon sandwich now. But I’m worried that if I go to the shop to buy some I’ll be instantly surrounded by the folks in those hazmat suits…
April 29th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
you can have my bacon when you pry it from my cold dead fingers
April 29th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
My husband’s response to Russia banning pork imports? Oh, good, all the more for me, then. I am tempted to go and stand outside the local newspaper’s office, wearing a sombrero and sneezing loudly. Just to see what they’d do ….
April 29th, 2009 at 2:51 pm
FORSOOTH!! ALAS, IT”S THE END OF THE WORLD WE”RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!!!!!!!
*ahem* Pardon my MMORPG moment there. See, being a hermit? It’s all good.
April 29th, 2009 at 4:38 pm
[…] So anyways, I was going to blogg about ‘Pig Fever’ but someone more ‘in the know’ beat me to it. Ignore me, go visit Kal. Tis good. Tis very, very good. […]
April 29th, 2009 at 5:28 pm
“Crews seeing patients who’ve been to mexico the past seven days should wear a mask and eye protection”. Trust me, we’re way ahead of management on this one. Someone being ill after a trip to mexico could have brought with them worse things than a mild flu.
April 29th, 2009 at 5:29 pm
Great post, careful on the disease nomenclature though :). Swine Fever (Classical - CSF, or African - ASF) is caused by a totally different virus to Swine Influenza and causes a different illness in pigs. Swine Fever is caused by a virus of the family Flaviviridae genus Pestivirus and affects pigs and wild boar. Different ball game entirely [in so far as vet medicine is a ball game] to Influenza viruses…
April 29th, 2009 at 8:16 pm
Me again… Am I the only one thinking that now would be a great time to get a really cheap holiday to Mexico?! So you might get piggy flu as a souvenier, beats a papier mache donkey!
April 29th, 2009 at 10:26 pm
I’ve already been harangued by a pair of frothing, raving English ramblers who screamed: “Your pigs are threat to the human race! They should be taken away. They have deadly diseases. Look what’s happening in Mexico!”
I think the pigs were more at risk from the ramblers than the other way around.
Here’s the full story…
http://stonehead.wordpress.com/2009/04/27/your-pigs-are-a-threat-to-the-human-race/
April 29th, 2009 at 10:49 pm
According to the comments on the website of the Province, our local rag, swine flu would never have happened if we had leagalised weed. Trust West Coast Canada to come up with a good solution. Also apparently it only strikes blondes. Mexico being noted for it`s large blonde population…
April 30th, 2009 at 3:54 am
There is such a dirty Miss Piggy joke in all this Swine flu.
But, I shall refrain.
April 30th, 2009 at 6:55 am
I was howling with laughter after getting to the “oooh, look, kittens” part which seems to have been the universal approach by most trust’s…absolutely brilliant!
April 30th, 2009 at 8:04 am
By the way, swine fever is a completely different disease to swine influenza. (Although I was amused by the idea of putting my Berkshire pigs into white sequinned suits!)
And what’s causing all the hysteria is not actually swine influenza virus (SIV) anyway.
It’s a new strain of human influenza A virus, subtype H1N1, with genetic elements from the North American avian influenza virus, the North American SIV and the European SIV. It’s a mutation, and not SIV. (I’m surprised the media hasn’t picked up on this more as “Mutant Flu” sounds far more scary and would sell far better than “Swine Flu”.)
Anyway, Investigations of infected patients have apparently found no direct contact with pigs and the new strain appears to be entirely transmitted between humans. (Bird flu in 2006 was transmitted from birds to humans.)
Apologies for being pedantic, but I’m getting a lot of fallout from people who think the headlines of “swine flu” means pigs are to blame in some way.
April 30th, 2009 at 10:43 am
At last someone this morning mentioned the fact that pandemic doesn’t equal absolutely fatal - it means it spreads quickly, faster than some defined rate. It can be very mild, so can any influenzal-type illness, but the problem is that we do not yet have any immunity as it is NEW and there will be some deaths but how many can’t be forecast at this point. You’d have thought after the SARS and the avian flu scares there would be the odd journalist out there who understood the problems by now but I suppose that doesn’t sell copy does it.
I liked the interview with the parent who said there was “something about them getting viral injections” - helping it spread even faster then? Or did he really mean ANTI-viral injections?
April 30th, 2009 at 2:40 pm
We should all phone up work and say we have swine flu and then go to mexico (and maybe put on sequinned suits and dance).
April 30th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
I shall be emulating John ‘old spot’ Serjeant in due course… cough, sneeze, oink::::::…
April 30th, 2009 at 6:34 pm
I’ve taken to calling it Bacon Lung.
The ED at work was PACKED last night, I can only imagine how this is going to develop…mmm, panic. I want to refer every one of those patients to this website: http://doihaveswineflu.org/
April 30th, 2009 at 8:52 pm
Ahh - I’ve been put on the SwineLine at work tonight(otherwise known as the NHS Scotland Swine Flu Information Line) - my job basically appears to be to repeat the information back at people until they understand that standing next to an asylum seeker at ED is not a known method of transmission. Oh, and dealing with the odd person who has actually been in contact with it!
Ah, the wonders of working here…
April 30th, 2009 at 8:56 pm
At work today (in central London) we discussed travelling on the Tube, or not, as apparently all 96,000 Londoners who are going to die in this epidemic will catch it on the London Underground (or something).
We’ve decided that the most sensible thing to do is to keep travelling on the Tube, but wear a sombrero, eat a bacon sandwich, and cough a lot. That way you’ll get the whole carriage to yourself !
April 30th, 2009 at 11:13 pm
You remember Baldrick from Blackadder? When he was told not to tell anyone where Blackadder was hiding, he said to the searching foes “No, I don’t know where he is, but he’s definitely not in that trunk over there.” It reminds me of the media over Swine Flu. Shouting “the government have strongly advised the public not to panic” only incites panic. Fabulous.
Of course, I’ve never heard of the government advising people to panic, either, but you know what I mean!
May 1st, 2009 at 12:48 pm
Nutters. :O)
May 2nd, 2009 at 9:28 pm
Just the latest end of the earth story to help the “News”papers sell their “Newspapers”. It’ll go like SARS and Bird Flu did…constant stories and then all of a sudden nothing…Already 3 people are in the sick book at work with “suspected swine flu” as the reason for absence…wouldn’t like to be them when they get back to work!
May 2nd, 2009 at 10:34 pm
[…] similar thing seems to be happening within the NHS. I think that Kal describes it quite nicely. In one sentence, we’re being told to don PPE and wash obsessively. In the next, […]