Swine Flu Checkup

RantWoman was checking in on old coworkers in Mexico City. Now that country has rolled back from swine flu lockdown (and the WHO is reporting 0 new cases in its latest update http://www.who.int/csr/don/2009_06_03/en/index.html),
the couple are enthusiastically enjoying tourism throughout Mexico. They are also visiting places RantWoman feels dopily sentimental about in connection with long-ago travels involving a whole busload of RantWoman's high school peers. RantWoman thus feels doubly motivated to sell people on tourism in Mexico.

(Looking at the WHO stats, one would get the idea that more than half of all identified cases worldwide have occurred in the US; RantWoman is not even going to speculate on what those numbers indicate although RantWoman is more than cynical enough to think those numbers do not tell the whole story by a long shot.)

It's cheap right now. Blame the bug and the "swan flude" social effects and probably the backwash of the global economic mess too, but there are plenty of reasons to love Mexico even without all that. Go. Spend money. Have a great time.

Closer to home, RantWoman is the sort of person who, when she has no brain cells for actual work still reads compulsively of the "good for you genre." King County Public Health offers multiple topical options in that genre here.
http://www.kingcounty.gov/healthservices/health/preparedness/pandemicflu/swineflu.aspx
These are PDF files and RantWoman has not tested them for good behavior with screen reader. As a bonus, some of the items are available in multiple languages to alert all your friends and neighbors and if you really feel like prosletyzing your fellow bus passengers as well.

RantWoman certainly has good intentions about reading some of them just as soon as.....


Postscript: tonight RantWoman was chatting up RantMom about RantMom's volunteer gig at (large local medical facility full of immunocompromised people). RantWoman is A LITTLE surprised in the days of swan flude to hear RantMom say one of the staffpeople she interacts with regularly had to be nagged repeatedly for several days to go to a doctor only to hear the words "walking pneumonia."

RantWoman thinks it's medically irresponsible of any health care provider to have a lot of staff especially temps or part-timers hanging around who do not have health insurance and enough of a cushion to go to a doctor when needed. That is another whole tirade and heaven only knows what else was keeping this person from just STAYING HOME, but...