Oh ... my ... goodness. I've been griping about wanting to take a vacation for a while now, but certain stars are aligning the wrong way so that I'm more than a bit fearful of our upcoming family trip to Malaysia. The problem is that there are an estimated 1 million cases of (A)H1N1/swine flu in the United States and less than a hundred in Malaysia. The Malaysian authorities are understandably concerned about the virus spreading to their country from the United States. But this morning we got a call from a family member asking us if we were going to cancel our trip because of a rumored quarantine requirement for all visitors from the States. Really? They've got to be kidding me! (Thankfully, I've checked online and couldn't find any authoritative substantiation to that rumor, and sent an e-mail to the U.S. embassy in KL to check.)
Anyway, I am not looking forward to answering "swine flu" questions in Malaysia, and am a little anxious that people are actually going to eye us with suspicion just because we travelled from the United States. Never mind that despite those 1 million cases of the flu in the United States, less than 200 have died. Even the 3,000 hospitalizations mean that just 0.3% of all infected people actually end up in the hospital, and even then its mostly for monitoring.
Why is it that paranoia about swine flu seems to be even greater in Malaysia than here? Sheesh ... I'm exasperated and I'm not even there yet!
4 comments:
you know.. those dirty, filthy first world citizens polluting our clean environment... :-)
I was at the mall last night watching Cora in the play area with all the other little kids. They had hand sanitizer available, but boy ... if there was ever a place to spread a virus!
Ok, just want to post an update that our experience in Malaysia was pleasant, even with the flu examination crowd on entry. Yes, there was some signs of paranoia, but not as bad as I had feared ... thankfully!
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