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Wash Your Hands of Swine Flu

By David Topping

20090428swineflu.jpg
Photo of a sign on the door to the Scarborough Hospital on Monday by kingofthenerds from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.


Quick, everyone panic! According to the Globe, four “individuals…from the Toronto area [who] had recently travelled to Mexico” have been confirmed to be infected with the swine flu virus. You can find out a lot more about swine influenza from the World Health Organization, including answers to frequently asked questions, but it’s worth noting that, according to 680 News’ Breaking News email, all the Toronto cases are “mild.” How mild? We don’t know yet, but the Globe says that the two men confirmed to be infected with the swine virus in Alberta, both mild cases as well, didn’t need hospital visits; one man has “already recovered,” and another “has shaken off most of his symptoms.”
Which is all to say that right now, you’re probably better off washing your hands, doing the sleeve sneeze, and hoping that the Rolling Stones will come back to play another huge concert than freaking out.

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  • http://www.torontoist.com David Topping

    And according to the CBC—which says that of the four Toronto cases, “two were from the York region…and the other two were from the Durham region”—all thirteen Canadian cases thus far are mild, too. So there’s also that.

  • http://null Vincent Clement

    The fear factor at CNN and Headline News was ultra high. I think Lou Dobbs had a grin on his face when he said the flu could reduce trade across the Mexican-US border.
    People are making this to be a huge pandemic when it could have largely been avoided by washing our hands.

  • http://www.torontoist.com David Topping

    Well that was fast: the Star says that all four people have “since recovered.” But David Williams, “Ontario’s acting medical officer of health,” said that “Personally I know we are going to see a lot more cases.” Time to go wash my hands again!

  • http://null lloydalter

    It must be an American photoshop fake, they spelled traveled wrong.

  • http://null rek

    I think you mean travelled.

  • http://null Chester Pape

    No photoshop, I assure you, but I think you can assume that whomever on the SGH staff made the signs up was using a product from a certain company in Washington State with a US spell checker.

  • http://null Rachel Lissner

    I am sick of swine flu. I’ve survived anthrax, SARS, ebola, listeria, the DC snipers, bird flu, and West Nile virus and wish people will chill out.
    Or I might kill you, given my credentials.
    Aside from that, I really wish those inflicted well and hope this all goes away.

  • rapi

    according to ctv last night there are 4000 canadians who die of the flu every year…meantime there are only about 150 deaths in mexico…so should the travel ban be the other way around??

  • http://undefined rapi
  • http://www.bitpicture.com Marc Lostracco

    And 36,000 Americans die from the plain ol’ regular flu every year—13,000 since January of this year alone.

  • http://null Chris Orbz

    I don’t get all the media reports trying to reassure people by describing the cases as “mild”… while I certainly do hope the few people infected don’t get seriously ill and die, whether or not someone I’ve never met and will never meet dies isn’t my primary concern in a pandemic situation. Whether an otherwise perfectly healthy 20-something returning from Spring Break gets a little sick or quite sick, they’re not going to die – the concern is whether or not they’ve come into contact with just 1 person, their doctor, or 5000 people across 3 different countries and then their doctor. This info seems oddly absent when all these articles are supposed to be about the spread of an infectious disease.

  • http://null montauk

    hahahaha you are so awesome.