In Flew Enza

The flu has finally hit our house....though whether it's swine flu, or just ordinary flu is as yet unknown. Of course there's concern, and we're taking some precautions, but we assume that a dose of Tamiflu will knock it on the head, swine flu or not.

I think the worst thing about the whole swine flu business is that in the beginning the health authorities called it a pandemic when it wasn't. And then they decided we could all just get on with it and carry on regardless, treating it as just another flu we'd have to deal with, as we deal with flu every year.

But now they're saying, in effect, they don't really have much idea what's going on. In a Guardian article they're saying now they're surprised by the spread of the virus in the UK. Surprised? I thought this was a pandemic a few weeks back. Why would they be surprised?

I'm more surprised that Alan Hay, the head of the World Influenza Centre would say something like this: The flu surveillance community had been "caught napping" by the emergence of the swine flu outbreak as most resources were concentrated on guarding against a bird flu pandemic.

They were concentrating on a bird flu pandemic? That's so two years ago. Where have these guys been?

PS. Just got the Tamiflu tablets, and in the instruction sheet it has this to say:
Keep your Tamiflu tablets in the blister pack until it is time to take them. If you take the capsules out of blister pack they may not keep well.

I'm sure the person writing this meant that the tablets won't keep well in the sense that they won't be as effective over time. However, on first reading it read to me that the tablets, poor things, won't keep well. I thought they were supposed to make the human well!