It is very difficult as a new parent to know for sure what is serious and what isn't. It must be difficult for doctors to know the difference between overreacting and underreacting parents too. When Brendon was only a few weeks old he had what I thought was much worse than a bad diaper rash. My doctor had me bring him in and he had a staph infection and had to be admitted to the hospital with a tiny IV in his head for days. At that point I could have easily turned into a parent that rushed to the ER at every sniffle.

It's tough. People should wash their hands more though. There has always been hand disinfectant stuff around doctor's offices, but this week when I was at a couple for training people the stuff was on every surface. And my doctors all had lame swine jokes. I didn't ask them their thoughts because I figured they had enough of that from their patients.

Yeah, parents are sort of in a no-win situation. If they rush to the doctor with every sniffle, people say they're overreacting, but if they go, "Eh, it's just a cold," and their kid dies of pneumonia then it's, "Why didn't you go to the doctor?"

But I still really, really doubt my friend's baby has swine flu.

But if there are cases confirmed in a school or a workplace or the like, I don't think closing the institution down until the risk of contagion has passed is an over reaction.

I think that it is an overreaction if the swine flu is no more virulent than the "regular" strains of flu (of which there are about 30,000 reported to the CDC every WEEK).

*Is* the H1N1 swine flu more virulent than the other flu strains already extant? From the data reported so far, it doesn't seem to be.

Again, I'm not suggesting the swine flu is bullshit, or that we should all go around getting up in the personal space of people who we know have it. But closing schools and businesses when there are only a few confirmed cases -- particularly things like Kristin's school closing for 14 days -- really seems like overkill to me, and all it serves to do is to stir up even more panic and overreaction.

(All that said, I'll probably get swine flu and lose a kidney or something, as divine retribution for my devil-may-care attitude here. Karma is a bitch.)

Gotta go get free comics now.

But I still really, really doubt my friend's baby has swine flu.

Yeah, wasn't disagreeing with that-- given your location and the fact that the baby's teething, which is enough to drive a parent over the edge in and of itself.

Has Jilli seen Making Fiends?

With the two students who had it here, they moved them to private dorm rooms. No classes canceled, since the diagnosis came at the end of the last day of classes, and finals are still going on as scheduled.

I took the survey and checked the "I'm unlikely to get it" box. Now I have the sniffles.

The survey is interesting -- it asked about diabetes -- and how likely I am to get it -- well I have it.

And if swine flu is out there, While I am not more likely to get it that anybody else that sees 100s of people everyday, I am more likely to get complications both due to diabetes and asthma. However, because I treat even a mild cold like I am VERY ILL, I take better care of myself when I am sick.

I think with only 1 case -- 14 days is crazy -- the incubation is 2 - 9 days ( I think) . But , on the other hand -- I'd like to say kids stay home with a fever,and I know too many kids that do go to school with fevers, so maybe closing schools is the only way.

I can't tell you how many times I've had an empolyee let me know after they arrived at work that they have a fever. Stay home people! I'd rather be short-handed than infected.

Didn't mean to start a debate. I do think that the CDC wouldn't recommend 7-10 days if they weren't really worried about mutation of this brand new virus, so I'm willing to go along with it. I'd rather be behind than sick, especially after my bout with pneumonia last year. I was in the hospital a year ago, so it's been on my mind. I don't know why the school would close for 14 days instead of 10, but I'm willing to go with whatever they decide is best in the event one of my students is diagnosed.