I’m wondering a little why there isn’t more alarm over what must be a full blown flu epidemic. I’ll bet more than a million people have the flu, and many of them just haven’t seen a doctor about it yet. It must be really hard not to get the flu if you had to commute daily on an overcrowded bus or train.
So those tens of thousands they’ve counted at just the polyclinics? Tip of the flu iceberg. Naomi and I haven’t been well since mid-December, and Kai’s currently down with a bug as well. Several friends have also reported being sick all January, with the same deal: sore throat, cough, gets better, then nose goes haywire, post nasal drip causes another round of sore throat and cough. It’s never ending, and I swear I’ve been reinfected just waiting my turn in the two clinics I’ve alternated between these two months.
And who are these experts who say that “the flu strain has not become more severe since the pandemic in 2009”? Are they the same people who advocate checking for mosquito breeding by sending NEA agents door to door like they did this morning when Kai was sitting on his potty?
More than half of the units in my apartment block are vacant – deserted. And so when NEA mosquito agents come a-knocking and no one’s in, the empty apartments are automatically given a clean bill of health, I assume. I’ve asked the agents before: No one compels the owners to come and open up their premises for inspection. If you and your domestic helper aren’t home, you’re clear.
A neighbour in a landed property behind our condo has a disused swimming pool which appeared to be a cause for alarm last year when we contacted the NEA, who told us the house “belongs to two doctors, and they rear fish, and there are no mosquito larvae in the pool, we checked”.
I asked this morning’s NEA agent about the neighbour again, because they seemed to have pumped out most of the water from the pool, and from what I can see, there aren’t any fish any more, and all’s left is a stagnant pool of what’s probably rainwater. The NEA agent said, “Yeah, we know, they are two doctors. We checked before”.
So I asked, “Did you check again?”, prompting the answer, “Yeah, we check before”.
I didn’t have time to pursue the matter – Kai was getting antsy on his potty. There wasn’t any stagnant water in there either.
I’m sick of being sick, and it’s about time the authorities stopped saying it’s no big deal and get everyone to be slightly more alarmed about the situation. I have an almost two-year old toddler and we don’t want him to go through what he did with dengue or any other life-threatening communicable infection again.
