<p>If Spanish flu came back again, it would be almost as bad as it was then. Unlike Ebola, flu is very contagious, and we don’t have any magic to cure a cytokine storm. So I hope the next pandemic is something less lethal.</p>
<p>The NYC transit authority started broadcasting today its system-wide guidelines on the proper procedure for sneezing on the bus or train. So were all good on the flu here!</p>
<p>That is the flip side of the Ebola mess - maybe people will be more cautious about washing hands and not coming to work when they are sick as a dog!</p>
<p>I would like all of my coworkers who have kids with stomach viruses to stay home. I live in mortal terror of those and they end up in my office every winter.</p>
<p>There’s a proper procedure for sneezing? How about into a tissue, or worse case scenario, muffled into one’s shoulder/armpit area?</p>
<p>Can definitely agree that sick people should stay home!</p>
<p>“There’s a proper procedure for sneezing? How about into a tissue, or worse case scenario, muffled into one’s shoulder/armpit area?”</p>
<p>Yup, that’s what pictured on the posters (courtesy of the local health department) that Metro put on my bus! 
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<p>I hear reports that some college professors who have been telling their students that a missed class could result in a lower grade changed their attitude about attendance and now beg flu stricken students to stay home. :)</p>
<p>Jym, there is a system-wide broadcast that talks about turning the head away from others, sneezing into the bend of elbow and discarding tissues. New this week for our listening information!</p>
<p>That is great. Maybe employers will also reevaluate their sick leave policies. Would you want to be the company that contributed to the spread of Ebola because your workers didn’t have paid time off?</p>
<p>“Can definitely agree that sick people should stay home!”</p>
<p>Last year a cashier at my market was obviously sick. I complained (in a nice way) to the store manager. I know grocery workers are hourly and don’t get paid if they don’t work, but I really resented the cashier sniffling and sneezing over me and all my groceries. </p>
<p>I have complained about that too. I used to sit near a super-stoic coworker who would NEVER take sick leave, even when he was practically coughing up a lung. Finally it dawned on me how selfish he was, and spoke up.</p>
<p>“Maybe employers will also reevaluate their sick leave policies”</p>
<p>At Mr’s place of employment, employees do not have a dedicated sick leave, just PTO, but every year, between Oct and April, the company gives everyone x paid “flu” days. A note from the doctor is needed for leaves longer than 3 days. With colds and flu, it is easy to tell who’s been sick and who’s been skiing, so the flu leave does not get abused. :)</p>
<p>Remember that, so far, they say Ebola isn’t contagious until he “is symptomatic and shedding the virus.” </p>
<p>I think most of us can hop on the “if you’re sick stay home” bandwagon. </p>
<p>Which, of course, is easy for people who are not working hourly jobs to say. I’ve already had two undergrads in my lab come down with strep. They thankfully stayed home as soon as symptoms showed and went to their doctors to get sick notes for classes. I’m hoping this is a trend. </p>
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<p>Of course I would send her. We actually know a LOT about Ebola and how it is spread, and last I checked you can’t get it from third-hand contact. (You really have to get bled on or puked on…) If the possible infected persons are a teacher who was “suspected of having contact with an affected person" and a teacher who was on a different flight “but perhaps the same aircraft” as Vinson - well, of course it’s safe to go to school. </p>
<p>You know what scares me more than Ebola? All the unvaccinated children out there, the ones who can carry/transmit measles and mumps and the flu. (There’s a community here in Michigan currently experiencing an outbreak of mumps.) What about enterovirus D68 - that’s scarier than Ebola right now (more kids have died of entero than have died of Ebola, but I guess it’s not “sexy” enough.)</p>
<p>When my D was in second grade, a perfectly healthy classmate of hers died of the flu. Alive one day, dead the next morning - the virus attacked her heart and she died. Twenty to thirty thousand people die of the flu every year, but I guess influenza isn’t sexy enough either, as diseases go.</p>
<p>Yes, enterovirus D68 is related to chronic Lyme, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Fibromyalgia and can make any person’s life a living hell, giving them essentially chronic mono or worse. There is no understanding of who gets it, who is spared, how it is spread, tho there a many theories circulating. It has been known about for decades but very little progress has been made on diagnosis and treatment.</p>
<p>Unvaccinated people pose a HUGE risk to themselves, their communities and the many medically fragile who can’t get vaccinated due to their fragility.</p>
<p>Like I said above, my kids played with kids with AIDS. Yes, I would send them.</p>
<p>My relatives treated AIIDS patients, much to my parents’ great concern. None of them got AIDS, even tho they handled bodily fluids and the like. It is part of being in the medical profession and they were as careful as they were trained to be.</p>
<p>There are rumors (from people who would know, not just gossip) that the health system I work for is going to make those of us who have the chance of coming into contact with infectious fluid do additional “Ebola training”. </p>
<p>I’m an HIV counselor. If someone is infected with Ebola, they are not coming to me to get tested. I don’t have anything to do with blood (we use the oral test) and I don’t touch their saliva sample. But again, I work for a health system that has already had a EV-D68 death and the silence around that is deafening. </p>