Business as usual
SUDHA UMASHANKER IN CHENNAI
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After the initial panic, there is a mood of cautious watchfulness.
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In a country in which sections of people still don’t think twice before coughing in your face or blowing their noses with their hands or spitting in public, the swine flu scare seems to have had an impact. From the odd person sporting a mask an
d to people covering their faces with a hanky or dupatta, the change is perceptible. The initial fear psychosis as news of fatalities trickled in is now giving way to a “wait and watch” attitude after taking the necessary precautions. For Government hospitals, this is a golden opportunity to reinvent themselves.
Reading up
Forewarned is forearmed and people have certainly become more aware. People know where to find their information. And there is no dearth of it on the Net, in the print and electronic media and in the mobile world.
From all indications, life is pretty normal with no fall in attendance at educational institutions. And as for establishments in the industrial sector and the entertainment industry, it’s business as usual. Citizens are certainly not cooped up indoors or fleeing the place. Says Maria Gislen, a Swedish national who heads a school for underprivileged children, “We have told parents not to send children to school if they have caught a cold or are running a temperature.” Says C. Venkatachalam, Partner, Ega Theatres, “Extra precautions have been taken to fumigate the theatres after each show. Even our walls, which are now covered with ebonised sheets, are mopped regularly.” At a popular joint on ECR on Independence Day, customers were seen pigging out without fear.
According to R. Sridharan, President of the Ambattur Industrial Estate Manufacturers Association, “There have been requests for screening camps by schools in the vicinity where the children of workers study. Opinion is divided on this. But no drop has been recorded in attendance figures in factories.”
Travel plans are really not getting called off unless people are heading to places where deaths have been reported.
Moments of friction
But the public are not hiding their irritation when someone with a cough or cold chooses to come to a place where crowds congregate, for instance, a place of worship. Their only protection, if not masked, is holding their breath for as long as possible.
Ironically, for all the do-s and don’ts that are put out about swine flu, there are still patients who self medicate or walk into a drug store and ask the pharmacist for a tablet that will do the job. .
Yoga practitioners have claimed that swine flu can never attack anyone who religiously practises pranayama. And this is not an empty claim, for, yoga beefs up the immune system. The paranoid believe in hand sanitizers after shaking hands or turning a door knob. And finally there is the group which ascribes this outbreak to Kali yuga .
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