Love, bubs and life on our little farm

I am watching this swine influenza with all the interest you would expect of a scientist that works in public health. I work in the govermment labs and am therefore right at the coalface. As of this afternoon, our state government launched its Pandemic Plan. Things are looking fairly serious. It seems it is only a matter of time until our (being Australia's) first positive cases are confirmed.

From a personal perspective, Jase and I have always been fairly prepared for a flu pandemic - its been long overdue and we have discussed it a great length. We have stockpiled food, bought long life milk, have our own chickens, our own water supply and plans to stay home and enjoy the space and fresh air that a semi-rural location gives us. We are more serious about it these days as we have a little one with a vunerable immune system to protect.

Tomorrow I go grocery shopping and I am buying up bigger than normal and stocking up on ethanol handwashes, gloves and if there are any left, masks. We have no plans to go anywhere over the long weekend (we have paving to do at home to keep us busy!). If we get a confirmed case in SE QLD then I will not be putting Elka in daycare until i can see that it is contained - I have warned my work of this already. Hopefully my parents will help mind her so that I can still get into the labs (unless it gets nasty in which case I wont be making the trip into the city, work or no work!)

Do I sound like I am going a little overboard? You are probably thinking so. Fair enough too possibly. But sometimes a little too much scientific knowledge is a curse - knowing what happened with the last swine flu pandemic (it killed more people last century then all the world wars combined) makes me uneasy too. Fourtunately, this flu does not seem to have a very high mortality rate - Mexico's statistics are not an accurate reflection of the proportion of fatalities to cases yet as so many non-fatal cases are going unreported as yet.

Well I am having a quiet week at home - hope you have a good one too xoxox