Tuesday, July 7, 2009

holiday activities!!

Hello everybody!
I hope you´re all healthy. Let´s take advantage of this compulsory recess to discuss some more topics, in order to simplify our work in the second term. I´m planning to upload another topic after this one, so that you have a wider choice. Besides this, you will soon get some more work to prepare for the third tp, so wait for it in the infoblog and the webpage.

So here is the first topic: we are all getting a lot of information about influenza A H1N1. Here is some more info in English, plus a fun video teaching us how to sneeze and cough according to the new etiquette:

Now, I´d like to ask you some questions: do you pay attention to all this information? To what extent? Are you taking precautions? Do you/would you wear a mask in public if it was necessary? Don´t answer what is politically correct, answer the truth!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

When people started taking about influenza H1N1, I thought that they were worrying for nothing. But then I realized that more and more people were becoming infected here, in Argentina. So I decided to take some precautions such as keeping my hand and face as clean as I could, not drinking mate and being far away from people who were ill.
Despite I’ve been taking care of myself, I contracted seasonal flu. The week I was ill was terrible. I didn’t know what to do. Shall I go the university or to work? Of course not. What I must do is to stay at home and wait to get better. And that is what people who have any flu symptom should do.
Yesterday, I went to the bank and the clerk assistant sneezed on her hand. Then, (without cleaning them) she touched my bills and gave them to me. Fortunately, I had alcohol gel to clean my hands, but are people aware that they can become infected for that minimal action?
Now that I get better, I’m still coughing in my sleeves. I think that this is something we should get used to do and it is something that Argentinean should learn. Because as the youtube video says: ‘It is the right thing to do. It is the polite thing to do.’ Argentineans should learn to be polite. They should learn to cough and sneeze in their sleeves and in that way, take care of others. I’m saying that they should learn to do this, because I still see that many people don’t care of all the things that have been happening in our country (70 people have already died). They think that schools and universities were closed because authorities are paranoids. I think that the best way to fight against this big problem is to do what the Spanish proverb says: ‘No hay que preocuparse, si no ocuparse.’

lara croft said...

I agree, Marianne. This is serious and several days after you wrote we have many more deaths. I´ve been avoiding places with many people, and trying to be careful. Now I always sneeze or cough in my sleeve. Anyway, I´m happy that wearing a mask is not necessary, I wouldn´t feel comfortable with one.
I have also seen how careless people are sometimes. The other day at the bank a man was coughing behind me without covering his mouth, and I´ve also seen many other people who are careless about this. They say "no va a pasar nada" and they act as if that was clever! I think that the problem is that many Argentineans think that they are a little foolish if they follow the rules. Of course, it´s a lot more foolish to catch and spread a disesase that is killing people, I hope many people will understand that.

wings said...

I think that what happens with this new influenza is quite complex.
Even though I do think that this flu is a relevant matter and that care must be taken, I also think that there is an underlying and well hidden business here. For instance, now, masks, alcohol, special cleaners, and the such, are more expensive, and the profits resulting from the massive selling of "tamiflu", the up-to-now only medicine for this flu, keeps enriching the old businessmen. What´s more, citizens get desperate and are all the time thinking about this dangerous and menacing illness, as a consequence of this, they forget all the other important things that continue happening.
First, I would like to highlight the fact that the number of people who die in our country due to the seasonal flu is much larger than that which results from influenza n1h1. Second, I would also like to add that, as everyone who has been listening to the radio or watching tv knows, this new flu doesn´t affect all people in the same way. This means that those who are healthy and don´t have lungs problems don't need to be paranoid. Unfortunately, as always, those who most need to take precautions are those who, paradoxically, are more unprotected and have fewer resources. To be honest, I'm a bit sick and tired of watching people getting paranoid about this, using their "new-brand" and expensive gel alcohol even when they are all day indoors, while there are people that have to work cooking and cleaning at hospitals, for example, highly exposing their health and don´t have even a mask. Unfortunately, our government is blind at these realities and is so painfully frivolous and inefficient that has neglected our health care system. In fact, their frivolity is such that they waited until the elections had taken place to alarm people about this flu.