I was at a business conference in Acapulco until Wednesday, and returned to LA Wed night, back home to RI on Thursday. Here is what I know, what I saw, and what I'm thinking about as I attempt to work with this thing hanging over my head...
Update #1 (and hopefully the last): My co-worker tested negative for H1N1! Huge relief...
First, the details. Like I said, I was in Acapulco for a business conference. I arrived there on Sunday afternoon, and did not fly through Mexico City, one of my co-workers did, and she is now sick (although not terribly, and is awaiting test results over the next hour or so to confirm what she has). Let me stress that I feel physically fine, as do the two other co-workers there with us.
There was no evidence of the actual flu in Acapulco. In fact, very few people were wearing masks. But, all of the nightclubs and schools were. It's about 200 miles southwest of Mexico City, and according to even our news sources, there were no reported cases in the entire state we were in (Guerrero) while we were there. In fact, we were pretty cool about everything until Monday morning, when there was a 5.7 earthquake that shook the convention center pretty hard. That's when we decided to try to change our travel plans.
So, it took days of trying, but one of my co-workers finally convinced our online travel agency to get us out through Ixtapa on Wednesday to LA(we were due to fly back on Thursday). All three of us live in various places on the East Coast, so that required another flight on Thursday morning. That's as early as we could muster it.
So right after breakfast, we set out on a van ride north up the Mexico coastline to Ixtapa (which is beautiful). No panic (although there are lots of soldiers along the highway to stop the drug-runners and that's a bit disturbing). At one point, we drove past the hospital in Zihuatanejo. There were not loads of people milling about, or even a line of people in masks. In fact, the trip was uneventful, the check in at the airport was uneventful and the flight was uneventful (although there were some people with masks on, and clearly at least one very tense flight attendant).
This is more about what happened after I got home last night and this morning. When my co-worker let me know she was sick, I called the RI Dept. of Health hotline to see if I could get tested right away (I have kids). I learned a lot from that phone call:
First, apparently you cannot really give it to somebody if you are just infected. You need to be contagious - which means you need to have symptoms.
Second, in Rhode Island, at least, you cannot get tested for it before you have symptoms. That's interesting to me, because you'd think they'd want you to prevent the symptoms from occuring if they could, because that's what spreads the virus.
Third, if I don't show any signs of infection by Wednesday (7 days after exposure), then I probably won't be getting it - at least not from my visit to Mexico.
My company (travel marketing) has requested that those returning from Mexico stay out of the office for three days, so I'm stuck working from home. That would be fun, if I wasn't worried.
So here I sit, attempting to work, while this hangs over my head like the storm cloud over the house on the Munsters (I'm dating myself). I'm not worried that I'm going to be seriously ill or die from this influenza as it is today (if I do get it) - that's clearly not it's state of being right now. But the things in my head are (not necessarily in any order):
- I have lots of clients all over the world. Mexico is one of the most amazing places and incredibly hospitable cultures on the planet, and this year is kicking the crap out of them. Commentators, particularly the ones on the right, need to shut up on the racist crap. Honestly, I hope Mexico can recover as a vacation destination.
- Thank goodness for President Obama. I cannot even imagine the fuckup potential if "W" was still in there.
- If you want to see how important a good health care system is, think about this: Regardless of the scientific differences that may provide clues to the mortality rate in Mexico City vs outside Mexico City thus far, Mexico City is one of the poorest and most densely populated areas in North America, and the health care is lousy (and most people have no money to pay for it). It seems to me that it is likely that a number of deaths there were because people didn't think to or couldn't get care until it was too late.
- Now is NOT the time to read Stephen King's "The Stand," as good a book as it is.
- This could be the straw that breaks the back of the idiots trying to block an overhaul of our healthcare system.
In the meantime, physically, I feel fine. I'll update as needed, and - please - everybody, stay well!