All About Us: A Dracut Weblog

Wash Your Hands!

I have a great imagination, and this is part of what fuels me as a writer. What else fuels me is my concern for the world, for the direction it’s going in. You put the two of those together, and there’s a good chance for my inner conspiracy theorist to emerge, thrusting me up on a soapbox to yell about the sky falling or something.

What concerns me today, is not caused by imagination, nor is it a conspiracy theory, but some scary facts.

A conference was held this week in Lowell, MA to discuss the very real possibility of an avian flu pandemic. So far this virus is not spreading human to human, but medical experts state that there is likelihood that it could do just that. The CDC goes into detail here.

Now, I’ve never received a flu shot; never saw the need. I’m still not crazy about the idea; it seems sort of, strange, to me. Yet for the last two years, in late winter/early spring – I’ve become sick with something that took hold, and didn’t let go for a long, long time. Its not like I was sick for months, more like 2 or 3 weeks, but no one needs that aggravation.

The article that I referenced above (Lowell Sun, December 7, 2005) described how the state needs to prepare -- logistically speaking – in the event that this virus did hit Massachusetts. As a matter of fact, this article began with statements from a local Health Department director, voicing his concerns about how to deal with the deceased. As in storage, as in filled to capacity morgues.

If this sounds too much like a “Movie of the Week”, just remember that a massive weather system that could demolish a major US city sort of sounded like a piece of fiction as well.

Wash your hands. Please.