Flu fear continues

Well, it’s a week now since the Ukrainian government induced panic in the country about the flu. People seem to be settling into the new realities. It has almost felt like that week between New Year’s and Christmas in Kyiv, only without all the decorations – fewer people on the streets and in public transportation, not a lot of traffic.

The mask-wearing trend seems to be fading. There are less average people on the street wearing them the last couple of days, but shopkeepers, police, store clerks seem to be mandated to wear them. I’ve read enough from sources I trust that our homemade masks don’t protect us at all from viruses, so I’ve shed mine.

Friends outside of Ukraine keep asking me if this is all political – honey, everything in Ukraine is political! No politician will pass up a chance to grandstand.

At first I thought the quarantine was a pretty ridiculous overreaction, but more and more I think it was the right thing to do. If a real epidemic did break out, this country would be wholly unable to deal with it. So quarantining folks now, before there is a serious problem, just might prevent all hell from breaking loose.

Still no clue what will happen after the quarantine is lifted – events that need to be rescheduled, school time made up, etc. Let’s hope this madness does end on November 22, as is currently scheduled, and we can get on with things.

I finally get it

… this whole social networking “thing”. I reconnected with a loooonnnggg lost friend today, after, lord, 15 years? Ever since I’ve had the tiniest inkling of how to use the internet, I’ve spent at least one or two afternoons a year searching for him. We lost track sometime in college, I think. I honestly don’t remember our last conversation, I have a vague memory of the last time I saw him in Columbus. But he’s always stayed close in my heart, someone I think about, wonder about. Someone I miss and want to talk to.

I smiled all the way home tonight after getting a reply to a fishing message I sent on Facebook. It’s Tony! Wow. I really thought I’d never find him again.

Ukrainians have a much stronger and more serious sense of the word “friend” than your average Americans do. Most Ukrainians will say they have 2, maybe 3, “friends”; everyone else is an “acquaintance”. We Americans, on the other hand, will call someone we met 30 seconds ago a “friend”. Not a bad thing, don’t get me wrong. But the only way I could think to describe Tony to Igor was that he is one of my 3-4 “Ukrainian-type friends”.

Oh, the intertubes can be so wonderful sometimes!

The Flu, continued

Yesterday was just weird.

Igor was nervous about me going to the office, he suggested several times that I work from home instead. I didn’t want to give in to the hysteria, but waited until well past rush hour to make the commute. So he fashioned a gauze mask for me to wear over my nose and mouth, the latest fashion in Kyiv. I shoved it in my pocket, but reluctantly promised to wear it on the metro.

During my short walk to the metro station, I saw a handful of people wearing masks and 2-3 times as many without. On the long escalator ride down to the platform, I started to feel guilty about my promise to Igor, so I put on his homemade mask. I felt like an idiot – I can be as vain as the next devushka, I’m embarrassed to say, and all I could think was how ridiculous I must look. The station was not empty, but there were far less people than normal for a week day, a few in masks, more without.

As I waited for the next train, I felt a tickle in my nose and thought to myself “Oh crap.” Sure enough, I sneezed – one time, behind my mask. I noticed people slowly move away from me, and they entered different cars when the train pulled up. Thank goodness, no more sneezing on the commute!

I started counting the number of people wearing masks – about 25-30% in the metro, less on the street.

We swapped stories in the office about craziness over the weekend. The grocery store clerk who pulled down her mask to cough into her bare hand, then picked up Peter’s veggies with said-hand to weigh them. Nice. The guy wearing a mask around his neck, smoking a cigarette. Wish I’d gotten a picture of that one.

I kept thinking about a book I read last month, World Without End, set in an English village during the Plague of the Middle Ages – about the characters who took precautions that seemed ridiculous to most of the residents, and the people who didn’t “fall for” the hysteria and were too “smart” to believe in the silly new precautions that were suggested. I wondered which category I would fall into in an epidemic? I have to admit, I didn’t get the flu vaccine when I had the chance during my trip to the US last month. Am I an idiot or what?

I left the office at 6, the normal rush hour time when all public transportation is jam-packed. But not last night. I saw several trolleys and buses that were nearly empty. My station was quite empty for that time of day, but the car filled up at the next couple of stops, to basically the normal crammed rush hour level. More people were wearing masks than had been in the morning, though, maybe 40-50%

We finally found some statistics, on the Ministry of Health’s website. This chart shows # of cases of flu and other respiratory illnesses in 10 cities of Ukraine, 1999-2009, broken down by week of the year. Yesterday this chart, showing 2009 stats in the red bar, went up through Week 43/44 and showed us basically right on track with number of cases as in previous years. I told this to Igor last night, and his immediate reaction – oh so typical – was “I don’t believe anything the Ministry of Health says.”

Today when I pulled up the chart – well, you can see, a huge jump this week.

Now I am kinda getting nervous myself. Logically, I know these statistics don’t necessarily tell me anything either – it’s extremely likely that cases of the flu were under-reported in the past, as well as other illnesses that are generally treated at home. Lots of people get the flu and don’t even realize it, they just think it’s a bad cold or something. I can’t think of any time in my adult life when I’ve gone to the doctor for a cold or flu. So we could say this jump in statistics is just an indication of awareness and increased reporting. But still…. I may look ridiculous, but I think I’ll go for “better safe than sorry” and wear my mask today.

And speaking of masks, here’s an interesting explanation of what to wear and why (with thanks to The Heart of the Matter for sharing the link).

A colleague in the western town of Lviv wrote that his office building is being closed, so he’ll be trying to work from home until the quarantine is lifted in that region. There has been talk of the oblast borders being closed, which is like shutting down inter-state transportation in the US. I have no idea how that could be enforced, or frankly what good it could do. Markets are supposed to be closed starting today. The mayor of Kyiv wants to restrict entry into the city.

Our winter coats are still in Korosten, in storage at Igor’s parents’ house. It’s snowing this morning (the first snowfall of the year!). Another good reason to stay home today.

H1N1

My colleague’s neighbor got very sick over the weekend, with a high temperature. Since the consesus has been that those who have died from H1N1-related illnesses waited too long to get medical attention, Ella (my colleague) urged him to call the hospital, to get paramedics to come check him. Instead of help, he was told that they don’t have any medicine so the paramedics wouldn’t come to his apartment. This was especially shocking after Prime Minister Tymoshenko has been all over the TV claiming there is 2x as much medicine as there are sick people in Ukraine. I’m not really sure what that means.

Greetings from Kyiv sums up well part of the reason there is such a panicky reaction to the flu:

Rumors are abounding everywhere about just what is going on in Ukraine. What some people outside of Ukraine don’t understand is that there is a history in this country of the government not giving out vital health information (check your history on Chernobyl) and a socialized medical system in which many times doctors do not even communicate to people what kind of disease they have. So it makes sense that Ukrainians are nervous about what is really happening around them.

My guess is that there are little to no reliable statistics on the flu and other seasonal illnesses from past years, and so the fact that there are statistics being quoted right now freaks people out. I have yet to see a report that compares this current flu outbreak to any figures from previous years – so how can we know whether this is worse, the same, or maybe even not as bad as past winter flu seasons?

I don’t know if the flu is worse now in Ukraine than it normally is, and I don’t think anyone else knows either. But I’m very glad to see people being more aware of basic hygienic precautions that would help all of us all year long – cover your mouth when you cough and sneeze, wash your hands with soap and water, eat healthy, drink moderately, get plenty of vitamins, build up your immune system.