Now Fry Like Bacon, You Little Freshman Piggies!
2:55PM ON
04/27/2009
BY
Annie Messier
I like our state’s hustle on this swine flu. I hadn’t even heard of it ’til days after RI’s Swine Flu Task Force contacted every doc in the state with guidance on evaluating it in patients.
About two years ago, I was the lucky gal sitting between beefy, flat-topped men in decorated uniforms at the National Guard, discussing lovely things like how we (well, not me personally, at least unless I read the contingency plan wrong) would collect, transport and store the corpses of deceased friends and neighbors. Good times, right? These folks imagined a scenario where a pandemic flu would find its way to America, eventually hitting our lil’ state. At the time I was like, “Dude, don’t these doomsayers have lives?” Now I’m like, “Dude.” (That’s it. I’m not very verbal today. Must be the heat.)
So know that these folks have us covered, even as the media freaks out about the 40 cases so far in the U.S. (except our very own ProJo, which is only reporting 20 on their blog. I like media outlets that avoid creating undue panic).
But if you MUST track this, there are local, national and international sites with all the swine flu updates you can handle, plus a Google map that tracks reported cases. I love that RI’s health department is tweeting about it, too. This ain’t your grandpa’s swine flu.
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