3 weeks is a little extreme, I'm not a parent and in fact I'm still in high school but damn... scared much? I understand it's your child, but what about you? You're going to actually go outside during the 3 weeks right... then what? You're going to catch it and bring it back to your child, that's what.


At least in the sense like you're speaking of, jesus. It's fine, nothing will happen, it will not be an outbreak or it would have infected thousands already.

I'm not at the point where I feel my kids should stay home, but that may change at any point if I feel this thing has either mutated or if a case is reported in my part of NY.

I definetly know what you mean. If my child were old enough and in school, I would definetly be pulling him out just in case. As a mother, you understand even a little risk isnt worth losing your child over.

Well I made the decision, this morning, not to send my 3 children to school just so I can see how things develop today. I think it will either be spreading rapidly or will begin to blow over.

Spain is up to 8 suspected cases, as of this morning, although none in my area. We have quite a few south American and Mexican people that live and work here and they visit family, have family visit them, etc.

I think parents will just have to play this day by day but I decided that having a day off today won't hurt and it gives me a chance to see what more news comes out, if any.

Edit to add:- I hope I'm being paranoid and over-reacting!

[edit on 27-4-2009 by Maya00a]

Originally posted by Deus Ex Machina 42
... scared much?

Obviously you aren't a parent.

It's fine, nothing will happen, it will not be an outbreak or it would have infected thousands already.

Oy ..... Pandemics don't go from a zero body count to thousands overnight. It takes a few weeks for it to get started. This could easily be the start of a pandemic. Easily.

What the heck do they teach you in that high school of yours.

Parents, if youe worried try taking your kids out for a week and see how it goes. Thats a good suggestion. However I dont feel H1N1 is going to be a big risk on your kids. They will probably recover fine. The parents will have the hardest time with the sickness.

If this thing combines with H5N1 in the wild then you need to keep your kids out of school period. Im not really worried about H1N1 other than I dont want to feel that dang sick. So Im stocked up and dont have to leave my house for atleast 60 days.

Unfortunately a lot of people cannot do this. Work and school are two big reasons.

The unpopular truth is that there is no better way to battle a flu virus than to have it infect many people in a given local.

Your bodies immune system learns the virus codes and forces the virus to mutate into an non-harmful variant.

The virus will then continue to spread but as it infects new hosts the coding is more accessible to the new hosts immune system, which in turn creates less and less virilant strains.

Eventually the virus will no longer be able to find hosts that do not have the immune coding in a given population sample(biosphere)

The virus in a last ditch effort to survive will become dormant(alive but unable to reproduce)

The only chance the dormant virus has is to jump hosts and reproduce by the introduction of another biosphere(human) with out the learned anti virus coding

A percentage of the population can create anti virus code faster and more efficiently than the others(like some people can run and think faster)

These people can share their own anti virus properties with
other members of the population without getting sick. Allowing contact with non virilant strains which in turn will cause the active virus to mutate into a less harmful variant

At least this is the way it has worked for the last few million years

So if you have a child who has been susceptible to infections by all means keep them out of school, but if you have one of those healthy immune system stud kids, maybe its time to take one for the team

Any excuse for a parent to remove their children from the public school system is a good one in my opinion.