Thursday, May 30, 2013

Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!

Might I present to you Exhibit 3,432 of Why We Are All Doomed.  That's right - the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) is about to decimate the world's population.  And, unfortunately, with its 9-12 day incubation period, it may gain its foothold in the US right here in my neighborhood.  Let's see...Bunko is being held at my house on the 10th, and my neighbor just returned from visiting her grandchildren in Jordan a few days ago.  If she shows up at my door with cold symptoms, I might just have to ban her from the game.  Or at least give her her own dice.

If you see something like this, call the CDC.  And don't breathe.
Overreacting, am I?  "The novel coronavirus is a threat to the entire world," says Dr. Margaret Chan, director-general at WHO.  Gosh, that sounds a tad alarming to me.  The rest of you can just go about your business, whistling past the graveyard, as it were, of certain catastrophic illness; but I feel I have a responsibility to warn people, Paul Revere-like, that the Big One (epidemiologically speaking) is coming.  Mostly because I have nothing better to do, being unemployed and all.  Also, because I tend to freak out about things like this.

You know, just because I am a hypochondriac doesn't mean that I WON'T die in a pandemic.  Think about it.

13 comments:

  1. "If you see something like this." Hilarious.

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  2. I know - scary!
    Um - have been meaning to ask - what's Bunko? Not familiar with the term here in Australia...

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    1. Silly dice game involving simple rules, fun food and drink, and a bit of gambling - it's used as an excuse to socialize, really.

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  3. AAaaaagghhh! Pandemic stuff scares the crap out of me. I have images of us sealing ourselves in our home and surviving on ramen for months until things pass.

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  4. I hope you are spared! Probably the novel coronavirus is something invented by terrorists. If you cancel Bunko, the terrorists have won.

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    1. Oooh, I never thought of that! Onward, then...

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  5. "Whistling past the graveyard"....I am going to steal this phrase. You've been warned.

    Oh, how I love that you play bunko! My friends and I play every few months. It's a great excuse to gab, drink and eat.

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  6. You should hand out masks at the door when people come over for Bunko. And make everyone wash their hands twice.

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  7. Don't forget the H7N9 Influenza too! That might kill us all as well. Hey, who feels like watching "Contagion" tonight?

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  8. I have a bunko game to attend on Monday. Should I be worried?

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  9. I've been sick for the last two weeks with some sort of upper respiratory gunk. Now I'm trying to figure out if I've been around anyone who has recently been to the middle east. (- the appropriate amount of time for the incubation period, of course)
    thanks.

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  10. I remember the SARS outbreak. Terrifying. I did a paper on it for nursing school, and read upsetting accounts of nurses in Toronto who became outcasts because they were caring for SARS patients. But at the same time, my husband's cousin (who lives outside of Toronto) was traveling to and from China during the outbreak and he wasn't worried at all!

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  11. AnonymousJune 04, 2013

    I read about this the other day--scary indeed! I guess the "super infectious" part is what scares me more than being sick.

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