H1N1 is taking its toll

This guest post comes from "vh" at Funny about Money.

People are dropping to the left of us and dropping to the right of us. We seem to have a serious H1N1 flu epidemic going on in our parts.

Recently on the Evening Play-Nooz we heard that thousands of cases have been diagnosed in Arizona, and a number of people have died. Given that many people can't afford to go to the doctor with a case of the flu, the figures are undoubtedly just a fraction of the real number.

• Bing: Where to get a flu shot

For the first time in recorded memory, our choir director didn't show up for midweek practice. He fell ill the morning after the wedding for which we sang, and ended up flat on his back. His doctor told him to stay in bed for seven days, and absolutely not to leave the house.

A vigorous and healthy man, this guy hasn't missed work as long as I've known him, which has been a while. If he's laid low, we frail old bats haven't got a chance.

The fancy private school attached to the old-money church is awash in flu (attendance down more than a third, one mother claimed), and because he also leads the children's choir, that's likely where he picked up the bug. At least one public school, I heard in passing, is threatened with closing because so many kids are sick.

Speaking of sick old bats, as I walked up to the checkout stand at the Safeway I noticed that the clerk, one of the regulars who clings to the job despite reduced pay and slashed hours, looked like she'd been banging on Death's door but they wouldn't let her in. When I asked, by way of greeting, how she was doing, she said she wasn't feeling so good.

"You have the same look I get when I have a terrible headache," I said.

"Yeah, except the headache started a week ago. This has been building up all week. First the headache. Then my back and legs started to ache, and now every muscle in my whole body hurts!"

Naturally, because I had a Band-Aid on my thumb, I hadn't been able to squitch open the damn plastic bags in the produce department, so I'd just picked up a few things, unbagged, and carried them to the cash register. While she's telling me this story, she's handling the parsley, the green onions, the tomatoes, my Safeway card, a pen for me to sign the credit card receipt. Urk!

I suggested she should go home if she was that sick.

She said she was trying to go home: that she'd been calling a manager for the past hour to tell him she needed to leave, but he wasn't answering. She said quite a few of the store's clerks were out sick, and she hated to leave him even more shorthanded.

As a Safeway worker, she probably had some leave time that she could use, since that chain is unionized. In a right-to-work state like Arizona, many grocery store clerks are grossly underpaid and may have little or no sick leave. If such a worker stays home with the flu, she or he may go without pay. And since many low-income workers live from paycheck to paycheck, they have to weigh the benefit of not exposing customers to the flu against their next meal.

If the way our good cashier appeared to feel, if the way our choir director evidently felt is what authorities are calling "mild" in describing swine flu, we don't even want to know what "severe" may be. Steer clear of this little guy, folks:

• Wash your hands frequently.
• Cover your nose and mouth when you cough or sneeze.
• Wash all fresh produce and anything else that doesn't get thoroughly cooked before consuming it.
• Get your flu shots when the vaccines become available.
• Get your kids immunized.
• Stay out of public places as much as possible.

Take care of yourselves!

Related reading at Funny about Money:

• Flaws in WHOSE health care system?
• 'Socialist' health care beats out private insurance
• Health insurance: Is your employer paying its part?