No Need To Panic!

B says I’m the world’s biggest worrier. I prefer to consider myself a good planner...I prepare for the ‘worst case scenario’ and then when things invariably don’t go as badly as I’d expected, I can relax a little. Take Monday, for example - I had to travel up to Edinburgh for a meeting with a client, which entailed a 7 am flight from Luton, returning 8 pm... a long day and one fraught with potential... er...inconveniences....

Here's how my mind typically runs...

Possible Scenario: Given that Scotland is typically a good 5°C cooler than the south of England and experiences significantly higher rainfall, I could be too cold and get very wet... but I need to be dressed appropriately for meeting with client and don’t want to lug huge winter coat around Luton airport....after all it is nearly May, for pity’s sake!

Nat’s Action Plan: Wear a smart suit and crisp white shirt, but sneak a camisole underneath for that extra bit of warmth, squeeze a pashmina into the laptop bag for a compact, emergency source of heat, and take an umbrella.

What Actually Happened: It was chilly, but as I was hopping from heated plane to terminal building to car to office, I didn’t actually get frostbite and surprisingly didn’t even need to use the umbrella, which subsequently got confiscated by Edinburgh airport security as a “lethal weapon”...hmmmm!

Given my disposition, is it any wonder then that I'm a tad more worried than the average person about the so-called "Swine Flu" outbreak...I agree we should get things into perspective: about 15,000 people die every year in the UK due to seasonal flu, and from what we know this is a mild flu, that currently succumbs to the antivirals we have stockpiled. GB says "we are more prepared for this than any other country"... hmmmm, didn't he also say that we were the best-placed in Europe to ride out the economic downturn? True, we are luckier than the developing world who have NO antivirals in stock and will be relying on the WHO to dish out their paltry 3 million courses. I'm nervous, mainly as I fear the resulting chaos that would ensue should a pandemic actually hit us, and I think that it is highly possibly that will happen, not in this initial phase, but later,in the autumn, by which time the virus may have mutated into something far more resilient, that cannot be controlled by the current drugs and that will require large numbers of hospitalisations. I don't honestly think our NHS will cope with that... or that our economy will recover from the inevitable "business down-time" of a sick population. But, we shall have to wait and see...


Hey ho! It's Friday and the start of a long weekend.