H1N1: The story of overreaction

The day since H1N1 has entered Indian shores, it is been the top news/breaking news on almost all the channels. Within 3 days of it claiming the first victim, all the schools in Pune and Mumbai were closed or decided to be closed. The multiplexes were closed. People were seen walking on the streets with masks. There has been numerous views on whether we should have closed the schools or closed the multiplexes etc etc. I thought to put my two penny views as well:

a) In the initial stages of the outbreak , the information dissemination is very low. People are not aware of the precautions to be taken. Schools are one of the places where kids interact and there was every chance that it could have spread pretty fast without the lack of proper knowledge. As of now, even though there is an overflow of info, most of the parents are aware of the precautions and problems, will be careful and hence the chances of it spreading uncontrolled (at least in schools) are very low.

b) We always fear the unknown and this was an unknown virus. That's the reason there was so much of panic the moment deaths were reported. Of course media played its role in over reporting but I am sure it forced everybody to be more careful. You will see that in coming days the deaths will reduce dramatically even though the number of people affected will keep on rising.

c) Entry of private sector hospitals into treating H1N1 was very important as we all know government health care infrastructure is not sufficient. Initial few days were really difficult owing to very few test and treatment centres.India is a populous country and we need many hospitals and many touch points to handle patients of suspected flu. The over reaction has helped government promptly asking Pvt Hospitals to be ready for this. This is an extremely good sign.

So even though every body over reacted (Government, Hospitals, People) but in the melee, things are looking much better now. We are in better condition to fight H1N1.

Cheers