Speaking of the flu

I just came across this definition of pandemic on Dailykos (emphasis mine).

"Get used to the word pandemic. It's not a dirty word, or alarmist, or hype. It's a description of a novel virus that can spread human to human and causes disease. Right now, the disease seems relatively mild outside of Mexico, but all of the above effort is not based on where we are now, it's anticipating where we might be in two weeks or four. Or longer."

As people are trying to figure out whether to disregard concern about this illness, I thought this definition of pandemic puts in perspective why vigilance is necessary. I think the word "novel" most aptly describes this disease and why public health officials are most concerned.

All this comes, of course, after picking up Katie from day care yesterday and one of the teachers kissed her on the cheek (ACK!). This is not the time, I wanted to say. Eric and I are both concerned and he is supposed to tell someone at the center that teachers probably shouldn't be kissing students right now. Ugh.

One more thing, then I have to get to work:
I saw a comment yesterday re: the young child who died in Houston from the swine flu. Yes, the baby was a Mexican national. His parents crossed the border seeking medical attention. The comment (from someone we already knew to be a dipshit in college) said something to the effect of, "Of course the kid was illegal."

Um, no. You know what? Clearly, Said Dipshit has no kids, because you better believe Eric and I (and every other parent, I imagine) would do the exact same thing if our kid was sick. We'd cross the border in a heartbeat- and last I checked, it's not illegal to do so.