Gripped

It was with some trepidation that I took my eldest to see the doctor this evening. He came home from school complaining of a temperature, muscle pains and nausea. Oops...

I called the doctor and got an appointment because of the possibility it might be the dreaded Grippe A (H1N1, swine flu). Kids have been falling like flies at his school - the whole of troisième has been closed, although I'm not sure how many of them are confirmed cases of swine flu.

In the meantime, the French are proving very wary about getting themselves vaccinated. Those most at risk have been sent vouchers, but many of those not in the medical professions simply don't trust the vaccine. The vaccination centres are installed in sports halls and are able to take up to 1000 people, but are pretty empty. It doesn't help, of course, that you can't just go to see your doctor, but that you have to get to a particular place which may not be convenient to you.

Now everyone is criticising Roselyne Bachelot, Health Minister for her handling of the vaccination campaign and holding her responsible for the modest uptake on being vaccinated. One of the problems is that there is a video doing the rounds which accuses the laboratory Baxter of accidentally contaminating a test vaccine with live virus. Mme Bachelot had ordered a first round of vaccines from Baxter but refused to give the name of the lab when asked thus inciting deep suspicion in the population.

So the situation now is that there are dozens of centres around the country standing almost idle while those who could be vaccinated are choosing not to be, but the vaccines in multi-doses are not being used on anyone else either. Once opened, they have to be used within 24hrs or thrown out. The fear is that there'll be chaos later when those on the priority list who haven't been vaccinated and whose vouchers have expired (after 10 days) will panic when more people catch swine flu and everyone is rushing to get themselves jabbed.

When will politicians ever learn that people are not sheep, that the internet is a huge resource for outing lies and dodgy stuff, and that they can't fob off any old piece of crap onto a population that takes its health very seriously. One whiff of opaque spin and that's it, everyone becomes consumed with paranoia. They refuse to heed advice they consider suspect and a huge crisis management campaign has to be added to the original one. You can't put the tele on for the news without seeing someone being jabbed and smiling happily about it.

After all that, my son doesn't have swine flu (apparently - we'll see... paranoia paranoia). It's just a bog-standard seasonal one resulting in a day off school in bed tomorrow and no sport for 6 days. Phew (pending review of situation in a couple of days)!

Chatel-balls

Whither swine flu in France? Well it's here, natch, but it's kept pretty hush hush as to who's had it, I suppose to keep the population in a state of either suppressed hysteria from lack of information, or indifference... from lack of information.

Indifference seemed to be winning the day when it was announced that schools could be closed for 12 weeks if things get nasty. Luckily most people are on holiday and haven't heard this yet or I'm sure there'd be more than a little unsuppressed hysteria.

Luc Chatel, the French's very own Minister of Education, and closely related to Ed Balls by the sound of his idiotic pronouncements, thought he'd cheer everyone up during the silly season with this information. It's true that August has been decidedly serious what with deaths, fires, imprisonment in a Iranian prison (Clotilde Reiss) and toxic seaweed - and that's only in France - that our Luc thought it was time to have a laff.

He therefore put on his best joker's hat and had a jolly interview with le Figaro. They don't call swine flu grippe du cochon here, they call it, boringly, grippe A or H1N1 - equally unevocative. I suppose that's so we don't all get carried away with exciting headlines. The French do like to keep things terre à terre.

Anyway, he said while it's important not to dramatise things (ha!), we mustn't minimise the situation either. To help us not minimise things, he's produced a 4-page booklet to educate us all on those important actions (catch it, bin it, wash it). I'm not sure why it takes 4 pages to say attrappe-le, jete-le, lave-le, but I suppose that's why I'm not in the government and Luc is.

Just in case there is a pandémie and the kids are all sent home for months and months, they shouldn't think it'll be all party party, we're off school, yippee, come on mum let's go to the swimming pool. No way! The government has been busily preparing lessons by television and radio just in case! There's organised for you! Funnily enough, they way may well be better done than those prepared by uninspired, depressive local teachers simply because, under national scrutiny, they'd better be presented by the best available. The problem of who will be looking after these children for 4 months, of course, has not been addressed. Neither has what will become of the economy if one parent has to stay home to watch lessons.

Figaro's readers are very concerned that if schools do close, teachers will not be able to strike or take time off for sick leave. It may even be illegal, denying them the right to strike. What to do? They also believe that children will do a lot better if taught by television minus uninspired, depressive teachers, which says a lot about French general attitudes towards their own education.

One reader, a doctor, did rather spoil things by writing in and saying that he's seeing one or two cases a day of this, not grippe, but "grippette". He says that what he's been treating is not serious at all, and his patients recover after a few days.

So, while Luc is doing his best to wind everyone up and strike fear into our hearts, you can rest assured that Figaro readers are having none of it and are taking the piss with true revolutionary spirit.