Telecom New Zealand and Vodafone must be making an absolute fortune from all the teenage texting that must be going on right now.
Today, it transpired that 450 Westlake Girls High School students are to be in home isolation for the week after a ‘swine flu student had contact with almost 200‘. While we’re far from sure that she had direct contact with the lass concerned it would seem that, after spending part of the weekend at a birthday sleep-over, one of them could well be my daughter.
An interesting spin-off from this piece of news is that when I reported this tenuous connection to my employer (as required by our pandemic response plan), it was suggested that I work from home for a few days to see if I develop symptoms. This is ironic for several reasons. Firstly, I have only recently recovered from one bout of headcold/flu symptoms. Being paid to work from home whilst waiting to see if I succumb again would be much more enjoyable if I didn’t have a major project to deliver in the coming weeks. Secondly, as a trained incident manager working for a ‘lifeline’ utility company, I am one of those responsible for the aforementioned pandemic response plan (part of larger incident response and business continuity plans). This being the case, I find myself amusingly hoisted by my own pertard.
After checking the Ministry of Health’s website for Q&As on non-seasonal Influenza A (H1N1), I called Healthline to get advice and check if I can be tested to rule infection out. The comforting answer from the nice lady was that she had ‘no information on testing’ so, after updating my HR folks, I settled into a day of being politely hassled for board papers via email by my CEO’s executive assistant.
I’m off for a long lie down.
Technorati Tags: H1N1, Influenza A, text, swine flu, Telecom New Zealand, Vodafone, Westlake Girls
I started feeling buggy just reading this post. Maybe it’s transmitted electronically?
Sorry Jon! I sure do feel horrible about that!! Chelsea x