Lessons of the H1N1 Autumn

I’m a big guy. I’ve worked stock, throwing heavy boxes of canned goods around like they were nothing. I’ve been in my fair share of altercations – most of which with my brother – and have come out on top about 50 % of the time. I’m tall-ish, around 250 lb; I could stand to lose some weight, but I am for the most part a healthy 30 year old man. So when these warnings about H1N1 started circulating, I thought I’d have nothing to worry about. Bring it on, I said. I figured if I caught it – IF I caught it – I would just stay home for one week and be over it within a few days. Oh boy, was I wrong.

Of course, by now, everyone knows at a few people who have been kicked in the groin by this strain of flu. I was knocked back on my heels for a full three weeks because of this virus; I couldn’t even write because I was so fatigued.  I’ve now used up just about all of my vacation time for the rest of the year so I could get paid for the time that I was out. Thankfully, my employer is gracious enough to allow me to use my vacation time in such an event. I am all too aware that most companies are not as liberal as the company I work for.

Even given all the suffering this virus has caused, I’ve noticed something good about the H1N1 virus; people are a little bit kinder to each other. If you’ve had this flu, you’d know what I mean; people who you hardly even know are concerned for your health. As much as I loathe the man, I would feel sorry for Rush Limbaugh if he caught swine-flu. No one would wish this even on their worst enemy; it is that horrible of a cold.

I can’t help to wonder, however, if I shouldn’t be this concerned for other individuals’ health all the time. With the growing global economy, the instant communication that the internet provides, and convenient international travel, one person’s health is everyone’s health. It is not enough that we worry just for ourselves; if we truly want to be healthy, we need to assure the health of our neighbors as well.

That’s one of the reasons why I don’t understand why the health insurance industry is so against health reform. Sure, in the short term they stand to lose some money, but in the long term, the individuals they insure will be healthier, resulting in smaller healthcare bills for the insurance industry to pay out on. Individuals will be less likely to become ill, and when they do become ill, they will recover sooner. In insurance-speak, healthy individuals are a better risk – and if the people they come in contact with are healthy as well, it lowers the insured’s risk of illness even further.

With the inadequate levels of vaccine available throughout the U.S., you have individuals such as myself who choose to do without so that another child or elderly person can get the vaccine. Then, we young healthy people get the flu, or whatever it is that is circulating, end up staying home from work for gobs of time or in the hospital incurring a massive bill. The end result is loss of economic productivity, possibly deepening the on-going recession.

Jesus Christ had reportedly said what we do unto the least of our brethren we do unto him and the Heavenly Father. Usually, this is interpreted in a more figurative sense. While I am not usually big on literal interpretation of scripture, this is one verse that I would like to see treated as being literal. I think that is the lesson we can learn from H1N1.

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