Seeing as how we're only three weeks into the new school year and Claire's already on her second cold (complete with low-grade fever and runny nose), I have a feeling it's going to be a LOOOONG winter ahead. Pair that with this whole H1N1 flu thing, I'm definitely not looking forward to it. I guess the good news is that at this rate, Claire will go through the 200+ variations of the rhinovirus at an early age and hopefully be a pretty healthy adult!
From Wikipedia: "An estimated 22 to 189 million school days are missed annually due to a cold. As a result, parents missed 126 million workdays to stay home to care for their children. When added to the 150 million workdays missed by employees suffering from a cold, the total economic impact of cold-related work loss exceeds $20 billion per year."
Studies are in progress on the H1N1 vaccine right now which I have a feeling I'll be getting this year (to be confirmed by my OB this week). Pregnant women are especially high-risk to this strain evidenced by the fact that 6% of the people who have died from H1N1 so far have been pregnant even though pregnant women only make up for 1% of the population. I guess our hormones are already so out of whack, something like the flu is just the straw to that camel's back. Young children are also at the top of the list, but interestingly, there is a segment of the population (40-70? something like that) that doesn't really need to get it because I guess a similar strain passed through during their childhood years that may have built up enough antibodies. My joke was maybe that's the government's way of taking care of the baby boom and social security shortage problem. :) Great, more for the rest of us!
So I'm off to wash my hands yet again as I wait to hear from the government whether it'll be 1 or 2 doses of 15 to 30 ccs, though what I really need to do is stop wiping Claire's snot with my bare hand. Seriously, the things you do as a parent!
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