I don’t know whether or not Swine Flu, Mexican Flu, American Flu or whatever they decide to finally call it will elevate to pandemic proportions. I do not know if the death of the young boy in Texas reported this morning will be the first of many more. What I do know is that the cautions and precautions that are being recommended by the CDC – even simple ones like increased hand washing – are falling on deaf ears in my corner of the world.
Of course my evidence is anecdotal. About 100 students at two colleges – one in a borough of New York City that has not been hit by the virus and the other about an hour north of NYC. Have my students heard the messages? By and large they have. Have they taken steps to increase hand washing? By and large they have not.
The easy answer, of course, is that they are college students. Away from home without mom and dad to remind them. Forget the fact that dozens of them were in Mexico for spring break 3 weeks ago. Hey, kids will be kids.
But that is not the reason they share when I ask why the relentless communication regarding hand washing is not being received as a call to action. Instead, having spent the past decade – since they were 10 years old – saturated with apocalyptic news of real and perceived threats, these kids are burnt on cataclysmic danger. From Y2K to anthrax to the threat of an avian flu pandemic on the false alarm side to 9/11, Katrina and the Tsunami on the real side, they appear to fall on the spectrum ranging from uninterested to sardonic. Paralyzed by some combination of fear, skepticism and denial, many of them have chosen to turn off the radio and wait for the scare, which many perceive to be media hype, to pass.
Does this ring a bell for you? How are you responding?
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