Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Stay away from me, please Don't.

There's this bioethic debate about quarantine for those with severely infective diseases. I used to think that those with confirmed or suspected cases of highly infectious disease should be quarantined so that they don't harm the larger scope of the society. Protecting the majority should always be the interest of the government, and the society should understand the importance of this policy.

There's also another side of the coin, where I think if the said patients are confined together in a corner of the world for good, the virus probably will be transmitted to each other, causing continual infection among the group. I wonder if this is helping the patients to be cured from the disease. Should the disease is not treatable, wouldn't spending the final few days of life on Earth with their family or loved ones something deeply desired by the patients?

On the first day of quarantine itself, Pret had messaged me about the shocking news of confirmed cases in KTSN. I was at my office as I received the sms. But nonetheless it didn't stop me from being worried for my kids there, for they just came back from an exhausting debate tournament over the weekend. I hope their immune systems are still strong enough to shield them from the infectious H1N1 virus.

Later only it occurred to me that my friends who are still staying in KTSN 1 cannot leave the hostel for one freaking week! That means they have to settle all three meals in KTSN cafe, buy their (over-priced) daily necessities from the convenient shop inside there, no class, cannot meet supervisor in person to discuss their thesis, cannot go to lab to feed their experiment mice, no movies, no shopping marathon during this Megasale period, and cannot stay as far as possible from potential viral carrier. They only have each other, in their world of cross-infection-proned land.

This absolute boredom and dreading anxiety over deadlines would have killed my friends before H1N1 does, unless the former occupy their time with some other things such as assignments, revisions, and last but not least, the ultimate treatment to cure bored people:

missing me :-)

2 comments:

Wanderer said...

i dont mind being quarantine! haha..

can rest mar.. look at the bright side, sit in kolej room read read books, play play games, online.. wah!! heaven man!! hahaha..

Humayra' said...

hi cher..
lucky for me, i'm not in KTSN1 and have enjoyed my time at home. But many others are not so lucky. Hafizah was among them.

But the latest news is: those who are not sick can now come home, as of this morning.

cherlinn.. wonder when we can meet up.. hm..