One group of people who probably don’t have much chance of a holiday at the moment are those staffing the phones at NHS Direct, where leave has been cancelled due to the mounting torrent of calls in relation to swine flu.
A few weeks ago the words “swine flu” would have meant very little, but now you can’t open a newspaper or watch the news without being faced with them.
The first British people to catch the disease were Scottish honeymooners Dawn and Iain Askham from Polmont, near Falkirk, who were in Cancún, Mexico, and at the time of writing it looks as though some 18 people in the UK have contracted swine flu, with there now being about 800 cases of the disease in 17 countries.
A number of travel companies have cancelled all outbound holidays to Cancún and Cozumel for the next couple of weeks, until it is clear what the situation is, and some travel companies are offering to fly holidaymakers home early from Mexico, should they wish to leave.
Thus far it seems that the swine flu is no worse than regular flu, though there are worries that the virus could mutate and become more virulent. Let’s hope that this does not happen.
In some cases there has been an unreasonable backlash against Mexican travellers with more than 70 Mexican people being quarantined in China, although they show no sign of the disease.
So has the swine flu forced you to reconsider your travel plans? Would you rather stay at home than travel at the moment? Or do you feel that you are just as likely to catch the flu in your home town as anywhere else? We would be interested to read your comments!
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