Which swine flu special measure should receive the panic in the face of adversity award? Post your favourite bizarre swine flu practices here!

[BoffinMum]

OK, so we've had:

Remove soft toys from nurseries
Stop children sharing pencils
Close all schools
Take over the BBC and put out educational programming all day

and my favourite from my own workplace of approximately 10,000 people ...

stop all recycling of everything in case someone throws a tissue in the bin

What bizarre and surprising swine flu measures are you encountering?

what?! How is a used tissue that ends up becoming part of a cardboard box or something going to spread swine flu?

I vote for laying in a stock of VERY good wine and plenty of tissues.

well the bizarre thing I am doing personally is eating 2 cloves of raw garlic every day

I know I know vampires etc but that's my own personal bizarre measure. I am also trying to do a nasal wash with the neti pot but not getting the hang of it.

I will be mortified if despite this some prat sneazes on me and I catch SF

My dentist has removed magazines from the witing room, as have GP practices. The virus dies very quickly once coughed outside the body so unless you cough on a magazine and somebody else licks it straight away there is NO chance of reading material being a problem

Also apparently the C of E has told vicars not to give wine in a chalice as part of communion. My mum's vicar has interpreted this as meaning not to give wine at all so communion tomorrow will be just bread. No idea how he's squaring that with the basics of christianity

Northern, not all Christian religions have wine at every communion so I would think it's not going to send anyone to hell to do without

Edam, the argument was that the virus may apparently penetrate the rubber gloves of the bin person sorting the recycling, or something like that.

I am thinking of arguing that we shouldn't have to mark essays as students may have sneezed on them. Now would that be too mischievous??

I love the fact that everyone seems to have their own personal supply of that alcohol gel!

I sneezed on the bus the other day and 2 people got their gel out and washed their hands!

I am off to create my own Elizabethan pomander as we speak ... so useful for wafting around on buses and the like.

My neighbour keeps ringing me up to offer his services as my 'flu buddy'.

I am grateful for his kindness but I suspect he is offering because he thinks I am the type to go out and infect all and sundry regardless. Which isn't flattering in any way.

I quite like him but it makes me nervous...not many cases round here yet, but once the university students are back in the Autumn it'll be chaos. There are as many of them as there are REAL people here. literally.

I took the Dd's for jabs and pre school boosters yesterday - there are usually 2 toy areas in our doctors surgery, but now you find a couple of comfy chairs there instead.

I hope they leave the toys out, tbh - the ones you usually get in ours are disgusting grimy things. I hate taking the dcs as they always want to play with them and then they catch some other bug a few days later.

Mind you that just means they'll wreck the waiting room in some other way.

Personally, I always have the hand gel stuff on me. I feel quite normal now.

why are you not FlightAttendant FA or was your name always spelt that way and I'm just horrendously unobservant?

lol nicky

I must admit, if one side effect of this whole thing is that people wash their hands more, it can't be a bad thing!

Indeed, foxy.
People are manky buggers.
I particularly wince at the hand shaking bit during mass.

I am bordering on weird.

we had SF and it started 2 weeks ago people are still v reluctant to pop round even though we are in no way infectious we've been cast out a little - to me that seems a bit ridiculous! to be honest m glad of a bit of peace to recouperate

Oh YM that sounds horrid - ikwym, I had something last year that is quite hard to catch but still people avoid coming round, even now or they ask me whether i am better now, it was over 6 months ago but I try to give a semblance of calm when asked that
then avoid them back...

Foxy I was spelt right ages ago but flounced too often to get it back, so you get a random variation now

At Children's Hospital, Doctors and nurses wearing face masks that scare children, and then when DS (who was a suspect) barfed on the floor, was asked to ' just chuck a few paper towels over it...'

Dh went to the loo at work and pasted on every cubicle door were instructions WITH DIAGRAMS on how to wash your hands.

Kayteeeee, that is really excellent.

Diagrams are sadly necessary judging from the people I see at the washbasins in public loos. A quick splash of water in the general direction of your fingers does NOT remove germs.

Ooh I have a great one.... I drove past a doctors surgery today who have put up huge A boards with:

STOP DO YOU HAVE A FEVER? You COULD have swine flu. DO NOT ENTER. Return to your home and call the flu helpline.

Twas both Orwellian and smirksome

Oh and Homebase has placed a hand sanitiser gel at every checkout. We went in today and were offered 'a shot'. I was quite hopeful till the assistant pointed to the bottle of hand gel

Finally, in the last week of term DD's nursery did a session called 'how to wash our hands properly' (for two hours). The next day the nursery closed because the staff went down with swine flu

My local council was mystified to be exposed in the Daily Mail for pandering to extremist Muslims... apparently they had told staff that there was some non-alcoholic hand gel available as well as the ordinary staff. Nowt to do with Islam, more to do with people who may react to alcoholic gels (which can be quite harsh if you have sensitive skin or exzema).

Although I'm not entirely convinced non-alcoholic hand gel would do the job, there is a simple alternative of just washing your hands with ordinary soap and water.

edam well it would have to be a dessicant or slimey to slough off the bacteria - that's why soap works, it makes the bugs slide off your hands - but water alone won't do it. But you'd have to be really careful wouldn't you, because quite often cheaper oils in these things are animal based. Gosh what a minefield, I bet there is a 'agnostic hand wash committee' though