Swine flu panic
0805
13 August 2009
New Delhi
With more deaths attributed to swine flu yesterday, the Maharashtra state government hit the panic button yesterday, shutting down cinema complexes and schools in its two largest cities, Mumbai and Pune. Mall tenants have been 'asked' not to announce large sales, as this would boost crowds at retail outlets. This is a pretty ambiguous demand - either shoppers should be allowed into malls or not.
Cinema owners have only just begun to recover from the stand-off they had earlier this summer with movie distributors, when a disagreement over how to share admissions revenue shut mainstream Bollywood films out of multiplex screens for two weeks.
A fear psychosis is in danger of gripping the city, with office attendance down, especially in call centers and other outsourcing operatons. Authorities have to tread a fine line between taking adequate public health precautions, and igniting a fire of fear.
On treatment too, we have seen a U-turn - earlier, patients with flu-like symptoms were told not to take Tamiflu until it was confirmed that they had been afflicted by H1N1; now we are advised that a Tamiflu regimen should be instituted immediately, and continued for five days irrespective of the test outcome (the latter advice makes sense, as discontinuing a drug protocol leads to a build up resistance against it).
The fear of swine flu is hitting airlines and hotels hardest, and stocks in these sectors continue to slide. Not surprisingly, pharmaceutical stocks are climbing, and the healthcare index was up 1.3% yesterday.
