Holidays end with some parents scared to send kids back to school!

H1N1 is the talk of the town, only little overshadowed by Michael Jackson’s unexpected death.

Are these parents just paranoid or is it the “caring and protecting” role they usually take up. According to the WHO and our respective government agencies there is no reason to worry for us at least since the virus is quite mild with no high casualty numbers. Phhh… relief!!

The government is taking the best possible precautions to minimize the spread among our community. Yet the number of infected cases have jumped up to about 600 in recent days which is obviously the most affected in a per square km basis worldwide.

So should we shut our seaports, airports and land borders to avoid getting hit harder and maybe order a closure of all shopping malls?

Would it really help? I don’t think so! Because in times of travelling around the world in just a few hours it makes it way more difficult to contain the virus if not impossible. Imagine the impact on our already heavily (by a different virus) infected economy. Go to Chinatown to see the impact these 2 viruses are already making to businesses there. The famous Chinatown Night Market it does hardly exist anymore. After 9 pm it some days looks like a ghost town there, with most of shops already closed and before 9 the lanes are sometimes so empty you can easily walk without bumping into anyone.

There might be more casualties among the shops then from that virus if this situation continues any longer.

Not too soon the ghost month is on the calendar- a very low season for Chinatown shops and restaurants anyway- and following the “The moon cake festival”. Imagine people being too paranoid (careful, responsible,….) to going there?

Do I have a solution or anyone else? Of course not! So what to do?

I only can tell you what I’ll do:

I will not stay home and lament. I’ll go out shop and dine, especially at Erich’s Wuerstelstand (of course). However I’ll increase my hygiene standards and try to avoid coughing and sneezing people. That should be good enough for the time being. I practiced this a week ago when I was in Hong Kong and (knock, knock) it worked for me.

So why wait any longer. Come out again and SEE YOU AT ERICH’S!

We can discuss it there if you like.