The news about swine flu has been dwindling. More and more folks have realized the virus is no more dangerous than any ‘regular’ flu and that the current pandemic can definitely not be compared to the much deadlier one in 1918. Although unfortunately that doesn’t mean we can happily sneeze into each other’s face again.

Yesterday a coughing man in a raincoat handed us a top-secret file containing a rather disturbing statistic. Turns out that not too long ago, a whopping 4% of the student population at the prestigious HKIS was NOT contaminated. Hence we can safely conclude that 96% was at one point suffering from the piggy cough. Further precautions are being carried out, with more and more schools closing the coming weeks. Middle school at HKIS started today again, whereas lower primary and upper primary are closed since Tuesday this weeks.

There’s an upside though. Such long breaks give our kids all the time in the world to start practicing and eventually do better than this poor girl at future snorting contests.

A gingerly stroll to IFC after your Sunday brunch in Soho is usually a bad idea if you want to avoid tripping over domestic helpers… ALL of them. Out. On pieces of cardboard, cooking food, making clothes, or simply gettin’ jiggy to the tunes from their portable radios. But it doesn’t stop there. Next to taking over our sidewalks, our maids are spreading swineflu by gathering in large numbers to discuss new techniques to get back at us, their bullying masters. In combination with the news of 8 new swine flu cases discovered yesterday (5 of which imported), it has become obvious that the piggy cough is here to stay for a while. The government recommends giving your maid another day off. We suggest Wednesdays, as our ever-smiling helpers would make a great addition to the outside public area of Dragon-I on models nights.

A day before Hong Kong health authorities reported the city’s first person-to-person transmission of the virus, the WHO has announced that it is about to declare swine flu a pandemic. This entails that it has totally gone global on us, resulting in a lift to phase 6 (the highest) on the risk level scale. Swine flu is thus the first flu pandemic in over 40 years.

So far the piggy cough has infected 26,563 people in 73 countries and caused 140 deaths. Most cases have been in North America, but Australia also has seen a sharp increase in recent days (more than 1200 infections). There have been more than 45 confirmed cases of human swine flu in the Big Lychee, not counting the potentially infected renegades on the run. With a population of approximately 7 million, that means one infection per 150.000 Hong Kongers already. Gentlemen, place your wagers.

As swine flu numbers continue to rapidly rise, health authorities are buckling down. Health declaration forms will be carefully inspected and if someone innocently fails to note flu-like symptoms on the form, and are later discovered to have the H1N1 virus, they are subject to imprisonment. Maybe.

This may be Hongkers staying true to form in being freakishly paranoid about all things flu, OR perhaps the government just wants to imprison H1N1 victims as some sort of sick social experiment (no pun intended) and unleash the virus on captured members of the Falun Gong movement. Alright, that may be a tad far-fetched; we’re only kind of in China. However, The Standard yesterday reported that health authorities want to take action against someone who failed to mention a sore throat on their health declaration form. I think instead of prosecution, they should give that lying bastard some ‘new and improved’ Tamiflu. Just kidding of course.

Secretary for Food and Health York Chow Yat-ngok urged us all to be self-disciplined when filling out the forms. Ya, I definitely want to notify the authorities that I have a tickle in my throat so that they can detain me for hours of testing after my 12 hour flight. Sounds like jolly good fun! Although….if there’s an anal probe involved in the testing and we can keep it as a parting gift, people may be provoked to be more honest (at least the more perverted/gay). On the other hand, such kinky measures may not be necessary as York Chow Yat-ngok assures us that “…people do not normally try to hide their symptoms…” – riiiiiight.

In all seriousness, H1N1 could potentially be the next SARS and the HK government really is doing a stellar job at keeping it under control. We should wear masks at the first hint of a cough, and we should be honest when filling out our health declaration forms, despite the lack of anal toy hand-outs. If we all work together we can fight this! Do it not only for yourself, but for the children whose innocent lives are filled with ho….. wait a minute, they’re the little shits who may just have caused an epidemic in Hong Kong!