America's flu epidemic plays havoc with Brooklynites' epidermis
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Version 0 of 1. It was the Meryl Streep thing that did it. All winter, an American friend had been nagging me to get a flu shot and I had resisted, partly from laziness, partly from cultural conditioning against going to the doctor before anything is actually wrong. (In Britain, the drill is to do nothing, get ill, then lie on the sofa, groaning in martyred fashion to oneself, and snapping "I'm fine" when anyone comes near.) Then, on Sunday night, Streep bailed on the Golden Globes. Tina and Amy said it was because she had the flu, setting them up for one of their best jokes of the night – "I hear she's amazing in it" – and plunging the discerning viewer into panic. Think about it: Streep probably hasn't traveled on the subway since before she made the Deer Hunter. She lives in a ritzy apartment block on Manhattan's west side, where Leonardo di Caprio is also rumoured to have a unit, and which, come the epidemic, probably has a Karen Silkwood-style disinfection protocol written into its co-op board rules. If the flu has reached Streep, we're all doomed. I rang the 24-hour pharmacy and proceeded to freak out. News of the epidemic has been building steadily over the last few weeks, with infection rates of flu virus H3N2 said to be ten times higher than last year's strain in parts of the country. Maps have been published, highlighting the country's sites of most widespread infection (a sober brown at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; a furious red as per the Google flu map, which should have the word OUTBREAK! at the top and a screamy soundtrack in the background). Last week, a state of medical emergency was declared in Boston, shortly followed by New York, where Governor Andrew Cuomo temporarily empowered pharmacists to administer the shot to under-18s. If any further evidence were needed, the morning after the Globes, the New Yorker tweeted "for God's sake, go get a flu shot." Assuming the tweet to have been fact-checked to within an inch of its life, I grabbed my coat and ran for the door, cursing myself for having left it so late. (I live in a part of Brooklyn where a large portion of the population sits around all day pondering what the New Yorker does, or doesn't, want it to think, and I anticipated a flash mob at every pharmacy in Cobble Hill. If I had to mow down wee Martin Amis to get to the counter, I was willing to do so.) Walgreens was out. The first Rite Aid was out. CVS had a hand-written note informing us the last vaccine had gone and they weren't immunizing the under-18s. There were people lolling disconsolately on the stairs, which there always are in that drugstore in the middle of the day, but the sniffing and coughing seemed suddenly sinister. It was like that bit in Contagion, just before the anarchy breaks out and Matt Damon puts a hand over his daughter's mouth and sweeps her past the sick and outside to the car. On the street, the lunchtime crowds looked like a breeding ground. Finally, a Rite Aid in Brooklyn Heights. There, the pharmacist explained they had run out of the regular vaccine packs, but could give me "an intradermal", which, she explained, "goes under the skin rather than straight into the muscle". It's another cultural prejudice, but I don't much like being given a consumer choice by my healthcare provider, preferring someone to make the call based on decades of training, rather than, say, my own ten minutes research on the internet. "What's the difference?" "It might cause a site reaction. But it's the same vaccine. And the needle is smaller." "Er? OK." The only other thing with the intradermal, she said, was that some insurers wouldn't cover it. The shot is $30. In Boston, over the weekend, jabs were given away for free, but so far, that's not the case in New York, despite it being a public health emergency. A line formed. It's an odd fact about pharmacy vaccinations that they do it in public, not behind a screen, and those waiting in line looked on eagerly as I rolled up my sleeve. Yes, said the pharmacist, they had been inundated. The intradermal was about to run out, too, and it was a second-best anyway, since it wasn't suitable for the most vulnerable group, the over-65s. But there were more on order, so no cause for panic. I asked if lots of people had come in with flu symptoms and she lowered her voice. "That's the strange thing", she said. "People who have had the vaccine are still coming in sick." There was a pause. "Because it's such a virulent strain?" I asked. (I have no idea what this means, but it seemed like the right thing to say.) She said, "Or a different one. I mean, they're not the sickest. It's probably not going to be … death. But …" She trailed off and snapped her gum. "Did it hurt?" asked the next lady in line, and I told her it didn't. The relief was short-lived. According to the department of health, I read later, "protection can take up to two weeks to develop after vaccination", which makes the prospect of passing through Times Square in the coming days unappealing. Is it really time for the face mask? |