Sunday, October 18, 2009

Public Health message we need: stay home sick even if your illness isn't H1N1

Some members of the general public seem to be getting the idea that the public health message that you should stay home sick because of H1N1/swine flu means you should stay home if and only if you have H1N1.

I'm not a health professional or anything, but shouldn't people be staying home sick no matter what they have? If you're sick, your resistance is down so your body won't be as able to fight off any flu that might come its way. If you go to work with a common cold and spread your cold around the office, you'll have a whole office full of people who are less able to fight off any flu that might come their way. But if you stay home for a day and sleep your cold off, you aren't just avoiding weakening other people's immune systems, you're making your own immune system strong again.

If this line of thinking is valid, I think the public health people need to emphasize that you should stay home sick even if you don't have swine flu!

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