There has been some fantastic coverage of the current swine flu shenanigans here at ScienceBlogs. Tara Smith at Aetiology and Revere at Effect Measure have offered phenomenal, unparalleled coverage.
Earlier today Dr. Isis received this email from the administration of MRU. It is neither phenomenal nor unparalleled.
MRU has activated its influenza emergency plan. After this message, the normal emergency alerts system will not be used for flu information or updates, until further notice. The authoritative address that may send you information on the influenza will be pandemic@mru.edu.
The plan is pre-set and has the term "pandemic" in its title, but the United States is not experiencing a pandemic at this time. [Emphasis a la Isis]
I wondered why MRU had rejected "swineflu@mru.edu" as the source email address in favor of the completely benign "pandemic@mru.edu." Had they really had an "influenza emergency plan" in place for so long? And, if so, why not "influenza@mru.edu?" Or, perhaps this is new and the folks at MRU were simply disappointed to learn that "swineflu@mru.edu" had already been assigned.
Figure 1: Freshman finance major John Swineflu works on his end of the semester women's studies report.
All of this made me wish I had been in on the high level, bureaucratic meeting where the email address was decided upon. Here are the five email addresses I imagine they rejected before finally decided on "pandemic@mru.edu":
- panic@mru.edu
- shit_your_pants_now@mru.edu
- WereAllGoingtoDie@mru.edu
- fuckitimoutofhere@mru.edu
- CoughCough@mru.edu
Nice work, MRU. Nice work.
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I can't determine the provenance for this bit o' fun, but I've seen versions dating back two days:
http://imgur.com/27K39.jpg
I am sure at this very moment there are tens of thousands of people frantically texting while driving about how dangerous this flu outbreak is.
Posted by: Harold | May 1, 2009 12:15 AM
My guess is the university has had the plans for a while. I know the university I graduated from has them (though perhaps not to the level of an email address). It has had to deal with at least two serious epidemics in the past that I know of (an outbreak of typhoid that killed at least 8 students in 1903 and the 1918 flu epidemic that also killed several students [and the suspension of a few for breaking quarantine]). Admittedly the closest its current emergency plans has come to a disease outbreak was during one drill (I believe for earthquake) in which many of the volunteers came down with food poisoning.
Posted by: Erp | May 1, 2009 1:12 AM
The email names are great!!
Your photoshop skills rival those of some of my students. One year,they photoshopped one particular professor's faculty head shot onto a baby's body, into an astronaut suit and onto 50cent. It was so hilarious I was crying and people from the office thought something was wrong...until they saw the pics!!
This prevented me from putting pics on the web for fear I would be placed on naked women or something, but since these guys are all gentlemen (you are gentlemen,right?), it will never happen.
Although, they could replace Trinity's head with mine standing next to Keanu in The Matrix. That they can do....
Posted by: sciencegoddess | May 1, 2009 10:27 AM
Now I feel better about the crap my institution has been sending out.
A friend sent me this link yesterday; it seems to be the general response most of the media is promoting:
http://doihaveswineflu.org/
Posted by: Pascale | May 1, 2009 10:35 AM
haha-love the email name. I love how people think surgical masks will protect them from the flu.
If people are losing their junk over the "Mexican" flu, it makes you wonder what would happen if avian flu gained person-to-person transmission at a large scale. (I'm thinking saran wrap and duct tape. Lots and lots of duct tape and maybe tinfoil...)
Posted by: Eugenie | May 1, 2009 12:02 PM
My university has reacted in a similar calming manner by sending me a link: http://www.crisis.utoronto.ca/pandemic.htm
Posted by: LostMarbles | May 1, 2009 3:26 PM