Sometimes there is a fine line between our perception and our reality. It’s been interesting to live here over the last few weeks as “H1N1” becomes a buzzword worldwide. I’m still trying to grasp onto a balance of perceived threat versus actual reality.

Recently, a local college student was faced with a few dilemma’s. She was invited to be a tour guide around the city for some people coming from a university in the States. Unfortunately, she was informed by her school that she might not be able to stay in her dorm if she was going to be interacting with people from the States. She was also told by some of her friends that they wouldn't be spending time with her anymore if she was willingly going to be around people who “could possibly” be hosting the dreaded virus.

A couple weeks ago, there were some visitors in from the States who had come to see a friend. They passed the check points at the airport and assumed the rest of their time here would just be tourism and fun with their friend. Later though, someone from their flight apparently showed signs of sickness and everyone on their flight was tracked down and put into quarantine. They spent the remainder of their days here at a hotel that was being used strictly for quarantine.

I read an article today about a married couple that was coming here to participate in a wedding. Their flight schedule happened to include a layover in the Cancun airport for two hours. When they arrived there they were checked by airport security to make sure they were healthy (and they passed through just fine). When they arrived at the airport here they were immediately approached by officials and quarantined, even though they didn’t have a temperature or show any signs of sickness. They were told that their passport stamp from the layover in Mexico made it impossible for them to enter the country without being quarantined first. They asked if they could simply get on a plane and go back home but were told they could not. They spent seven days in a hotel in the middle of nowhere being watched and worried over. They missed the wedding.

As an outsider, it seems a bit extreme to go to these kind of measures when the virus isn’t even an issue here at the present time. Then I started thinking about what happened several years ago when a respiratory virus killed people all over the country and seemingly threatened to wipe out a huge percentage of the population. Hindsight is 20/20 and maybe the officials are just trying to keep something similar from happening again.

A few weeks ago our school passed out an announcement about the virus that was giving advice for how to prevent it. It talked about cleanliness and other similar things. The kicker was the comment that suggested one to “stay away from crowds.” I live in a city of over 16 million people and the population density doesn’t really allow for you to avoid crowds. I can only imagine the panic that would occur if this flu started to spread here.

Apparently, fear is powerful.