Here’s something I just learned: most of the masks on the market won’t protect you from other people’s germs. They protect other people from yours. If you get the swine flu, you may want to wear a mask to protect others, but you’ll need a particular type of mask to protect yourself from them.

I personally won’t buy any masks. We have a good stock of food; otherwise we’ll just take normal precautions.

And, as I mentioned in my own blog (which appears to be down now; I need to check on it tonight) your mother was right. Wash your hands.

We also have plenty of hand sanitizers, Lysol spray, Clorox wipes and spray, plenty of soap, etc. We haven’t yet bought masks. Maybe those are flying off the shelves as I write. We haven’t gone to many places here in the Houston area this week – only to the supermarket and a park to exercise with Stroller Strides. That’s it.

Yet, my mother is hysterical and consumed by fear: she thinks we’re being “irrational” and that we don’t know how to protect our kids. (!) We have made our own preparations, yet she thinks that’s not enough. What does she want from us? To live like hermits? After she went on and on, I gave her a firm “Calm down!”, and then she hung up the phone. Unbelievable.

Fear is a motivator to be protected and prepared. I know that because I was told recently that my new neighborhood is “Rattlerville USA” (read: rattlesnakes) during the summer. So, I forced my husband to buy snake pellets to spray around the house, and I don’t leave my little daughters alone in the backyard, or the front yard. Ever.

Fear can ensure your survival, that’s true. But to paralyze you into not having a life… That’s not healthy.

We just had our first human to human transmission and the authorities are clearly struggling to keep up already. Our best hope is dumb luck, because dumb government just makes things worse.

On the other hand, Melissa, it is a fact that most of the people who have ever lived are still alive today!