Californians heed advice, stay calm in face of flu (Feature)

By Andy Goldberg Apr 29, 2009, 2:08 GMT

San Francisco - Teams of doctors and nurses are ready to move at a moment's notice. Three mobile hospitals are primed for deployment, and millions of doses of Tamiflu anti-viral medicine in a government warehouse in Sacramento are ready for distribution.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency Tuesday. He insisted that the move was meant to only improve preparedness, telling residents there was 'no need for alarm.'

Californians appeared to be taking his advice.

'It's at the back of your mind, of course it is,' Jason Kimbrough said as he rode to work on a crowded commuter train into San Francisco, where there was not a single face mask in sight. 'I'd be disturbed if the guy next to me was fainting or having a coughing fit. But so far it's just a few people in California, so I'm not too worried.'

'Hey, this is California, the land of earthquakes and wildfires,' another passenger chimed in. 'We don't scare that easy.'

With its proximity to Mexico and its large immigrant population, California would seem to be a fertile area for the virus to arrive and spread. But as of Tuesday morning there were only 13 confirmed cases of swine flu in the state.

Like most of the other reported cases in the US, the cases seemed much less severe than those reported across the border, and all the California patients were responding to medical treatment.

Nevertheless, doctors at clinics across the state reported an uptick in patients coming in for treatment of flu-like symptoms - especially in areas with large Latino populations, where people were more likely to have recently visited Mexico or been exposed to relatives who had.

Many California Hispanics were postponing travel plans to Mexico, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Bertha Dominguez, a native of Mexico City who now lives in Los Angeles, said she 'wouldn't go there even as a joke.' She said the virus scare was just one more reason to stay away from her homeland, on top of the dire economy and raging drug wars.

'Here, poor or rich, they take care of you,' she said. 'I'd rather get sick here.'

One person who did not have the luxury of choosing was student Carlos Reyes, who had to return home to Ciudad Juarez for an interview with a US immigration official that would qualify him for legal residency in the United States.

'I'm very concerned,' said Reyes, who had armed himself with a box of surgical masks and sanitizers. 'This is my future. Otherwise, I swear, I wouldn't be going.'

At world-renowned Stanford University Hospital in Silicon Valley, the biggest fear of administrators wasn't the direct threat of swine flu but the distraction of a potential surge in swine flu patients.

Most of the swine flu cases are expected to be 'mild or moderate,' Dr Eric Weiss, the hospital's head of disaster planning, told the San Jose Mercury News. 'You don't want them congesting your emergency departments and preventing you from taking care of other cases such as heart attacks, strokes and motor vehicle crashes.'

The San Diego Union-Tribune reported a growing sense of anxiety at the nearby border with Tijuana, Mexico, where many US customs officers were wearing face masks. The US government at the border has increased screening of people who looked ill, increasing wait times for the morning cross-border commute to three hours or longer.

As in many other border crossings and airports, officials handed out cards to each traveler arriving from Mexico with the simplest and most effective precaution against the spread of the virus: 'Cover Your Cough.'