I'm over the swine 'flu. Not that I had it, of course, but it's been soaking up a little too much media time. I long for a good headline debate about indigenous health or the new MOD White Paper. Clearly I'm somewhat delusional in my expectations from the Traditional Media. Meantime, though, I'm going to weigh in with my own little swine 'flu scenario;

Over the weekend, UQMS held the annual May Ball. It's quite the even with over 1,600 Med Students and partners invited to attend. Of course, an event that size would be well impossible to hold. Luckily, there are enough students on far-distant placements and intra-med couples to hammer the numbers down. Balls aren't everyone's cup of tea, but still, it's a big event.

Within the Med School, there are quite a few students who work as lab scientists; Batman's one. I mentioned a few days ago that Batman was running the swine 'flu tests. A few others in the SOM work in the same or similar labs in the S.E Qld area. And, they're all testing for H1N1. Or is that H!N! - I forget. I got to thinking what could really happen...

It might turn out that all the panic is justified and the swine 'flu just melts through all the acres of PPE and other equipment surrounding it. It infects a few lab workers. Whatever.

But those workers are Med Students, and they go to the May Ball with a thousand other Med Students. They have good conversations, they work the room, shaking hands, kissing cheeks. And they infect everyone.

Unwittingly, the infected students head back to their rotations, some to rural hospitals, others to geriatrics wards, to EDs, paeds, the ORs... and ZAP!

Overnight, every hospital in Queensland has an outbreak of swine 'flu. People are dropping like flies, coughing and spluttering. The sum total of fevers actually contributes to global warming, and all the while the Public Health Docs are busting their chops to discover the origin of the outbreak.

Now that would be newsworthy.