Tomorrow’s celebration of the sultan’s birthday has been scaled down because of the H1N1 fear. Which seems to have spread over south east Asia quite a bit, I think mostly due to air travel. When I was in Cebu there were a few confirmed cases there, and passengers coming off flights were being tested and quaranteened if there were signs of fever.
Then things got a little more serious in Kudat, where there had been a confirmed case on a teacher, which infected another teacher and that ended up in some school classes being dismissed.
When I was checking into the marina in Kota Kinabalu, there marina personel was in doubt if I would need to be teste, and called the health department. The only reason I did not need to be tested was because my clearance papers were from Cebu, which was over three weeks ago, and it applied to anyone that had traveled over the last 10 days.
Now here in Brunei, where there have been quite a high number of confirmed cases (the exact number escapes me, I am sure you can google that), the schools were closed last week. And there was quite a bit of H1N1 coverage in the few newspapers that I have read. And now the sultan’s birthday celebration (which is one of the three big holidays in Brunei) has been scaled down.
In shops, on the streets, you see a lot of people wearing these surgical masks (someone is making good money on that). This does not help the communication, but alas, that is what people do. I have been having a cold since I left Labuan, and run around sniffing and coughing a bit, probably already scared a few people.
So, that is the H1N1 report from your reported in the field ;-)