‘They hang out with friends who sneeze, and wear the masks of students that had a cold……’
A housewife ‘Park (43, Gangdong-gu, Seoul)’ heard a shocking story from her son, an elementary school student, lately. His classmates are trying all means possible to catch Influenza A virus subtype H1N1 because they do not want to go to school.
It is a very shocking story that her son told of ‘immature’ students’ actions. They hang out with friends who sneeze or have a fever, and don’t wash their hands after exercising. In addition, they wear the masks of students that had a cold.
Park sighed “A big academy takes students’ temperatures before class, and then students who have a fever are pleased saying ‘Mommy, I think I don't need to go to school.’” Besides, “As they don’t know that their parents are shocked, they acted thoughtlessly.”In fact, it is easy to find such questions ‘How to get H1N1’, ‘How to have a fever’ etc, and writings ‘I want to be absent with H1N1.’
They wrote writing ‘I don't want to go to school, so please tell me how to get H1N1 at once or how to show similar symptoms’. Then some students told a ridiculous story ‘Stay in crowded places and then use a keyboard which is used by others for more than 2 hours and rub your nose or eat food with those hands.’
In addition, some students are having dangerous ideas, ‘There is H1N1 check in school tomorrow morning, so I need a fever of more than 37.5 degrees’ and ‘If I have to eat something, I'll purchase it whatever it may be.’
In particular, a strange story has spread out that ‘You will never catch a cold after suffering from H1N1’
It is a serious problem that some students don’t know the seriousness of the situation and have such eased attitudes such as ‘I don’t care about getting H1N1’, even though it has caused 11 deaths in Korea and has raised social anxiety about H1N1.
A middle school student ‘Youn(15, Suwon, Kyung-ki)’ said “There are many friends who want to get H1N1 because that student will take a rest about for a week” and “A class teacher checks students’ temperatures and tells students to try to wash their hands, but they don’t worry about it and even think ‘I’m not going to die.’”
Ministry of Education, Science and Technology(교육과학기술부) officials said that “I heard that there are students who want to get H1N1 intentionally, but this report has not been confirmed’ and “They cannot be absent unconditionally because of a high fever and symptoms of a cold, and have to decide on a measure of stopping to attend school after consultation with a public health teacher of the school.”
Those kids are nuts. However, it should be up to parents and teachers to educate them better on the effects of H1N1. While they are correct that they likely won't die, since it is hardly more deadly than "regular" flu, they do need to know that it's not fun. It's quite painful in reality and certainly not fun.
ReplyDeleteI think that scariest thing is that these kids would rather get a disease that go to school. Doesn't that worry you a little? That worries me. It's natural for kids to want to get out of going to school a little, but this is kind of extreme.
Do you think that this is natural or strange?
“As they don’t know that their parents are shocked, they acted thoughtlessly.” -- I don't really understand this. What do you mean?