Debbie, my BFF who lives in Southern Mexico, and I have been talking about the swine flu a lot recently. Here are our correspondences from today:

Debbie writes:
Now, we got the pork and chicken down. The real question is when is the beef flu gonna kick in? We finally got a case in Merida. The whole country is paralized, it really sucks. Just when everybody else is starting to get on their feet again, we in yucatan are late as always. We had to close the gallery... we probably wont open till almost june again. They´re really anal againt people getting together. This weekend they crashed 4 parties and thank god we weren´t one of them.
Meanwhile, in the states there are 5 times more cases of confirmed pig aids than in mexico, but nobody cares! Why can´t mexico be irresponsable too?!?!

My response:
It's insane that they're closing everything down. I know up here they're closing down any school with a case for two weeks. But the news media are finally saying that maybe things were blown out of proportion.
By the way, I'm waiting for the tofu flu.
Hopefully they'll back off from shutting things down soon enough. Who is allowed to work? How are you all supposed to get food or toilet paper?

Debbie:
Food and toilet paper? At Wal-Mart! Supermarkets aren’t shut down, but they do disinfect you at the entrance. All the employees where masks and gloves and shit. You can’t find mouth covers, latex gloves, antibacterial gel or soap anywhere!
But movie theatres, clubs, gyms, bowling alleys, billiards, museums, ruins, malls, department stores or any "unnecessary" business is closed. In Mexico city it’s a lot worse because they shut down restaurants there too. It’s just crazy. The chamber of commerce is just really pissed off. You know, were still in a huge recession and they close everything down for two weeks. School is out till next monday in the whole country. It’s been two weeks already of no school.
Guess what business is profiting the most out of this? Blockbuster! (for real) You can´t find a single movie in the country! By now, I´m pretty sure that the swine flu was made in some hollywood set to get movie sales up again. Damn piracy! (And man, don´t we love piracy down here)
My mom got an email from Ian´s school today saying that on monday all the kids had to wear mouth covers and bring antibacterial gel and wetnaps. Dude! It´s so sci fi, everyone with mouth covers. Anyway... that´s what happens... right now a person with a runny nose is a bigger threat than one with a gun. Funny.