How Startuppers Get Through H1N1 (Swine Flu)
Montag, August 31st, 2009
POST VON DANIEL (Daniel schreibt in unregelmässigen Abständen exklusiv für SwissStartups):
Dear SwissStartuppers!
It is my great pleasure to write once again for the SwissStartups-Blog. As you might have read in my previous post, I have very recently been in Santiago/Chile for three months, to work for the Business Incubator Octantis and its international project Latinnovators.
Before I am going to share some thoughts about these two different Startup environments of Chile and Switzerland in my next post, I’d like to tell a little – very serious – story that happened to me two months ago in Chile (I have to say it was not my own idea to make this story so popular 
). Well, I was truly one of those unlucky and tormented people who fell victim to the famous swine flu or more accurate, I got the H1N1 virus: One day I got fewer and when I looked into the mirror, a tiny pig’s snout was growing on my human nose – It was swine flu!
Let’s be a bit more serious about this topic. I got infected with this virus at an after office event in Santiago, by a friend who had first symptoms of cough and fewer at this time. Four days later, I could recognize my own first symptoms; fewer, hurting cough and some dizziness. After a couple of days we went to the hospital as a whole group, received Tamiflu and some drugs against the flu. One day later we got the confirmation of the flu by e-mail. At home I put myself under quarantine and informed my four housemates about the virus in my body – this was the whole story. Nobody of my housemates got infected. Only one of them worked as a researcher for Boehringer Ingelheim and got paid a hotel by his company during my H1N1-adventure – he was actually very thankful for some hotel life in Santiago during this week.
The time at home was not really comfortable since I was always wearing a mask and used a disinfection spray for all surfaces that I’ve touched out of my room. I took Tamiflu twice a day during five days and other flu drugs even more often. This strong Tamiflu and the flu itself probably, made me sleep every night at least twelve hours. So the whole adventure lasted around 8 days, with 5 days Tamiflu cure, and after that I wasn’t able to infect anybody anymore. So all in all it was a normal flu with this funny feeling, that I am eventually “one of those” with the popular swine flu!
My recommendations for you, who are having (probably) the H1N1 virus:
#1: Don’t panic, it’s just a flu
#2: Go as soon as possible to the doctor in order to get the diagnosis and the necessary drugs
#3: Protect you and other people once you get the first symptoms – the fast time of infection was impressive
#4: Stay these 5 days at home or at the hospital: Once it’s over, you are immune
#5: Trust your own and other people’s individual responsibility, that you and they protect other people once having first symptoms of the flu
#6: Join our Facebook group HUMAN 2.0, for those who are finally immune and have upgraded their body
Well, that were my little experiences of a H1N1-adventure in Chile. I look forward to talking to you soon about more entrepreneurial topics 
Cheers,
Daniel (XING / LinkedIn)
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