Dos

• Places of public gathering have a voluminous and extra significance in a pandemic scenario. These places must be kept clean, garbage free and minimally crowded to reduce the spread of Swine Flu and such contagious diseases.
• Crowded places like shopping malls, schools, colleges, theaters, marriage halls should have adequate facilities for fresh air circulation. If any of these places are using air conditioning, it should be ensured that fresh air is circulated through the vents.
• Places of public gathering like those mentioned above must have adequate facilities for proper disposal of garbage and clean and sanitized toilets. Though this is not a realistic scenario in our highly populated cities, the best effort has to be put in to achieve the same.
• People in general would be well advised to use proper face masks or layered face & mouth covers as protection from direct inhalation of infected air while mingling in crowds or while travelling through crowded places.
• While being present at places of public gathering, people should follow basic decency and care protocol, especially while sneezing or coughing. Use proper method of covering one’s face and mouth while sneezing or coughing so that others present are not at the receiving end of one’s natural yet possibly infectious gestures!

Don’ts

• Do not venture into crowded places unless it is absolutely necessary to do so while the pandemic or threat of a pandemic is on.
• People sick with viral or seasonal flu or Swine Flu should not mingle with others, especially so in a crowded place.
• As a matter of basic personal hygiene, do not spit or indulge in any excretion activities in public places.
• Do not hold religious or any other crowd pulling activities while the pandemic alert is on. Similarly, all schools and educational institutions should watch out for incidence levels in their particular institutions and shut down for a period, in case Swine Flu cases are found to occur.
• Places of public gathering should not encourage or foster an atmosphere where contagious diseases occur and manifest to harm the public at large.

Acknowledgements: WebMD.com, Data & information released by WHO / US CDC, IMA – Pune chapter, MOHFW – India website