Does Congress Have Swine Flu?

From an email sent this afternoon from Terrance W. Gainer, the U.S. Senate’s Sergeant At Arms:

I am writing to let the Senate community know that the Senate Page Program is reporting that five of our summer pages are exhibiting flu-like symptoms—slightly elevated temperature, cough, and sore throats – and the Office of Attending Physician believes that they most likely have influenza, quite possibly the H1N1 virus.   The Office of Attending Physician (and the vast majority of outside doctors) are not testing for the virus right now since the test itself is uncomfortable and the results of the test will not alter the treatment plan.  The pages are resting comfortably apart from their peers and will not be allowed to return to work until cleared by the Physician’s Office.  While it is not unusual for several pages in a class of 50 to be ill at any given time, we are aware that the flu is of particular concern to our community right now.

The Office of the Attending Physician is closely monitoring the situation and does not believe that further actions on the part of the Senate Community are necessary at this time.  If that changes, we will let you know.  This is a good time, however, to remind all of you that flu season, and the expected stronger return of the H1N1 virus, is coming, particularly as colleges and schools resume in the fall.  We ask all of you to continue to take precautions, including frequent hand washing and sanitizing, staying home if you feel ill, and ensuring that you and your colleagues are prepared to work from home if a pandemic flu strikes this area.  We encourage all of you to review the excellent material on the flu available on the Office of the Attending Physician’s website on Webster at Senate.gov.

More likely than not, these pages did not get the flu on the job. As anyone in DC can tell you, pages sleep, eat and forage for underage booze in large, unruly packs in this city. It’s kind of like the nerdy sequel to The Warriors and it’s a big, germ-swapping (at best) mess.

However they got infected, these unpaid biohazard zones in suits are now coughing their way through the halls of power. It’s the real reason your nation’s capitol shuts down in the month of August — it gives us time to wipe down with Clorox everything those interns have touched.