
No big deal. A lot of folks here travel to Asia and most of us thought it was just another training about personal safety when traveling. Then we received the more information from the City and County of San Francisco on official letterhead.
“Dear Sir/Madam:
The San Francisco Department of Public Health has confirmed the diagnoses of active pulmonary tuberculosis in a coworker. Our investigation indicated that anyone working in [office address] was significantly exposed to the disease.
For you own health you will be required to be screened for tuberculosis.”
The letter goes on, but other than asking the entire staff to work on Saturday ala Lumberg in Office Space, there may not be a worse way to start the weekend. Everyone was mostly joking about who Patient X was, but it was hard to make jokes because: a) the dire language used in the letter made everyone slightly concerned, and b) not many folks knew of the symptoms of tuberculosis to even make a joke about it.
Our Human Resources department must have received a number of concerned emails and calls because on Saturday morning, we received a follow up email stating, “No one is contagious at this time from this incident and there are no changes you need to make in your life.”
While it’s nice to know that folks were getting worked up over nothing, I’m still expecting Dustin Hoffman to walk into the office at any moment wearing a germ-free space suit and yanking a co-worker from their office, Outbreak style.
We’ll see.
(Update 6/29/07: My blood test came up negative. Others in the office were not so lucky and had to get chest x-rays now. Apparently if you grew up in Asia, its fairly common to have TB in your system.)