The Pharmacy Technician Blog

As our afternoon/evening clerk came in, she immediately took a phone call. I could only hear her side of the conversation, of course, but it’s one I had been hearing all day. They were asking about Tamiflu and surgical masks.

As she got off the phone, I explained to her simply - “treat it like Oxycodone - we don’t have any and we don’t know when we’ll be getting any.”

Our supplier was out of Tamiflu and masks almost immediately and we quickly sold what we had in stock as people watch too much TV and begin to panic before we have any real news on this Swine Flu outbreak. (Yes, it is just an outbreak. People (ie the media) are desperate to call it a pandemic. Can we please just call it an outbreak until we have enough cases to call it an epidemic and then maybe we can begin to consider calling it a pandemic?)

So, for us in the pharmacy, at least in the first days of this Swine Flu outbreak, Tamiflu and surgical masks are our new Oxycodone (without the conspiracy).