I have not been following BF news and the last several months and was wondering if any health care worker had been infected by a patient? Thanks for your responce in advance.
I asked this question (maybe off-topic) in the News thread for August 18th (now closed) and maybe this is a better place. IF health care workers and several dozen people WERE to get infected in one place, would (in principle) the WHO declare Phase 4 or is that not the procedure now. What is SUPPOSED to happen when things do move (if they have not already) to the “next level”?
This is an important question. Watching a possible pandemic developing from afar, it is very hard for us to analyze the information accurately. HCW getting infected would be an important thing to monitor. In fact, it is one of the criteria for the WHO to consider containment activities, covered on this thread WHO Containment Protocol March 17 Draft:
“Moderate-to-severe respiratory illness (or deaths) in three or more heath care workers who have no known exposure other than contact with ill patients, and laboratory confirmation of H5N1 infections in at least one of these workers”
However, this does not necessarily imply a change in the Alert Phase. This is because the WHO has de-coupled the Phase Alert from science or clinical needs.
In the January 27 2006 Draft of the WHO Pandemic Influenza Draft Protocol for Rapid Response and Containment, on page 12, you can find the following:
“. Pandemic phase assessment
A WHO decision to change the phase of pandemic alert will be made separately from the decision to initiate a rapid response or rapid containment effort. Since a change in phase is expected to trigger a number of potentially cascading actions by countries, possibly including travel restrictions and border closures, such a decision will be highly visible and is expected to have significant political, social and economic implications. The decision to declare a phase change will be made by the WHO Director-General after briefings and consultation with WHO technical staff, the WHO Pandemic Task Force, and other advisers as deemed necessary by the Director-General.”
But this paragraph is no longer present in the current March 30 version update.
anon_22: Thank you for that information. It is still ambiguous (to me)but maybe they want it that way. The focus now seems to be on rapid response rather than general warning. BP: I have myself not seen any mention of health care workers falling ill in this latest cluster, but the reports have been based on news stories. If a WHO team investigages, we may know more if they release their findings.
INFOMASS – at 13:07
“If a WHO team investigages, we may know more if they release their findings.”
May I offer a bit of advice? If you are following this in the hope of catching when TSHTF, I would suggest not waiting for them to ‘release their findings’. Since they are already saying how pandemic alert announcements have political implications, those political considerations will very likely also affect whatever findings they release, or how promptly they release it.
There are quite a lot of regulars on this forum who have trained themselves to watch the WHO (and others’) activity level as a possible early warning system instead of waiting for official announcements.
But this is just speculation, and everyone needs to make up their own mind how to think about this.
INFOMASS- Thanks, I haven’t seen anything either and it has always been an important “trigger” for me. If the virus had mutated to pandemic form you would have infected health care workers. In my opinion when folks are looking at every cluster they should concentrate on any hint of sick health care workers. Does anybody know if there are any western journalists in Indonesia reporting on these clusters?
If you wait for WHO to be completely forthcoming on this issue you will be dead and gone long before the whole truth sees the light of day, if it ever does.
WHO is not about preserving the health of the world, it’s about protecting the political constituency it represents. I say that not in anger but as the only explanation that fits the observed behaviour.
As somebody else has said many times, “watch what they DO, not what they SAY!” If you go by the old protocols, which had some logic and science supporting them, we would already be at stage 4. WHO has admitted that the requisite precursors for a Stage 4 declaration have all been met. The fact that WHO has changed the protocol means something. WHO’s other actions mean something.
WHO’s credibility is on a par with that of the Chinese government, that is, they have very little left.
Look at the PPE that the HCW are using when handling suspected BF cases from this new outbreak region. Notice anything “funny”??? They are announcing that this virus is different than the other ones in Indo, plus the HCW are fully protected; way more than we have seen anywhere else. PLUS they are making the patients wear masks. They think this is H2H now and protecting from that.
I doubt we’ll see HCW infected if TPTB suspect H2H in the beginning. When we see HCW getting sick in numbers, it will be when the beast is already let loose and folks are catching it too fast for the information to travel to inform them that it is H2H at their door now. -or the PPE has been all used up already.
TreasureIslandGal – at 13:31 “They think this is H2H now and protecting from that. “
Or perhaps they think there is a possibility it could be H-H, not that they believe it really is, and are taking no chances with their own health. I’m glad to see they are taking more precautions, it just seems prudent.
To All Posters: I agree with you about WHO having political constraints that would slow its formal notification, and that we need to look at other indicators such as those you have mentioned. I was wondering what its own present formal procedures were, and anon_22 provided that information, for which I am thankful. I think all of us are trying to figure out if this is the first step down to the basment of hell or just “viral foreplay” as someone else wrote.
A few months ago, I warned the planning team that I am working with that the WHO phase declarations were being devalued because of political considerations. I was, and am, feeling ‘had’ by WHO, since the pre-pandemic action list that I drafted is keyed on pandemic phases. We had a long discussion, and decided that we would make our own decisions based on events, not necessarily on what we were geting in the form of phase declarations.
IMHO - we are likely to jump straight from 3 to 6 anyway if a sudden change in The Bug makes it take off rapidly H2H. However, this thing is so far proceeding in a slow, orderly and upward progression. Independent and responsible thinkers can look at it and see that there a public and personal protective actions and preparations that ought to be taking place right now. We have the time to act, but we are p*ssing it away waiting for WHO to say something.
I agree with LMWatBullRun, the signs are there (and have been since Turkey) for a phase 4 declaration, yet it doesn’t come. Perversely, IMO this is because WHO is afraid that governments will implement exactly the measures that WHO contemplated when the pandemic phases were drawn up to begin with. The trouble is that no one in a government bureaucracy or large corporation is going to stick his/her neck out and start escalating things without an ‘authoritative’ green light from WHO, CDC or other national equivalent.
We are sitting in our offices, there is a smoke in the hallway, and we could swear we saw a flicker of flame. But no one move until the fire alarm rings, d*mmit!
You know, the handful of survivors from the upper floors of the World Trade Center were the ones who ignored the official advice and left anyway - “Security has told us that the problem is over in the other building folks. No need to evacuate. Back to work! Hey! What’s that roaring sound? Sounds just like a jet airp….”
The Reveres on Effect Measure said today that more than one village affected, this is just one we know about. I think that statement, coming from where it does, may very well say it all. If so, we’re in stage 6 and it’s just that nobody has yet told us so. Of course, I do not expect to know the date of the beginning of pandemic except in retrospect.
It seems to me that WHO is having a “maladaptive adjustment reaction”.
LMWatBullRun at 13:21 and The Sarge at 13:43 -
When you get a minute, would you mind telling us what you really think ;)
Just kidding. Your no-nonsense analysis and opinion are always appreciated.
Clawdia - As someone else has previously stated: “We won’t know until we know.” That about sums it up for me.
Sarge, LMWatBullRun, and other contributors,
I wish I did not agree with you, but you make much more sense than the official statements. The news item today (which caused the first-time need to split the daily news forum to prevent server disruption) on Dr. Osterholm’s comments at a community forum, have turned my “PPF” to a higher level faster than anything since I began taking this threat as more than casual interest.
As a part of intelligence analysis it is typically useful to monitor activities to support an event than to look for the event itself. At this point it would be in our best interest to seek information on supplies of N95 masks and PPE’s being moved from inventory, as well as decon equipment deployment or possible unscheduled military movements in Asia in the areas adjacent to the latest reported outbreaks, rather than looking for HCW reports. WHO, CDC, and similar agencies will be working to “manage” information of HCW reports to delay the phase triggers under political pressure, but national security will respond immediately if it looks to be an imminent threat. And despite the statement by Dr. Osterholm that “Non-pharmaceutical interventions such as quarantine, infection control, social distance, etc. will likely have limited impact on the number of cases” it is the one visible item a nation can use to try to reassure economic markets that “there’s nothing to see here, nothing to worry about, go about your normal lives” to prevent panic in trade or exchanges.
I’m afraid that the Alert System is now attenuated by powers that have too much to loose by pulling the trigger until long after the target is beyond range. I don’t buy into conspiracy theory very much, because there is typically a rational explanation for most events. Unfortunately this time, the rational path seems to be a matter of perspective between individual protection verses societal protection.
TRay75 at 14:47 - I agree on the “management” of information concerning illness in HCWs. I think TPTB will suppress that info for as long as possible; therefore, maybe not the best indicator of whether TS has HTF.
TRay75 -
The place where I would look for indicators is the US military. Since US military forces operate in every time zone, and units are constantly moving back and forth from the US to the theaters of operations, they will ‘spin up’ in response to a pandemic threat much sooner than any one civilian government. They also cannot afford to have any appreciable number of troops quarantined or incapacitated, so they will likely act quickly, and probably independently of WHO, CDC or anyone else.
BTTT
Closed to maintain Forum speed.