I just read an article that makes a case for bird flu fizzle. http://www.aei.org/publications/filter.all,pubID.23505/pub_detail.asp
I hope he is right.
note the last para:
Fewer than seventy-five deaths from a virus with little or no person-to-person transmissibility have spurred the current wave of pandemic preparedness planning. While pandemic and other emergency planning is useful and overdue, too much emphasis has been placed on medications and vaccines, and indeed on the avian influenza itself. Most of the national and international preparedness efforts to date have been based on a pandemic of H5N1 influenza arising in southeast Asia and spreading throughout the world. Billions have been spent on medications and vaccines when a pandemic could be lurking in another outbreak of H7N7 in the Netherlands or H9N2 in India or the Middle East. Other virulent and transmissible emerging diseases are also only a plane ride away from U.S. shores. For example, the last outbreak of Marburgvirus came frighteningly close to a major urban area with international air connections.
We must begin to make our plans more broad-based to encompass the most threatening of pandemic scenarios. Better still would be to think strategically and work on improving regional and global disease preparedness plans instead of responding to each threat as it comes over the tactical horizon.
These ‘skeptic’ articles really are all saying similar things: no one can predict when,prep is necessary, and this conservative think tank has issues with how much money is being bandied about. Duh.
Duh to the max.
Dem, from your comment on the bottom of your post I understand that this article came from a conservative organization that wants to explain away not funding preparation. Did I interpret your comment correctly? If I did, I will simply ignore what must be just more spin to justify spending more money elsewhere.
She can definitely be right. But if she’s not, the consequence is huge. So we still gotta do what we can to prepare, specifically for H5N1 at this time since it’s the most serious and proven threat.
If we are lucky and no pandemic hits in a couple of years, we should spend less on Tamiflu and H5N1 vaccine, and focus more on the infrastructure, including building up reserve capacities in material and human resources, to respond to all kinds of pandemic threats.
Specifically, just-in-time manufacturing and lean organization with long working hours, which made Dell and Ellison rich, should go. Efficiency is good for capitalists, reserve is good for humanity. Take your pick.
No contest. The capaitalists will win out every time.
Would you TRY to keep some idealism alive please? I thought there’s hope in democracy.
Come on folks Capitalism is a good thing. We’re not going to get enough vaccines with out it. Governments don’t manufacture millions vaccines, Capitalists do.
It’s the Capitalists that are giving us the cell based options while the governments are still pushing eggs.
Realisim vs. Idealisim :-)
On the other hand, most conservative economists recognize the role of government to bring a balance in greed v. good, short term v. long term, and internal profit v. positive externalities, which is achieved by regulations and resource allocation.
It’s a government’s job to build strategic reserves, not just in weapons and oil, but also in electricity and water, as well as distribution capabilities. Governments can also build human resource reserve by mandating 4-day work schedule.
In terms of economic competitiveness, don’t worry. China used to have 6-day work week, now it’s 5-day too. At certain point, a society will come to the realization that leisure time is worth more than money, certainly the money in your boss’ pocket.
Now it’s totally off-topic.
I think there’s penty of reasons to be concerned and being prepared for anything to happen is the wise choice.
Michael prairie heretic, nothing from AEI is neutral. They have a definite right wing slant. The author makes some good points, but much of it is attacking straw men. The Weekly Standard had a mirror image article here. After you get past the snide:
We’ll be better prepared because of ignoring articles like this. All the skeptic articles quote Orent and Ewald… you should know those names by now. I like this one, though, because there’s useful info on masks, opinions on 1918 (cytokine storm vs secondary infection) even though the facts don’t fit the convenient debunking (why would healthy 25 year olds get so many secondary infections, and only that year?)
HAVING MADE SOME BASIC PREPARATIONS TO GET BY SHOULD THERE BE SOME INTERUPTIONS IN BASIC NECESSITIES I HAVE FOUND THAT MY “WORRY” HAS PRETTY MUCH FALLEN BY THE WAYSIDE. I WOULD SIMPLY DESCRIBE MY STATE OF MIND REGARDING THIS ISSUE NOW AS ALERT INFORMED CONCERN. AT THIS POINT THERE IS NOT MUCH TO DO BUT WATCH AND WAIT. I’M MO ACTIVIST. NOT REALLY INTERESTED OF CONVINCING ANYONE OF ANYTHING. DID BROACH THE SUBJECT WITH MY DAUGHTER A WEEK OR SO AGO BASICALY STATING THAT THERE MAY COME A TIME IN THE NEXCT FEW MONTHS WHERE WE’LL NEED TO STAY PUT FOR A WHILE AND EXPLAINED WHY BUT ALSO EXPLAINED THERE’S JUST AS MUCH A CHANCE THAT NOTHING WOULD HAPPEN AND WOULD KEEP HER POSTED. DON’T REALLLY FEEL THAT THE PREPARATION HAS BEEN AN OVER REACTION AT ALL. THE INFORMATION AND PROVISIONS GAINED IN THE LAST MONTH OR SO HAS REALLY GIVEN ME A SENSE OF PEACE. FOR-WARNED IS FOR-ARMED. TO HAVE DONE NOTHING IN THE FACE OF THE POSSIBILITES CURRENTLY OUT THERE WAS NOT AN OPTION FOR ME. BUT WORRIED? NOT NOW.
This forum gives us ‘facts’
They’re not concrete, they’re not exempt from challemge. There are no guarantees.
None of the contributors claims ro be infallible, but it is understood that each will provide the best information/interpretation he or she can.
What more would you ask?
And why?
I can’t tell you when you’re going to die. (I’ll be dying in February - bút not this year) (get my e-mail from Dem for an explanation)
Of course ‘we’ll all be better prepared’ - but prepared for what?
I’m prepared for the sort of emergency/exigency I feel I might face. I hope YOU are prepared for the sort of emergency/exigency YOU might face- Xour preparations are up to you.
At the end of the day. we’re all dead. - But the end of the pandemic (when it occurs) isn’t the ‘end of the day’, Some of us might be dead, but the vast majority will still be pooping and polluting the world.
You don’t get rid of the humans that easily!
Thanks DemFromCT, You are more informed about this than I. I will just ignore the spin. Again, thanks for the detailed answer.
NW’s post is a good description of where I am too. I’ve made preparations - all the while thinking that this was something I should have done a long time ago - and I have thought through Plans B and C, given the specifics of where I live. No matter what, I don’t feel any of my preparations will have been wasted and I’m glad I have prepared to the level I have. But I am not worrying about this every day - it might happen, it might not, it might be really bad or it might not. But I am a lot more relaxed about it now.
…t
Yes…making survival kit make me feel more secure. Anything can happen and if something happen (anything, not just BFlu) I am feeling more secure.
Maybe we will never have to face this monster (BFlu), but other kind of disaster can happen.
I am agree with Trubski: I should have done this long time ago.
Enough scientists are very concerned (who understand the bad strains of H5N1 in detail my mind hasn’t gone to university for) that I believe them when they say the news keeps becoming more worrisome, not less so.
[Scientists also predicted what would befall New Orleans, years before it happened. People and governments didn’t prepare. I even read people saying they would ride Katrina out and had heard it was weakening anyway - I wondered what resources they were using to hear that; the online weather reports I could see said the opposite! People had no clue that water levels were predicted to rise over their homes- which they could have found out were so many feet below sea level! They chose to discount the force of Nature and rely solely on optimism and force of habit.]
Just because most people today have no memory of an influenza pandemic, or a supervolcano, rising sea levels, or a tsunami, or only recall a previously fizzled epidemic/pandemic fear, shouldn’t mean we discount scientific warnings if we should get them.]
The wording may have been to try and get attention that has been confused by governments saying, “keep the economy going nothing to worry about here” but, this virologist says
H5N1 is more dangerous than the ebola virus: http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3487915a7144,00.html …”“This virus has particular traits about it that makes it much more virulent than the 1957 or 1968 pandemic.”
He would also rank it above the 1918 virus in terms of its ability to cause disease.
“It’s a bit more nasty than the other three were.”
If the world will build better health infrastructures for everyone, seeing that neglecting countries would just help spread infectious diseases, that could be a good thing to come out of concern for a pandemic. Perhaps people will insist corrupt governments stop, and really take care of their people first. Can’t be a dead despot of a depopulated country anyway. AIDS is doing it slowly, but influenza would be swift.
National security and national wealth, should be founded on public health.
Households should be told to be ready to take care of themselves; if we wait until we are sure the pandemic is raging there will be no time to prepare. If it is stuff people can use anyway, no harm stocking up.
Wrote too long^ and didn’t put my name- sorry.
Older thread, closing for speed purposes.
check dates