The Pandemic vs. the IT Department

ElsaBorzoi wrote to mention a Network World article suggesting some pandemic preparations for your IT department. From the article: "A survey last month of 300 Minnesota business officials found most thought a flu pandemic would significantly affect their business, but only 18% had preparedness plans in place. The poll sponsored by the University of Minnesota Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy found that close to two thirds said they were already prepared or somewhat prepared to move employees to remote locations or let them work at home, while 29% said they were not prepared. The H5N1 influenza virus, which originated in Asia, could hit the U.S. this fall, potentially causing an epidemic, the nation's chief avian flu coordinator warned."

Comments

Alaska is on the forefront of the Bird Flu

[core plexus]

According to this article, from the Alaska Department of Health & Social Services Public Health Division, Alaska has been watching out for problems associated with a potential Bird Flu pandemic for quite some time.

We would be one of the first to see it, but there are many questions to be answered.

Isolation slows infection down

[Furmy]

prepared or somewhat prepared to move employees to remote locations or let them work at home,
It's important to remember that working from home (or remote locations) isn't going to prevent the illness from infecting everyone - it will just prevent everyone from falling ill at the same time.

The 'attack rate' (ranging from 10 to 35% in most 'plans') is cumulative. It would be much easier to handle 10% revolving ill over a few months than it would be to handle ~35% of staff ill for 2 weeks.

Remember, too, that if this virus mutates into a human-to-human transmissible form that you'll be just as likely to catch it at the grocery store/transit system than you will at work.

Wash your hands/keyboards/mice/doorknobs

Re:Isolation slows infection down

[Furmy]

The general concern is that if it mutates into a form which spreads easily from human to human (like normal human influenza) that we're in trouble.

Read this

Re:Isolation slows infection down

[miskatonic alumnus]

Yes, and if Ebola mutates into a form that doesn't kill the host quite so rapidly, and is transmitted by sneezing, coughing, exhaling, then we'll all die from that. Am I the only one here who is sick and tired of the fear-mongering surrounding this stupid bird flu??? Christ, I'm ready for it to come already so people will STFU about it.

Re:Isolation slows infection down

[Saven Marek]

if it mutates into a form which spreads easily from human to human (like normal human influenza) that we're in trouble.

And if normal human transmissable flu mutates to be as deadly as h5n1 we'll be in trouble. and if ebola mutates to become more contagious over a long gestation time we're in trouble. and if aids mutates to be transmissable from touching a doorknob we're in trouble.

and if the moon turns into green cheese and falls to earth, we're in trouble.

not going to happen people. bird flu is a media beatup where less than 100 people have died from it in 8 years yet nobody says anything about the millions of people across the world who have died from normal influenza in the same time . Read that again. Millions of humans have met their deaths at the hands of normal everyday influenza in just a few years. hundreds of thousands are americans. No that no exaggeration. that's MILLIONS of people.

But you don't see the media beating that one up because it's not worth as much in sales.

Re:Isolation slows infection down

[beoswulf]

All it would take is the extremely lethal and difficult to treat strain swapping the right genetic material with the more common human to human forms and there will be a super lethal form created The history of birds spreading epidemic influenza diseases to humans is why this is such a concern.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_kong_flu

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_Flu

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenzavirus_A

And the fact the avian flu was now found in cats in Germany makes

Re:Isolation slows infection down

[khallow]

not going to happen people. bird flu is a media beatup where less than 100 people have died from it in 8 years yet nobody says anything about the millions of people across the world who have died from normal influenza in the same time . Read that again. Millions of humans have met their deaths at the hands of normal everyday influenza in just a few years. hundreds of thousands are americans. No that no exaggeration. that's MILLIONS of people.

The 1918 flu happened. It's not just hype. Flus can and do jump species. And given that the possibility that this avian flu variant could have a much higher mortality rate than normal flus should at least make you concerned enough to make some sort of preparation. Finally, it's worth noting that a lot of parties more in the know than slashdot posters (eg, medical professionals and governments) are stocking up on various unproven antivirals.

Frankly, I don't like the odds. They're probably under 10% that we see a high mortality pandemic, but I see this flu spread over a substantial wildlife population over a large portion of the world including some places that are incompetent at preventing disease especially in an agricultural setting (eg, some of the African countries).

Business IT??

[bigberk]

Give me a break! If the virus mutates, spreads human to human and there is a full blown pandemic there is no way in hell I'll be coming to work. Seems wiser to avoid all public places. Facing 50%+ mortality rate, the last thing on my mind is how the damn servers are operating. I can continue tinkering on the MySQL server when we meet up in hell

Re:Business IT??

[Average_Joe_Sixpack]

Exactly! no one is going to give a flying f*ck about IT if this thing becomes the next black death. They'll have to strap hookers to the server racks to get any geeks to the datacenter ... in fact that should be their back up plan.

Re:Business IT??

[Furmy]

Facing 50%+ mortality rate,

That mortality rate, provided by the WHO for their 'laboratory confirmed cases, only includes people who
a. became very sick from the infection
b. obtained medical attention which the WHO recognized
c. had blood samples tested and confirmed in a lab

Anyone that became infected and didn't exhibit symptoms wouldn't be included (why would they get tested?), and anyone that died in a remote area wouldn't be included either. The more 'infections' that develop in "1st world" countries the better able we will be to determine the true mortality/morbidity rate of avian influenza in humans.

Unfortunately that won't be able to predict the rate for 'pandemic flu' which would be a mutation of the current avian flu virus.

Re:Business IT??

[cgenman]

In hell, the servers all run Access.

Re:Business IT??

[Bacon Bits]

No. In hell, all databases are Excel spreadsheets.

Re:Business IT??

[smoker2]

They'll have to strap hookers to the server racks to get any geeks to the datacenter ... in fact that should be their back up plan.

I don't think that's a good backup plan - tapes are more reliable and hookers are higher maintenance than dvds :p

Plus there's nothing worse than being in a crisis and finding your backups are fucked !

Winged Monkeys And Tap Dancing Midgets

[nick_davison]

A survey last month of 300 Minnesota business officials found most thought a flu pandemic would significantly affect their business, but only 18% had preparedness plans in place.

I am pretty certain that a flock of winged monkeys, backed up by tap dancing midgets would significantly affect my business. We, sadly, don't have a plan for such an eventuality.

Just because the majority believe a pandemic would affect their business, that's not the same as saying they believe such a pandemic is likely to happen.

The last truly staggering flu pandemic was in 1919. Since then we've been about to get nuked, about to have planes flown in to us and about to all die of Sars, or possibly mad cow disease, or West Nile, or possibly flesh eating bacteria - oh, and our computers were all going to assplode on Y2K. It turns out there are lots of exciting panics the media likes to report and yet most of them are either over hyped of Jack Bauer manages to diffuse them before they become an issue for the masses.

Yes, a flu pandemic would be terrible. Yes, it's even possible - more possible, though less fun, than the winged monkeys. But it's not necessarily probable. Good risk management - as opposed to running around screaming at every perceived risk - involves calculating cost multiplied by probability and comparing options. It's possible most of those businesses, whether rightly or wrongly, just don't believe they need to panic about the latest shocking THREAT TO LIFE AS WE KNOW IT that is yet to do more in the west than make some German cats sick.

Re:Winged Monkeys And Tap Dancing Midgets

[ajs]

Your reaction disgusts me! You should be ashamed! Here we are predicting the imminent demise of USENET, and you're.... what's that? .... Oh, a FLU PANDEMIC? Oh.... Nevermind.

Seriously, did you catch the last bit in the blurb:

The H5N1 influenza virus, which originated in Asia, could hit the U.S. this fall, potentially causing an epidemic, the nation's chief avian flu coordinator warned.

What's he supposed to say? "It's all poppycock, and I'm over-paid"? We're not that naive are we?

Re:Winged Monkeys And Tap Dancing Midgets

[Jeff DeMaagd]

It doesn't need to be "truly staggering" to cause significant problems and economic harm. Pandemics do happen, it isn't a matter of if or probabilities, but when, and how hard will the next one hit. By averages, the human population is a bit overdue for one and I don't see what we have done in the last few decades that would necessarily prevent one from taking place again. There doesn't really seem to be a good way to stop the regular flu very well.

Also, sequencing data has shown that the H5N1 to be a lot more like the 1918 bug than scientists seem to be comfortable with, and is spreading in ways that weren't expected at a speed that wasn't expected. While it isn't cause for alarm, it is cause for concern and should be considered as a part of any emergency preparedness plan.

Re:Winged Monkeys And Tap Dancing Midgets

[colenski]

I think it's worthwhile to note that the movement of people through air travel in the US would be a signifigant vector for the spread of an infectious disease considering that nearly 800 million people are expected to move through the US by air in 2007

That's 12% of the population of the planet

Re:Winged Monkeys And Tap Dancing Midgets

[Jerf]

By averages, the human population is a bit overdue for one and I don't see what we have done in the last few decades that would necessarily prevent one from taking place again.

Times have really changed. I'm the first to reach for history when it's relevant, but I'm not sure it is in this case. In the plus column, we have incomparably better communication than we did in 1918, and incomparably better detection and tracking. (It is by no means perfect, but good lucking getting a gene sequencing done in 1918.) We are also in general somewhat healthier. (Yes, there's improvements to be made there, too.)

In the minus column, we circulate much more freely than in 1918, and given that we're talking "virus", that's very possibly enough to erase all of the above by itself. Thus, both the

But then again, it may not be. We really don't know, because the unknowns simply swamp the knowns. However, I have to admit that if I had to guess, that if there is a true cycle (and not a statistical anomaly), and we are "overdue", then as we become more and more "overdue", the correct conclusion is that the pluses outweigh the minuses, not that we are more and more likely to have a massive outbreak.

This is in part true exactly because we are vigilant, so this should not be interpreted as a call for less vigilance. This is a call for less pointless worrying. ("Vigilance" is very pointed worrying.)

We're "overdue" for a polio outbreak, but I'm not too worried about it. (I rate a flu outbreak at a much, much higher probablility; I just use this as a more clear example of the point I want to make.)

Note: This is a nuanced message, promoting neither panic, nor complancency. If you interpreted this message in a such a manner, please re-read. Also note the several preceding paragraphs were all predicated on "if there is a true cycle". My real guess is that there isn't; random events can often seem cyclic if you squint at them too much and try to force them to fit a pattern. This puts us even farther into the unknown.

Re:Winged Monkeys And Tap Dancing Midgets

[cpt kangarooski]

If it hits anywhere, it'll hit everywhere. The Spanish Flu hit all but a handful of the most isolated people on the planet, and that was in an era before people could travel as far and as fast as we can now. You really can't quarantine yourself against it effectively, especially given that it could take a long while to run its course (the 1918 pandemic lasted for around a year and a half).

Re:Winged Monkeys And Tap Dancing Midgets

[tigersha]

Oh God no, I am sitting here, reading this with my beloved cat Kalinka on my lap. And I live in Germany, close to a Sperrgebiet. This may be the last time I post here. Goodbye to you all.

Lacking sense: priorities

[bigberk]

Let's get something clear, "pandemic" doesn't mean a flu that is afflicting employees, so they get a little sniffle and stay home from work until they get better. A mutated H5N1 or similar pandemic, that spreads human to human with something like 50% mortality rate means that public places become a death trap. If you catch the bug and are unable to recover from it, you need to be treated at a hospital... except the hospitals are totally full and there aren't enough health care workers. Have you seen how the major cities are trying to plan for a "pandemic" situation? They are talking about how to deal with piles of corpses once the graveyards are full.

PUBLIC DOESN'T GET IT. If there is a pandemic, you don't go to work. You don't go to the mall, you don't go to school and you don't go out partying on the weekend. This is serious stuff. It hasn't happened yet and let's pray that it does not happen (easy human-to-human spread of lethal virus) but the situation at the IT department is totally irrelevant. Go to your job if you want to die.

Re:Lacking sense: priorities

[scottv67]

If there is a pandemic, you don't go to work.

But what about those of us who work in the I.T. depts of healthcare providers? Wouldn't you want us to go to work during the "pandemic" to make sure that things keep running to handle the large influx of patients at clinics and hospitals?

Somebody's got to be at work to make sure that when you or a relative shows up at the hospital, your electronic records can be accessed, imaging applications are working correctly and medications can be dispensed.

Re:Lacking sense: priorities

[Baddas]

No, no they don't. You'd do no good.

You're dealing with so many patients that the hospitals won't have room to stack them, let alone time to look up their records.

There won't be enough Tylenol in the infirmary, let alone more exotic drugs like antivirals.

The United States has approximately 548 doctors, 280 hospital beds and 772 nurses per 100,000 people.

In a pandemic with 50% infected, each doctor would have to care for twenty people, and each nurse for twelve. Those hospital beds would be somewhat overloaded with twenty people in them, too.

Re:Lacking sense: priorities

[scottv67]

No, no they don't. You'd do no good.

You're dealing with so many patients that the hospitals won't have room to stack them, let alone time to look up their records.

Ok, I'll give you that. When it gets *really* bad, things are going to get out-of-hand.

But how do I know when I need to stop reporting for work? Is someone going to announce the official start of the pandemic on CNBC or CNN?
What is the "high water mark" that I need to watch for so I know that it's time to stay home?

A local school was closed today because hundreds of students and dozens of staff have the flu (true story). Is this the start of the pandemic or just another flu bug making its rounds? I went to work today just like any other day to keep shoveling coal into the boilers.

Re:Lacking sense: priorities

[wildsurf]

The United States has approximately 548 doctors, 280 hospital beds and 772 nurses per 100,000 people.
In a pandemic with 50% infected, each doctor would have to care for twenty people, and each nurse for twelve.

Check your math. That's 50,000 infected people (274 of whom are doctors, leaving only 274 to care for the patients); making over 180 patients per doctor, nearly 130 per nurse. The mere idea of a hospital bed with 357 patients and three nurses would tax even the Spice Channel.

Re:Lacking sense: priorities

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Another issue is that the medical and political community does seem to have some very sad questions on how they should perform triage. There is concern that health workers would have to decide who lives and who dies, and they are concerned about how the public would react to that, because lately, it is not often that a person is removed from life support just so they can transfer equipment to help someone that is more likely to live if they had that equipment. My understanding is that there isn't enough equipment to handle a significant outbreak and these hard decisions will need to be made.

Re:Lacking sense: priorities

[Baddas]

The disparity lies in the fact that some portion of the people who fall ill do not require (or recieve, however one looks at it) hospitalization, either through fast onset of morbidity and mortality (unable to get to a hospital in a town with even fewer ambulances than hospital beds), or through having a lower level of symptoms (not needing hospitalization at all).

For "normal" flu, this level is approximately 1%. However, if we extrapolate from the fact that pandemic flu (of whatever type, be it bird flu or the 1918 flu) often has a mortality rate 25 times that of normal flu (0.1% vs 2.5% for 1918) then you can see that perhaps a quarter of the people would be hospitalized.

Again, this is all guesswork, and either way it's entirely beyond any theoretical capability of the medical system to cope with.

"revolving ill" not a useful concept

[Schlemphfer]

It would be much easier to handle 10% revolving ill over a few months than it would be to handle ~35% of staff ill for 2 weeks.

Yeah, except this isn't a garden-variety flu bug -- it's incredibly lethal. If this bug mutates to easily spread from person-to-person, you're not talking about revolving ill -- many of these people won't be "revolving" back to the workplace, they'll be dead. Of 34 human cases of H5N1 that hit Asia by February 2004, 23 were fatal.

Re:"revolving ill" not a useful concept

[Furmy]

Yes the virus can be lethal. As I wrote in this post the mortality/morbidity rate for the avian flu in humans is NOT known; the rate for the virus in a pandemic influenza will not necessarily be the same.

IIRC the 1918 pandemic flu mortality rate was ~2 or 2.5%.

Re:"revolving ill" not a useful concept

[benjj]

That is 2.5-5% of the global population .

Dual use

[Indigo]

Just remember, the same disaster plan that will keep the company going if half the employees die in a flu pandemic, will keep it going if those same employees are simply laid off. Which is more likely to happen?

The solution where I work...

[Black Art]

If you take five unconnected sick days in a 12 month period, you are subject to disciplinary action. More than that and they can do anything, including firing you. No excuses. (Unless you qualify for short term disability.)

I work for a "Healthcare company".

Re:The solution where I work...

[VonSkippy]

I hate to be the one to tell you this, but you my friend are a moron. My bad if you're making 200-300% above the going rate in your area, but if not, why oh why are you working there? It's obvious with a "rule" like that your employee expects to wring every last ounce of viable labor out of you without regard to your health, happiness, or well being. Take your talent and move on. Life is way to short to be shafted like that.

The Keyboard

[qualico]

Those of us who repair computers for a living are exposed to a banquet of germs on every service call.

Exercising ones immune system, the keyboard has to be the heaviest load.

If there is a pandemic, the first thing to disinfect will be keyboards.

And why are we taught to sneeze and cough into the hands?
I bury my face into my arm to segregate the infectious spray.
The public would do well to be educated to do the same.

vaccination through hardware

[Anonymous Coward]

If you've seen the keyboards where I work, I should be immune to just about everything but a gunshot wound, (but I'm sure Dick Cheney's got a task force working on that one)

Offtopic

[arrrrg]

Mod, meet sarcasm. My point was that the article is offtopic ... what the fuck is the relation between the avian flu and the IT department ... if the flu hits that bad, who the fuck cares if the web server goes down for the duration? Wouldn't the preparedness of, say, hospitals or other critical services, be much more important? And the likelihood of a bird flu pandemic is any more than any other world-shattering potential disaster, which we are equally unprepared for. TFA is just the media trying to find a way to extend the bird-flu hype past its prime.

Re:Offtopic

[mebollocks]

what the fuck is the relation between the avian flu and the IT department ...
The artice refers to bird flu specifically because its jsut the latest big thing happening at the moment, but, an IT deprtment should have a disaster recovery plan Anyway. Fire, water damage... anything can happen to mess up your building.
True, its not just the IT department that should have a disaster recovery plan but HR, Facilities/General Affairs should be involved. HR need to organise and inform the troops, in the case of an alternative site transport may have to be organised, facilities will be busy with a million little things.
Make sure you have an alternative site and a disaster recovery plan that everyone is aware of.
Make sure your PBX can re-route deskphone to user's homes like Asterix can.
Centralied computing solutions such as Citrx or Tarantella's make working from home as simple as possible.
VPN solutions can be distributed from a website in an emergency for home workers. Hardware 2-factor tokens can be tough to distribute in an emergency, software tokens are handy in these situations.
Make sure you know your telco's lead time to get a line up and running from your data centre to your site B.

...and so on.

If there were a real pandemic

[Maxo-Texas]

This would be the least of our worries.

Some cities (not towns) lost 10% of their population in the last big flu pandemic.

Think what that means--

No food
Maybe no water
Definately not a lot of traveling about.
Hospitals completely overloaded

So if you are -really- worried about this...
Make sure you have 2-4 weeks of dry and canned food (pasta is decent).
Have some kind of power that doesn't depend on gasoline (don't need a lot- just some for radio).
Make sure you have 2-4 weeks of water (that's a lot- so maybe just have 25 gallons and be ready to fill extra containers if the water gets erratic).

The food is most critical- quarantines are possible- loss of food transportation is possible.
Water and power are less likely to be disrupted.

Mostly- just hope this doesn't happen- we run a lot closer to the edge than they did inventory wise. Even a mild disruption and there is no food on the shelves.

Getting complacent?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, they always warn us about the next big hurricane coming to New Orleans, and how it could flood the city, yadda yadda. Doom-and-gloomers. It's never as bad as they say, I'm not going to bother evacuating.

eats, shoots and leaves

[zxnos]

The H5N1 influenza virus, which originated in Asia, could hit the U.S. this fall, potentially causing an epidemic, the nation's chief avian flu coordinator warned.

i think homeland security needs to keep an eye on this guy...

MOD PARENT UP.

[Saven Marek]

Anyone that became infected and didn't exhibit symptoms wouldn't be included (why would they get tested?), and anyone that died in a remote area wouldn't be included either. The more 'infections' that develop in "1st world" countries the better able we will be to determine the true mortality/morbidity rate of avian influenza in humans.


And this doesn't include a potentially huge number of people who do contract H5N1 flu from birds and display nothing more than normal flu symptoms, get over it in a couple of weeks and go on with their lives.

In hong kong, india and parts of europe people showing non-acute symptoms while testing positive for H5N1 have been detected, and only because they were tested in parallel with those who showed more acute symptoms. Because of the concentration on people who get very very sick the statistics are skewed. It's like a self-selected survey or like saying "76% of people involved in fatal car accidents die" and attempting to use those statistics for car accidents in general.

My solution to the H5N1 Pandemic

[slashdot_commentator]

Dear Dr. Elias A. Zerhouni (Director, NIH):

I know American companies have to be more efficient, and workers need to handle more tasks and title responsibilities in order for productivity to increase. But I think if you stop forcing office workers to handle live poultry, you'll prevent the only known vector for contracting the disease.

We would be learning from the mistakes of other cultures; like China, whose individuals are known to raise their own poultry livestock at their residences. This is not as outlandish as it sounds. After all, America has seeemed to have learned from the French to avoid mandatory limits to hours worked per week.

Alternately, if you still think there is a credible concern for the H5N1 virus to mutate to a human communicable form, then I'd suggest taking care of the AIDS epidemic first. AIDS is incurable, and I'm sure you're worried about that virus mutating into a form transmissible by contact, sneezing, or become airborne. Will you be recommending mass cullings of AIDS sufferers? or merely enforced, indefinite quarantine?

I'm sure guys like Rumsfeldt and Frist would welcome gov't financing of vaccine research, but I think Iraq has taken away all of the money available for discretionary spending in the budget. I guess they'll have to take lobbyist jobs, like everyone else.

Are they joking?

[OBeardedOne]

Company A CEO: "Thank god we spent all that time and money putting in place those safe guards for the bird flu pandemic when company B did absolutely nothing! Now let's use the advantage and sell lots of stuff!"

Company A COO: "Err... All of our staff and customers are dead. I'm afraid it's just you and me left in this $5 billion state of the art clean room.... Want to see me naked?"

2-4 weeks of food?

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, the 1918-1919 flu came in three waves over two years. I don't know what a month of food is gonna do. I guess maybe you'll last a month longer, but you're probably gonna need more than that.

Moreover:

The impact of this pandemic was not limited to 1918-1919. All influenza A pandemics since that time, and indeed almost all cases of influenza A worldwide (excepting human infections from avian viruses such as H5N1 and H7N7), have been caused by descendants of the 1918 virus, including "drifted" H1N1 viruses and reassorted H2N2 and H3N2 viruses. The latter are composed of key genes from the 1918 virus, updated by subsequently incorporated avian influenza genes that code for novel surface proteins, making the 1918 virus indeed the "mother" of all pandemics. /blockquote

general background information

[zogger]

just some official background from the government site (some removed to get it to post correctly, more at the URLs)

http://pandemicflu.gov/

related link and info

http://pandemicflu.gov/general/

A pandemic is a global disease outbreak. A flu pandemic occurs when a new influenza virus emerges for which people have little or no immunity and for which there is no vaccine. The disease spreads easily person-to-person, causes serious illness, and can sweep across the country and around the world in very short time.

It is difficult to predict when the next influenza pandemic will occur or how severe it will be. Wherever and whenever a pandemic starts, everyone around the world is at risk. Countries might, through measures such as border closures and travel restrictions, delay arrival of the virus, but cannot stop it

Health professionals are concerned that the continued and expanded spread of a highly pathogenic-and now endemic-avian H5N1 virus across eastern Asia and other countries represents a significant threat. The H5N1 virus has raised concerns about a potential human pandemic because:
Like other influenza viruses, it continues to evolve.

Since 2003, a growing number of human H5N1 cases have been reported in Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Iraq, Thailand, Turkey, and Vietnam, and more than half of the people infected with the H5N1 virus have died. These cases are all believed to have been caused by exposure to infected poultry. The concern is that H5N1 will evolve into a virus capable of human to human transmission.

A pandemic vaccine cannot be produced until a new pandemic influenza virus emerges and is identified. Even after a pandemic influenza virus has been identified, it could take at least 6 months to develop, test and produce vaccine. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has made the establishment and expansion of U.S.-based manufacturing facilities for influenza vaccine a key component of its strategy to improve the security of the influenza vaccine supply.

Antivirals are drugs that may help prevent infection in people at risk and lessen the impact of symptoms in those infected with influenza. It is unlikely that they would substantially modify the course or effectively contain the spread of an influenza pandemic. See Vaccines & Medications.

A pandemic may come and go in waves, each of which can last for six to eight weeks. An especially severe influenza pandemic could lead to high levels of illness, death, social disruption, and economic loss. Everyday life would be disrupted because so many people in so many places become seriously ill at the same time. Impacts can range from school and business closings to the interruption of basic services such as public transportation and food delivery.

Pandemics Death
Toll Since 1900

1918-1919

U.S....

500,000+

Worldwide...

40,000,000+

1957-1958

U.S....

70,000+

Worldwide...

1-2,000,000

1968-1969

U.S....

34,000+

Worldwide...

700,000+

A substantial percentage of the world's population will require some form of medical care. Health care facilities can be overwhelmed, creating a shortage of hospital staff, beds, ventilators and other supplies. Surge capacity at non-traditional sites such as schools may need to be created to cope with demand.

The need for vaccine is likely to outstrip supply and the supply of antiviral drugs is also likely to be inadequate early in a pandemic. Difficult decisions will need to be made regarding who gets antiviral drugs and vaccines.

Death rates are determined by four factors: the number of people who become infected, the virulence of the virus, the underlying characteristics and vulnerability of affected populations and the availability and effectiveness of preventive measures.

The United States has been working closely with other cou

Be prepared:

[Anne Thwacks]

Its absolutely essential to keep chickens and swans out of the server room. Get them out NOW!

Immunize the kids

[Overzeetop]

Yes, yes, I know, there isn't a proven vaccine for H5N1 yet, but the likelihood of creating one is fairly reasonable to expect. So...

Get every shcool age child, especially those under 12, into a clinic to be vaccinated. From the view of protecting the public, the CDCs limits on vaccinations for the elderly, infant, and asthmatic make little sense. Yes, I know - those are the people most likely to die from influenza, they should get vaccinated, too. But little kids are such a strong vector for any disease - primarily due to their lack of proper hygene regimen - that they should really be the ones to target. Keep the kids from getting it and its far less likely to be passed from child to child in school/daycare/playgroup, and then to the rest of the family (including elderly relatives), and on through the chain of human interaction.

I would gladly give up my dose if I knew that every kid in every primary school would get theirs.

BTW - I heard that a bunch of flu vaccine went to waste this year in the US. I'm prat of the problem because I didn't get mine. Why? I wasn't allowed to until after a certain date. By the time that date came around, we were half way through the flu season. I suspect most of us in the "healthy" population figured that by the time we were allowed to get vaccinated and it take full effect, we would be through most of the flu season, and there would be no point. It's like buying disabiliy insurance when your a year or two from retirement...why bother? Good intentions (by the CDC), but poorly implemented. It will only make it harder for the companies making these (relatively) low-margin products to continue.

If it is not a big deal, then why all the panic?

[frank249]

Each year between 50 - 100 people per million of population die from the various forms of influenza that are commonly refered to as flu. Since 1997, only 50 people who had close contact with birds have died from Avian flu. The media is full of reports that this flu has the potential to become a pandemic. If so, it could kill between 5 to 250 million people. Most likely it will only be 5 people ... but it could be 250 million!

So wait a minute, doesn't every disease have the chance to mutate into something much worse not just avian flu? AIDs is incurable, has infected hundreds of millions and is transmited only by contact. What if it mutated so it was spread airborne? Everyday millions of bad things could happen but don't and we are not panicking over all of them.

So ask yourself why all the fuss? What is going on that could benefit from people being distracted?

Could it be the war in Iraq, scandals, economy, politics? Take your pick. We should be demanding the media to focus on the real issues and hold the politician's feet to the fire and not be distracted by nonissues.

Re:This is interesting

[VP]

How can an illness with less than 200 total cases worldwide and no easy vector of infection be called an epidemic? You are comparing that to HIV/AIDS, where a human interaction could lead to infection - and even then, it took years of disragard and neglect to make it an epidemic...

While it is true that a pandemic may eventual strike, it is a waste of resources to panic. Any bisuness needs to have an emergency IT plan if, for example, fire destroys the IT staff's offices. There is no need to go beyond normal emergency preparedness at this point. Panic has never solved anything...