Slashdot Mirror
Running the Numbers on a US Pandemic
Lucas123 writes "A U.S. pandemic would exhaust antiviral medications, reduce basic food supplies, put ATMs out of service, shut down call centers, increase gas prices and up health insurance claims by 20%, according a test project developed by financial service firms. The pandemic paper planning scenario is used by 3,000 banks, insurance companies and security firms in preparing for disasters. The financial services groups are now sharing the pandemic flu exercise information, and all the scenarios are available for download."
Expect this to be shut down fairly quickly as it is a private directory and marked as "Not for public release"
:-)
That said, essentially, what we have is an issue of upkeep. This world does not run itself and requires input to prevent things from running down, so it been said before, but amateurs discuss things such as strategy, but the experts discuss logistics. And it is logistics that need to be organized in times of planning and scenarios run to discover where the logistical chain breaks down. These weak links in the chain are those areas that need attention and typically those are the links that rely upon people to maintain the flow of information/goods/support.
The interesting thing to me is that they appear to have modeled this pandemic spread as originating in Lagos, Nigeria which would be a relatively slow introduction or pathogenic spread into the rest of the world until it hits an area like Beijing, Calcutta or any other rapidly growing supermetropolis where you have hordes of people living in less than ideal conditions right next to others who travel extensively throughout the developed world. Their exercise appears to miss China and Indonesia entirely which could if modeled in lead to much more rapid spread, involving potentially many more people or even invoke or enhance infective "ringing" where waves of infection or reinfection propegate through various large populations.
P.S. exercises like this are important to release to the public as most folks simply do not have any guidance or have given any thought to preparing for such a possibility. What are you going to do when the zombies show up at your door?
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
The report is available in paper format.
Just make sure you print your own copy out, the last guy who wanted to give it you didn't wash his hands.
liqbase
That would suck.
Now what?
I would expect that a pandemic would place a larger burden on the system than that. Or do they expect that so many of us will just simply die that it will average out to only a 20% increase in claims?
Of course the hyper-cynical side of me wants to point out that claims for dead people are seldom paid out, so I could see that as an explanation for the increase being at only 20%.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
U.S. pandemic. Which idiot came up with that phrase ?
There is no such thing as a US pandemic, there is only a pandemic.
Seems like this is inevitable. Already there are med-resistant staph infections in the news which are killing more people than AIDS does. Forget terrorism; the next big die off will be from a microscopic threat.
Really, the fact that it kind of scared the crap out of people has been a good thing. It made everyone realize that we weren't even remotely prepared. The U.S. and other countries are starting to stockpile influenza antivirals like Tamiflu and Relenza. This was something we've been needing to do for a while and the H5N1 scare has really kicked everyone into action.
Sadly, influenza epidemics are a given. It's not a matter of "if", but "when". There were 3 in the last century and they all happened before good antiviral drugs were available. Stockpiling these drugs could very well save hundreds of thousands, if not millions of lives. The short-term economic cost of a pandemic would be huge, but it would seem trivial compared to the long-term cost of the loss of 5-10%, or more, of the population.
It's good we're testing these kinds of scenarios, but my biggest concern was the stockpiling and availability of antivirals which, fortunately, seems to be getting much better...
The whole study comes into question for not using World of Warcraft as a modeling tool for pandemic.
Bah.
I bet you don't have health insurance either, I mean, you aren't sick right now so why bother?
You know, sometimes when people warn you about potential dangers, they aren't just trying to alarm you, scam you or hijack the world back into some kind of pre-industrial state. Sometimes they are trying to do you a damn favor, idiot.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
The last flu pandemic was the Hong Kong flu 1969. It didn't exactly bring the end of the world. There were no effects like what are described here.
Everyone hears "flu pandemic" and they think 1918, which was the worst in history. But there have been pandemics since then and they haven't been that bad. Just cause it's a pandemic doesn't mean it's the worst pandemic in history. That's like thinking that every recession is going to be the Great Depression.
Webster's defines a pandemic as something "occurring over a wide geographic area and affecting an exceptionally high proportion of the population" So defining an area for a pandemic isn't by definition wrong.
Go with 0.0.0.0 . Thank you, I'll be here all week. Tip your waitresses.
is that in past epidemics, living in cities was the LAST place to be. They always had the highest death rates due to the intermingling of ppl.
Now, the places to be will be the cities with high connectivity. It will be possible to minimize our interactions with others. Netgrocers would take off during these times. Likewise, this report says that call center would fail. Yet, I think that the call centers that are using voip and have the ability to allow their employees to work from home will do great. In addition, any work that can be done with little to no interactions with others will continue to thrive. Where the problems will come from are those jobs that require you to interact large number of ppl. What I think will be the big issues will be our schools.
I find it funny that they believe that an epidemic will originate in Africa. I would expect most to come from extremely populated areas.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
A massive reduction of human population would reduce the stress on:
- fresh water reserves
- dwindling oil supplies
- food crops already threatened by global warming
- natural resources such as forests
so it's not all bad.
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
We have to protect our banking system! We should definitely start some kind of a group that would be willing to donate food, medicines, educational supplies or potable water to the banking system. We can't let anything bad happen to them.
You know, sarcasm can be a really elegant tool, when it isn't used in the service of ignorance.
You think the economy would suck if a whole lot of people couldn't physically go to work or handle food? How much MORE do you think it would suck if everyone who was still participating in a wounded economy had to also drive around wheelbarrows of barter goods in order to get anything done? A well-oiled electronic banking system could well be one of the most important assets in preventing social collapse in the event of a particularly ugly pandemic. So, what will YOU be bartering? Copies of Ubuntu on cool purple DVDs? Your three extra pairs of clean socks? Your ability to dig out latrines? Hmmm. Many a modern economy is more convenient than a medieval one, and worth protecting. No banking system, no modern economy.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
It took me about 9 seconds to get the "yfluk" tag, but when I did, I almost fell out of my chair.
I'd prefer to keep technology around, thanks.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
The Pentagon is looking at the possibility of using federal troops to enforce a quarantine in the event of an outbreak of pandemic bird flu in the United States, a senior official said on Wednesday.
President George W. Bush said last week he would consider using the military to "effect a quarantine" in response to any outbreak of avian influenza, but provided few details.
Bush at the time also suggested he might place National Guard troops, normally commanded by state governors, under federal control as part of the government's response to the "catastrophe" of such a flu pandemic.
Paul McHale, assistant defense secretary for homeland defense, said quarantine law historically has been under the primary jurisdiction of states, not the federal government.
"And my expectation is that any quarantine measures that would be put in place would likely involve a substantial employment of the National Guard, probably under command and control of the governor of an affected state," McHale told a group of reporters.
"However, we are looking at a wide range of contingencies, potentially involving Title 10 forces (federal troops) if a pandemic outbreak of a biological threat were to occur," McHale added.
The H5N1 avian influenza virus has killed or forced the destruction of tens of millions of birds and infected more than 100 people, killing at least 60 in four Asian nations since late 2003.
Experts fear that the virus, known to pass to humans from birds, could mutate and start to spread easily from person to person, potentially killing millions worldwide. Experts have questioned America's preparedness.
McHale said he believed there would be a clearer understanding within a few weeks of the military role in response to pandemic bird flu as part of a broader federal response. Pentagon officials were meeting on Wednesday to discuss the department's role in a flu pandemic.
One issue that could face the U.S. government in the event of an outbreak is whether or how to cordon off parts of the country to prevent the disease from spreading.
The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, enacted during the post-Civil War reconstruction period, prohibits federal military personnel from taking part in law-enforcement within the United States. But a president can waive the law in an emergency.
I work at one of the big wall st. banks, and when they announced this study a while back the managers were given randomly generated lists of employees who should be considered "out sick" during the simulated pandemic... then they were asked to describe how the trading desk would be impaired. Thankfully, I was the only tech guy who didn't fall victim to the hypothetical pandemic! None of the other tech guys do anything, so the impact was determined to be none. lol! I need a raise.
The other funny part was that the random number generator used to assign certain death didn't seem to be very random... nearly everyone on the list was from the first half of the alphabet. So, in order to further reduce any impact in a real pandemic we decided to try and hire so that first letters of employees last names have a low correlation to job roles.