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DoD Declassifies Flu Pandemic Plan Containing Sobering Assumptions
An anonymous reader writes "The Department of Defense has just declassified a copy of its 2009 Concept of Operations Plan for an Influenza Pandemic. Among the Plan's scary yet reasonable assumptions are that in the United States, such a pandemic will kill 2 percent of the infected population, or about 2 million people. The plan also assumes that a vaccine won't be available for at least 4 to 6 months after confirmation of sustained human transmission, and that the weekly vaccine manufacturing capability will only produce 1 percent of the total US vaccine required. State and local governments will be overwhelmed, and civilian mortuary operations will require military augmentation. Measures such as limiting public gatherings, closing schools, social distancing, protective sequestration and masking will be required to limit transmission and reduce illness and death. International and interstate transportation will be restricted to contain the spread of the virus. If a pandemic starts outside the US, it will enter the country at multiple locations and spread quickly to other parts of the country. A related document, CONPLAN 3591-09, was released by DoD in 2010."
I guess all the Preppers will have the last laugh as they eat their freeze dried food in their bunkers, with gun in lap, waiting for vaccine to become available.
The Best Military plans are the ones you never have to use.
I prefer the swine flu over the bird flu. Bacon tastes so much better coming back up.
The last great US flu epidemic only killed so many because of the crude state of medicine at the time and uneven sanitation in large U.S. cities. Even a virulent flu would be unlikely to rack up such a death toll in a first world nation.
...films depicting chaos and societal breakdown aren't that far off, aye?
Blacker than my baby girl's stare. Black like the veil that the muslimina wear. Black like the planet that they fear...
It's really scary because I work for an Internet startup. Without any technology to let us communicate and collaborate without being in the same room, we are forced to come into our open plan office every day and be exposed to contagious disease.
I'd say 18-24 months for a vaccine, and 12%-14% population loss due to a real influenza pandemic.
They could've just played Pandemic 2 and learned about all of that. Maybe we should all just move to Madagascar.
I don't find this scary at all. It's the reality of the world we live in. What would be scary is if the people in charge of managing such a crisis didn't have a plan, and instead choose to stick their fingers in their ears and sing "glory glory halleluja" while the country died. Literally. Why do people always seem to think things like this are "scary"? That kind of attitude is what creates truly scary situations: The kind nobody was prepared for and is now ravaging the population unchecked. That is scary. A plan... that's reassuring.
Or maybe I'm just from some bizarro alternate universe where being prepared is frightening and living in ignorance is bliss.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
While such plans do have potential practical value, isn't the usual thrust "what new pet program do our sponsors want funded?"
The way we create vaccines is overly calendar time long (but sidesteps questions about safety of new techniques).Also our general anti-viral stocks are low.
Sponsors from either (or both) camps may be influencing both the generation and now the distribution of the report.
A fatality rate of only 1~2% sounds extremely good for an epidemic. At 10% it becomes scary, at 25% the shit's going to hit the fans and 50% of above it's going to be hard to recover.
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
When it happens, It's going to be really bad.
This is all fine and good but what happens AFTER the Pandemic could be just as important.
After millions of people dying the social upheaval politically would be insane. The current order of things would be put on it's head, and what it settled out to be could be anybody's guess.
For example, assuming that most infections happened in cities that could dramatically change voting patterns.
For reference, the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 is estimated to have killed anywhere from 3 to 6 percent of world population. It presumably would have been worse in more densly populated areas.
You'd like to to think we've gotten a bit better at treating the flu in the last century or so. However, I don't think you could seriously argue that 2% is too high for a worst-case scenario. It might be too low.
It has to be an emergency or they might not get their funding.
we will be able to find good parking spaces
so at least something good will become of this
such a pandemic will kill 2 percent of the infected population, or about 2 million people.
thats a pretty generous statement considering 34 million americans go without health insurance. even if they dont seek medical attention, which isnt likely considering the media hype surrounding the condition, we're assuming a nation 36% obese and 74% overweight is nutritionally capable of weathering this. workplace policies that forbid or restrict sick days will also amplify transmisison vectors.
sequestering people into their homes for a protracted amount of time isnt going to work as we've intended. whereas 50 years ago the average american kitchen would be prepared to spend two weeks without leaving the house, the average american today is barely capable of anything more than zapping a burrito once weekly in lieu of going to a restaraunt. based on consumer spending data, during an emergency most americans simply stock up on poptarts and beer. http://www.hurricaneville.com/pop_tarts.html
Good people go to bed earlier.
Centers for Disease and Control would still be running this show, if it were to happen, right? With the military's assistance if needed?
I find it disturbing how many redacted gray boxes are found on something clearly marked "unclassified".
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
Is it just me or does this confirm that we need to restrict international travel rather strictly. Perhaps all international travelers should be required to use the same point of entry. Perhaps international air traffic should be banned and cruise ships only used for such travel. That way if illness breaks out on a ship we can isolate the ship until the danger passes.
Do we really need international travel so badly that we are willing to suffer more losses than we have had in any war from an epidemic? Although businesses may profit from such travel why should the general public allow it as the risk is to the public and the public is not paid to accept the burden of such risks?
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I'm so sick of this crap.
Every freaking year, the bird/swine/carbonfiber/alien flu is going to kill us all ... and yet ... nothing happens different than the year before.
I remember a couple years back, the CDC was putting people on television talking about how its the worst epidemic they've ever seen, pandemic, catastrophe, this is the worst we've ever seen!!! (Yes, I said it twice in the same sentence ... just like they did.
But you go to their website ... and the year was actually statistically below the previous several years, and lower than the rolling average of the last 20 or so years.
My sister-in-law came home from the doctor and said OMFG I HAVE H1N1!!?!!
Guess what, SO DOES EVERYONE ELSE, thats the standard fucking strain of flu that floats around 98% of the fucking time. And saying 'H1N1' doesn't mean shit, thats a CLASS of virus, not a specific strain. H1N1 is not special, its more or less the definition of opposite of special.
The CDC has turned into a fear mongering agency just trying to get themselves more money and the hypochondriacs of the world eat it up and wear their shitty little $0.99 face masks that have absolutely no effect what so ever on virus transmission as they aren't that type of filter, nor do they fit the face well enough to actually filter the majority of your breathing air, which comes in around the side. They are extremely useful to prevent a doctor from breathing directly into an open wound/surgical incision, thats it.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
You mean, fictional, SO FAR.
Consider the progress of biotech. Then give it another 5-10 years, and imagine the biotech equivalent of a script kiddie. Playing with, for example, rabies. Then imagine some angry bio-scriptkiddie releasing an airborne, virulent rabies variant with a very short incubation period.
No, it's not the hordes of the Living Dead, feasting on human flesh. But the effects might well be similar. . .
will kill 2 percent of the infected population, or about 2 million people
Current US population is well over 300million, so that's 6 million+, not 2 million.
Just another day in Paradise
Well, yes, huge pandemics are "scary". Stephen King's "The Stand" is based on the premise. But they are also historical realities -- it is possible that there will be a flu pandemic at some point. The fact that the DoD has done some planning for such a scenario is not scary. What would be scary is if they did NOT do any planning.
Proverbs 21:19
Shutting down interstate travel, social distancing, sequestration. Seems like I may need to start stockpiling that water, food and ammo.
So in other words, the rich and powerful live and the rest can take a long walk on a short pier.
Find a job you love, and never work a day in your life.
President "Hello, Blizzard? We've got a pandemic coming up, so need to keep people from personal contact for a while. Would you mind putting some limited-time-only lucrative dungeons up in World of Warcraft?"
But I can do without eggs and fried chicken.
A world without bacon would be unbearable. As Homer aptly put it "A wonderful, magical animal." I believe that was in the Odyssey.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Why play with the flu when you can try to do something fun with zombies?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ophiocordyceps_unilateralis
Funny you should mention zombies and rabies in an article about a flu pandemic.
John Ringo just published a fictional book about a zombie apocalypse involving a customized rabies virus hiding in a flu stain
Under a Graveyard Sky - http://www.baenebooks.com/chapters/9781451639193/9781451639193.htm?blurb
Funny you should mention zombies and rabies in an article about a flu pandemic.
John Ringo just published a fictional book about a zombie apocalypse involving a customized rabies virus hiding in a flu stain
Under a Graveyard Sky - http://www.baenebooks.com/chapters/9781451639193/9781451639193.htm?blurb
Funny you should mention a modern, derivative work, David Morrel wrote about this decades ago: http://davidmorrell.net/books/the-totem/
a. When was the Department of Defense put in charge of health matters? Aren't the CDC, NIH, and (of course) NSA supposed to handle that?
b. Why was the country's response to the flu classified in the first place?
for the movie Contagion?
And Yahtzee Croshaw published a book about an apocalypse involving jam, titled "Jam".
Not a flu
I read TFA and all I got was this lousy cookie
with a very short incubation period.
You actually want a long incubation period so that the infected stay symptomless (but infective) for as long as possible. If the symptoms are severe and the incubation time short (e.g. flaviviridae like marburg or ebola) they kill the host before they have time to infect enough people. In essence, the virus is *too* virulent that it goes through the available susceptible people too quickly.
More deadly would be a virus that has is lethal but does not show symptoms for a period that exceeds its infective period. A good example is the early years of the HIV era -- lethal virus, long time before symptoms start, and infectious much earlier than any symptoms start to show up.
-- The Genesis project? What's that?
No need for script kiddies, Ebola's symptoms can be described by a zombie like state in its later stages. Apart from multiple organ failure prior to death (walking dead), you experience "sludging" of the brain leaving you incognizant but retaining motor control. Then, the sloughing off of tissue in the esophagus leads to spewing of infected blood. All in all, a nasty way to go, but very comparable to a classic slow zombie.
Brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.
Try Michael Crichton's The Andromeda Strain or Richard Matheson's I am Legend if you want to go back to as original source as I can come up with.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
the fatal pandemic failed to take place, it's time to make public the imaginary plan of action to counter the failed pandemic ... how about the plans to respond to aliens dropping KEWs on Earth ?
a great way for a government to keep its subjects in line.
Frank Herbert's 'The White Plague'
Flaws in this theory:
Sorry, but your fear-mongering hasn't won me over.
Ebola kills TOO fast. For an honest-to-god Zombie Virus, you want one that deactivates/destroys higher mental functions and possibly ups aggression.
Which I why my script-kiddie scenario suggested a rabies variant. . .
Rabies isn't a virus. There's your first problem.
You know, I was thinking of saying something to the effect of, 'are we actually trying to work out the most effective way to engineer a zombie plague?'
Then I remembered what crowd I'm talking about... that said, carry on.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Intravenous supplies for several 50-100 gram infusions of sodium ascorbate per person with a few mL of magnesium sulfate or choride, a little understood viricidal treatment.
50,000 iu capsules of cholecalciferol for a week or two.
Some have already dealt with uglier viruses in real 3rd world countries. See also, Curing the Incurable, by Thomas E Levy. I keep a few boxes of cheap 500 mg amoxicillin, too, in case of bacterial infections...
Read this book. Injectable sodium ascorbate
Really ??
http://www.cdc.gov/rabies/
Rabies is a preventable viral disease of mammals most often transmitted through the bite of a rabid animal. The vast majority of rabies cases reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) each year occur in wild animals like raccoons, skunks, bats, and foxes.
The rabies virus infects the central nervous system, ultimately causing disease in the brain and death. The early symptoms of rabies in people are similar to that of many other illnesses, including fever, headache, and general weakness or discomfort. As the disease progresses, more specific symptoms appear and may include insomnia, anxiety, confusion, slight or partial paralysis, excitation, hallucinations, agitation, hypersalivation (increase in saliva), difficulty swallowing, and hydrophobia (fear of water). Death usually occurs within days of the onset of these symptoms.
Read this booklet, get the intravenous supplies, some bottles of 1000 mg tablet ascorbic acid, and some 10,000-50,000 iu caps of vitamin D3, your family will do fine.
Ummm....yes it is.
There's a little over 300 million in the US isn't there?
Yeah, but that was intelligent jam. Totally different.
"Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
Try Michael Crichton's The Andromeda Strain or Richard Matheson's I am Legend if you want to go back to as original source as I can come up with.
A little earlier is 1949's Earth Abides, haven't read it in years, but I recall it as being very good. No zombies though.
Have a contingency plan to rapidly scale up vaccine productin. You don't need costly facilities with infinite safety checks, especially in an emergency.
Remember a few years ago when there was a flu vaccine shortage? It was due to a plant in Europe being shut down (the US ones don't exist due to regulation and liability issues, another flaw in the system.)
Here's what should have happened, but didn't:
1. Keep the plant running. Just because some manufacturing standard wasn't met doesn't mean the batches are bad or contaminated.
2. Manually do extra testing of batches as necessary or desired. You could culture things out of dog shit as long as it tests fine.
Too much subgenius working hand-in-hand with government arrogancy leads to this silliness.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Even earlier than that is Romeo and Juliet written a long freaking time ago, I haven't actually read it, but I'm told it too does not contain zombies.
Or even farther back: 1826 The Last Man by Mary Shelly. Alas, again no zombies.
Except that rabies wouldn't make people start eating other people. It just makes them hallucinate, delirious, causes partial paralysis and fear of consuming water or fluids (and a few other things, but none of which are eating people.)
AJ Henderson
Well, oops.
If the way in which malware has evolved over the years is an indication, the most effective use would be to be able to remotely control the zombies and make them do whatever you want without them ever knowing that they were infected. All you need is a centralized C&C mechanism that tells all those zombies how to act and what to do.
Wait..
Larry bought Lanai
To be frank, this is not a very high death rate.
If Yellowstone goes, it would have a much bigger impact.
The main problem is incubation period and death period. If it infects but kills off quickly, it's not the same as a long incubation period with moderate lethality, as this allows it to spread more widely.
Personally, I'd be far more worried about other risk factors.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
1982, but I thought it interesting when I saw it, although slightly implausible. Now I'm not too sure. I am Legend is 1954.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
The term "zombie apocalypse" is a PC way to refer to (list of potential calamities) which otherwise trigger emotional responses.
For example, if I'm at a gun show contemplating suitable equipment to ensure I stay alive and avoid getting a "Reginald Denny" beatdown in a riot (before you think that's a joke, check the armed Koreans in the LA riots) or can defend my property effectively day or night in all weathers, I might refer to the Zombie Apocalypse as the threat. :-)
If the excrement hits the Emerson, it is better to have tech (be it weapons, medical supplies, food, hand-pumped water or whatever is useful) and not need it than need it and not have it. We've seen what happens in countries where law and order collapse. The logical and common response is local militia groups dedicated to defending their area. This is a team sport and requires both gear and friends.
You forgot to add in Bath Salts.... Rabies and Bath Salts = Zombie Apocalypse
That's caled television.
I guess we can skip that "virus" part, telecontol is a builtin feature of humans.
Rethinking email
Watch the SK drama "Virus" on Hulu and let your conspiracy fantasies run amok.
Yeah. Instead you should be thinking of biochem labs with sloppy procedures. Expect that to happen in startups. And the problem probably won't be active malice (unless they're angling for a military grant, or funded by some essentially terrorist organization).
P.S.: By "terrorist organization" I don't intend to exclude either standard governments or for-profit criminal organizations thinking of "protection money". Political groups that are out of power aren't the only terrorist organizations.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
I would imagine something like 'The White Plague' could be done if a person with the correct knowledge had the kind of rage and personality disorders suffered by "John O'Neill". And as we learn more about our genes, I think it will become much easier to target a group of people based on shared, unique to the group, sets of genes... and that is a very sobering thing to consider given the volume of unbalanced people there seem to be on this damp ball of rock we inhabit..
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
Measures such as limiting public gatherings, closing schools, social distancing...
Slashdotters have those down already.
Table-ized A.I.
Yes. That was the joke.
Neither of which involved a rabies-like virus causing zombie-like qualities. I am Legend is at least close, with vampires instead of zombies.
Also, consider that a "bio-script kiddie" capable of doing what you claim would literally dwarf the achievements of Alan Turing, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Linus Torvalds combined in one fell swoop in the sense of computer achievements, extrapolated to the bio-tech field.
In other words, your analogy is so flawed, the analogy to compare it to is laughable at best. But it's still more realistic than what you said.
Much earlier is a roughly 1800 year old book called "The Bible". Only contains one zombie though. Yaz
Ok, than, woosh for me.
Rethinking email
Last fall CNN put a bit on about the government holding a zombie apocalypse preparedness drill. People dressed up like zombies and mulled around and got shot by non-lethal training rounds and "died" like zombies. If you think it's fictional after seeing they're doing a drill and putting it on their mouthpiece news outlet, then I get all your MRE's and bullets. And I want your cot in the zombie castle.
Sadly, a Libertarian cannot force his views on another, and freedom cannot spread as does the cancer known as religion.
....that things just don't always work that way in government. Have a nice life.
At least one of us has an industrial research background that includes growing and killing exotic microorganisms. At least one of us has gold medals, trophies, scholarships and paid patents for their science work. At least one of us has had paid invitations to large pharmaceutical research and manufacturing facilities. At least one of us has clinical data on the subject at hand. You might learn to actually investigate things before you open your ignorant yap.
Since it appears that the main vector the flu virus is currently spread is through the live virus inhaler, I suppose that the pharmaceutical companies should have a very good idea -- well in advance --of when/where/how much a flu pandemic would spread.
That is a very gentleman-like response.
I salute you, good sir!
(no sarcasm!)
Aha! Another John Ringo fan: http://www.baenebooks.com/chapters/9781451639193/9781451639193.htm?blurb
There is nothing wrong with yr Internet. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling the transmission - NSA
The DoD plan is useful for what it does NOT say and my reading of it says it is about continuity of Government at Federal level and preservation of vital infrastructure and NOTHING else.
To put that another way, all Federal resources will first be invested in itself. If there is anything left over then the general population can fight for it. The problem for us is that we now live in a highly specialised environment that relies heavily on critical infrastructure to keep us fed, warm, watered and healthy. If any of it goes down we have only hours to restore it before panic ensues. New orleans in Hurricane Katrina is the perfect example, now imagine that happening across the nation.
At any given time, New York has about Eight hours food supply. What happens then?
The redacted bits of the report will be about: Preservation of Congress and designated officials, securing of infrastructure, rationing of available resources and draconian quarantine measures and triage.
To put it mildly, you will be on your own with no support in a sea of other desperate people.