The coming flu pandemic

It's going to be bad. Very bad. And Bush is falling down on the job again about the preparation that is needed. I'm linking you to an article first published in the Los Angeles Times entitled, "Dr. Bush's Flu Flim-Flam". Here's part of what it says:

Nearly 2 million Americans could die in a flu pandemic, which many scientists say is not just inevitable but long overdue. In such an emergency, national leaders would need to be forthright and candid to gain our trust — or risk chaos.

But recent polls show that President Bush's approval ratings have sunk below 50% and that deception about the Iraq war, as well as federal mismanagement after Hurricane Katrina, have hurt his credibility. That loss of public faith is almost as scary as the virus itself. When citizens are skeptical or defiant in the face of severe disease, fear becomes epidemic, leading to confusion and often needless deaths. "

One of the hardest things — and one of the most crucial things — about preparing for a public health crisis is cooperation from the public and trust in government," said Judith Walzer Leavitt, professor of medical history at the University of Wisconsin.
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How can leaders launch a vital national conversation on pandemic influenza?

First, they must earn back Americans' trust. That has been squandered in the failed federal response to Hurricane Katrina, the daily horror in Iraq, the unsolved epidemic of mail-borne anthrax in 2001 and the color-coded terror alerts after 9/11. Even the president's flu plan, announced in early November, seemed tardy.

The president and other officials should concede these earlier failures, said Peter Sandman, a risk consultant based in Princeton, N.J. Here's the pitch that Sandman suggested health officials give: "Look, it's hard for us to be the ones to warn you. Some of you are thinking about Iraq, where we warned you and we were wrong. Some of you are thinking about Katrina, where we were warned and we didn't respond well. Lots of you are thinking about the fact that if we're going to take this issue seriously now, why weren't we taking it seriously two years ago and gearing up properly? We come to this with a very imperfect record — but we've got to tell you about it anyhow."

Second, the Bush team must straightforwardly warn Americans about how bad a novel strain of flu could be. The president's statement at an October news conference — "rest assured that we're doing everything we can" — was patronizingly dishonest.

Skilled risk communication is frank, said Monica Schoch-Spana, a medical anthropologist and senior fellow at the Center for Biosecurity at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. "It's resetting a baseline expectation: that people get sick and can die from flu, and in extraordinary outbreaks that can happen at a large scale."

In crises, great communicators help citizens steel themselves for suffering, while also protecting them. "But we first have to admit that something tragic will happen," Schoch-Spana said.

But Bush will concede no failures nor will anyone in his administration. And we have no "great communicators" in this government.

And, of course, preparations that need to be made are not being made:

The Pandemic Influenza Plan leaves cash-strapped and staff-starved state and local health departments to pay for drugs and other vital necessities and to logistically handle a crisis on their own. That approach makes sense in one respect, because all public health preparedness and response ultimately takes place locally.

But in a global economy, no locality could be wholly self-sufficient for the 12 to 18 months that a pandemic would play out. "There are a lot of things besides vaccines and antivirals that are going to be critical," said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. "At this point, we virtually have no plans for that: masks, syringes, needles, IV bags, ventilators, food supply."

We don't know where we'll get the medicines we take daily, the fuel that keeps us warm and runs our transportation, the consumer products and services we rely on. "This will have all the makings of a slow-motion worldwide tsunami," Osterholm said. "You never can be fully prepared for this. But there are many things we can do."

Perhaps this is what it will take for us to get our country back. Perhaps when the population sees how incompetent this administration is as a result of the devastation that is coming, we will come to our senses as a nation. It is just tragic, however, for so many people to have to die so that we can finally wake up.