Sometimes human nature seems to work against our own well being. Take the subject of disaster. When it looms, we pay heed. When it seems far off, we are, to put it charitably, less attentive.
In recent days scientists have warned about a possible avian flu pandemic so deadly that the future of the civilization is at stake. The journals Foreign Affairs and Nature devoted large sections of their publications to warning the world about it.
Such an outbreak could make the 1918 Spanish influenza outbreak look small. Somewhere between 20 and 100 million people died in that disaster. If a strain of avian flu known as H5N1 jumps from birds to humans, then from human to human, no one knows how many might die. There too many "ifs" involved.
But we now know that migratory birds are spreading the disease out of China, where it apparently originated. The virus has jumped from chickens to waterfowl to pigs to humans. At least 54 people contracted the virus from animals and died. So far, it has not jumped from human to human.
Viruses are unpredictable. Cry wolf too often and legitimate warnings go unnoticed. Inattention could lead to an even more deadly outbreak.
Prudence, a rare virtue, is what we should be after. Public officials and citizens alike should press for contingency plans to deal with food and medical shortages and other emergencies. We should do it even without the scare headlines.
nice write-up