Posted on 03/23/2006 8:10:18 AM PST by Gritty
The CP interview: Dr. Michael Osterholm of the University of Minnesota's Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy talks about the flu that could bring the world to its knees.
(snip)
Of the 100+ human cases of H5N1 flu recorded, the vast majority have involved bird-to-human transmission, mostly among open-air poultry handlers in Asia. In addition, there are confirmed clusters in which it has passed person to person, though none of those has yet resulted in a breakout of the virus. One thing is clear, however: In its present form, H5N1 has killed over half of the people it's infected. The great flu pandemic of 1918-19, by contrast, killed about 5 percent of its victims.
Will it cross over? If it does, can it possibly remain as deadly? Though Osterholm notes that viruses usually do lose strength as they spread—it's not really in their own evolutionary interest to kill the majority of their hosts—he believes the only responsible answer on both counts is we don't know. But it's not just the characteristics of the virus that worry him.
One of the things that sets the former Minnesota state epidemiologist apart from other public health officials is his attention to the fate of the medical and social infrastructure in any serious contagious outbreak. With respect to bird flu, his outlook recapitulates in many ways what he had to say in his 2001 book about bioterrorism preparedness, Living Terrors much of the human toll in death, hysteria, and anarchy would be exacted not by infection but by the wide-scale breakdown of global supply chains and just-in-time delivery systems for vital goods and services. "I think Secretary Leavitt has been brutally honest in telling American communities, you're going to be on your own," says Osterholm. "I think he's right."
(snip)
(Excerpt) Read more at citypages.com ...
You normally eat raw chicken? cooked chicken should kill any virus.
I believe you are talking about quarantine here?
Here in North Carolina, they don't plan to shoot you, according to their updated Pandemic Plan. The penalty for breaking quarantine is merely to arrest you without bail (maybe quarantining you in the nearest guarded school gym with 1,000 of your newly acquired, closest, quarantine-breaking friends?) followed by up to two years in prison - if you survive the gym. Hopefully, the disease won't break out there!
But shoot you? No!
I wonder about your statistics from 1918, just because the numbers don't add up. The flu in 1918 killed 5% of those who were infected, but you said it killed 5% of the entire population of the world, which would suggest that every single person in the world was infected.
I read that 40 million people died. Oddly though, in all my (I admit somewhat limited study) of world history, in all my (public school) learning, I never before HEARD of this horrible epidemic in 1918.
I would be tempted to ask how big a deal it could have been if it doesn't make the top 20 list of big events in the last hundred years. But I know that history is not an exact science.
Alaska is supposed to be the entry point for bird flu to the American hemisphere. Biologists are already at work in Alaska checking illegal immigrant birds. It was amusing to hear of the urgent preparations of a state on the east coast when bird flu is still not on the continent and will have to cross the continent to get to an eastern state.
You're right - if it comes in via migrating birds. That's the best possible case.
If it comes in via an airplane passenger in a form which is readily contagious to others, all bets are off...
Just read the entire article. Very interesting.
And very sobering.
That form does not exist at present.
"But shoot you? No!"
Way back in the early 80's I had a job reviewing and drafting military and natural disaster plans. At that time the classified plans did indeed cover mandatory quaranteens and shooting those out and about.
Under a biologic attack, the assumption was that the area would be quatanteened and anyone trying to leave is disuaded forcefully....not rounded up and not quaranteened, stopped.
"I wonder about your statistics from 1918, just because the numbers don't add up. The flu in 1918 killed 5% of those who were infected, but you said it killed 5% of the entire population of the world, which would suggest that every single person in the world was infected."
You are right, I mispoke. I regurgitiated a figure I had misread. We had over 40,000,000 dead worldwide and about 600-700,000 in the USA in under a year. We lost about 1/6 as many in WWI
"I read that 40 million people died. Oddly though, in all my (I admit somewhat limited study) of world history, in all my (public school) learning, I never before HEARD of this horrible epidemic in 1918.
I would be tempted to ask how big a deal it could have been if it doesn't make the top 20 list of big events in the last hundred years. But I know that history is not an exact science."
Try this link for a good read on the subject:
http://www.stanford.edu/group/virus/uda/
1918 was the worst disaster in human history.
Well, let's put it this way,... North Carolina Law says it doesn't plan to shoot you!
I can't begin to tell you the number of times I've gotten undercooked chicken from places like Costco (warehouse) where they do rotisserie chickens and even Boston Market.
Both of my grandfathers were serving in the US Army in Europe during 1918 and both were infected with this flu. One nearly died; the other was much luckier with a mild case.
In the old plans State and local law was trumped by the federal agency involved.
True. But according to a lot of experts, it may change to that form at any time. Or it may not. You pays your money and you takes your chance.
I can't think of anybody in their right minds who would wish it would mutate to that contagious stage. But, that's out of our control.
Gulp. I'd better pick up a few dozen extra cans of beans, just in case...
**1918 was the worst disaster in human history.**
Bull, it killed more persons but thats because the population is much greater.
Other than some isolated cases the death rates of the 1918 flu never came close to what Smallpox did to the native Americans or the Plague did to Europe in the middle ages.
Of those who came down with Spanish Flu, a bird flu, 5% died. Not everyone came down with it. Millions died worldwide, but healthcare was fairly primitive a century ago.
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I won't disagree with you about that. I have seen some undercook chicken now that I think about it. Ecoli and food poisoning is a threat even if the flu don't infect it.
Pork and Beef instead of Chicken wouldn't be a bad idea if the flu does look likely.
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