Well, I am gone for three weeks so this will have to do for a while.
I'd advise any readers. (Hmmmmmm. Do I actually have any readers?) to stock up on some latex gloves. If the Federal Government has decided to stockpile millions of them, then they won't be available for you and me.
Soon, I won't be the only one talking about all this. ABC will start the ball rolling and the other networks will have to follow. About time I think.
Well, I'm off to play some random games that don't have deadly outcomes. I wish all of life was as easy as a game of poker where the most that can be lost is money.
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2 comments:
yes. you are no longer the one talking about it. lots of stories on NPR today b/c Bush released his "plan."
I haven't read everything and you've done it so I don't have to - why is the federal goal not to have enough medicine (vaccine and tamiflu) for everyone?
The federal position is just to explain their limitations. I suppose they think they can avoid the heat they took after Katrina.
Their limitations are increased because conservatives believe that the states should take control of most things. That was the FEMA argument after Katrina and it is still the current administrations position. Every state conference on preparedness has the Feds saying that they can't do anything about this flu.
Now some of that is just the nature of the disaster. No vaccine can be made until the strain mutates and that new life form is identified. Other vaccines would be ineffective.
Vaccines can be rushed but not too fast. If errors are made then the people taking the vaccine die due to the errors.
There is only one manufacturer of vaccine in the US. We have to depend on other countries to make it and ship it to us. A large question is whether they would do that even for large money if faced with their own huge demand.
So estimates of when a flu vaccine would be available for you and me range from three months to two years after mutation. During that time the flu would move at an alarming rate, killing quïckly and passing on to the next victim. So hunkering down somewhere until the vaccine is available is the only defense that makes any sense. Of course, if too many essential people hunker down, then the economy collapses.
Tamiflu may not be of much help. Stockpiling it may not do anything for this particular strain. So far, where it has been used, it has not helped much. That may be the governments reasoning. Who knows? Basically we don't put much investment in health here. We have less resources in terms of hospital beds than they did in 1918. And there are not enough ventilators to go around even for a mild pandemic.
Everyone is waiting for the mutation to occur before doing anything to prepare. The problem is that the flu might move too quickly to give people time to prepare.
Hey, thanks for the question. You are my first reader with a comment.
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