Analysis of the Indonesian cluster

Scary week. But it was good to see the flu covered by the New York Times and National Public Radio. Somehow they managed to fit this topic in between corruption and incompetency of government action (Iraq, stolen Veteran's SSN, corruption in Congress, increasing debt, gas problems)


As far as I can tell while the cluster in Indonesia is a scary one ( the virus moved from bird to person, then to another person and then AGAIN to yet another person) it does not signal the beginning pandemic. There was no change in the nature of the hook the virus uses to infect and so it will not move efficiently from person to person. That explains why, even though the stupid Indonesians actually sent the infected people back out into the larger community for a while (until they got sicker and returned to the hospital to die) no spread seemed to be occuring in Indonesia.

It all does point out how unprepared some of these countries are. This is not the first such cluster in Indonesia. This virus has been hanging around for a couple years now and every so often there is a scare there because a cluster developes. Folks figured that Vietnam would be the most likely source of pandemic, but that country has gotten their ducks in line (so to speak) and pretty much pushed the damn bug out of the poultry population.

But Indonesia is another story.

Also worrying was that our government sent a huge shipment of Tamiflu to some "unnamed" Asian country this week. I hate it when we have to make everything a secret. It was an odd move because supposedly we are trying to stockpile Tamiflu here and definitely do not have enough for a real pandemic if it happened this week. So why send it abroad? One logical conclusion is that some American leaders thought this was going to happen this week in Indonesia. I wish they'd tell us a little more intelligent information about these things instead of that paternalizing, simplistic little speech that Leavitt gives, suggesting that everyone weekly put a can of tuna fish and a box of powdered milk under his bed. His idea of self reliance. His positioning post Katrina in order to establish that the Federal government can be of no help in pandemic emergency. It is the pre FDR theory of governemnt, every person for themselves.

Blue, red, conservative, liberal aside. The most frustrating thing in modern politics is that we are treated more and more like children than citizens. Of course, the real question is why we consistently like to put stupid people in office. If anyone looks smart in the race, the average American bristles and votes the other way.