U.S. Government not ready for Asian Flu

The New York Times reported on The recent plan for dealing with a Pandemic Flu. The story is what should be expected from the Bush administration. After years of discussion and waring, we aren't ready.

By GARDINER HARRIS
WASHINGTON, Oct. 7 - A plan developed by the Bush administration to deal with any possible outbreak of pandemic flu shows that the United States is woefully unprepared for what could become the worst disaster in the nation's history.

A draft of the final plan, which has been years in the making and is expected to be released later this month, says a large outbreak that began in Asia would be likely, because of modern travel patterns, to reach the United States within "a few months or even weeks."

If such an outbreak occurred, hospitals would become overwhelmed, riots would engulf vaccination clinics, and even power and food would be in short supply, according to the plan, which was obtained by The New York Times.

The 381-page plan calls for quarantine and travel restrictions but concedes that such measures "are unlikely to delay introduction of pandemic disease into the U.S. by more than a month or two."

The plan's 10 supplements suggest specific ways that local and state governments should prepare now for an eventual pandemic by, for instance, drafting legal documents that would justify quarantines. Written by health officials, the plan does yet address responses by the military or other governmental departments.

The plan outlines a worst-case scenario in which more than 1.9 million Americans would die and 8.5 million would be hospitalized with costs exceeding $450 billion.

It also calls for a domestic vaccine production capacity of 600 million doses within six months, more than 10 times the present capacity.

This plan has taken too long to develop and isn't complete even now. Plus, it is only a plan, not yet implemented. Every nation in Europe has been stockpiling medication for years in anticipation of this flu.

It may be too late for a mere plan. The Independent reports:

Three domestic ducks have died of bird flu in eastern Romania, sparking fears that the Asian virus has hit Europe.

Officials suspect that tests under way in Britain will confirm that the birds were infected with H5N1, the strain of avian flu which experts are tracking for fear it could mutate and spawn a human flu pandemic.

So, given a flu pandemic, we will live the Republican dream. We will all be on our own. Except for the military that Bush wants to be allowed to enforce quarantine even in spite of the Posse Comitatus Act which forbids the U.S. military from being used as police inside the U.S. [Get sick - they shoot you? Hell of a plan, but I can see the right-wingers salivating to implement it.]

If the jump of the flu viris from birds to humans was planned and implemented by the Bush administration we would be in no danger. They can't make anything work right.

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Look at this diary on dKos. The history of the Bush administration is that it submitted a draft plan for dealing with a possible flu pandemic in August 2004, revised it and resubmitted in in draft in May 2005, and is still working on it because it does not contain critical information the role of the federal goverment in vaccine and antiviral drug purchase, distribution, and administration, among other things. It is still at this time in draft.

The bird flu is getting close. BBC radio news on NPR tonight reported that bird flu has been positively verified as occuring in western Turkey this week.

Time is getting short, and the Bush administration has already proven that it cannot prepare for natural disasters that it has advance warning will occur, but for which the time of occurrance is not yet determined.