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Ted Fisher
Ted Fisher
16 years ago

Fantastic Show……………Thanks

steve
steve
16 years ago

Hi, there is plenty of good material around on this subject, but the basic advice is remarkably similar to dealing with fallout. Stay at home, so prep supplies!

As you said this is nothing new. The Roman empire was knocked back to its knees three or four times by pandemics. It was only when there was too few people left to continue transmission that it died out! Don’t travel, stay at home!!

BlackMacX
BlackMacX
16 years ago

Definitely a low flying issue for most people to plan surviving from; that said, H5N1 is extremely dangerous and though publicly only noted as avian to human transmissions have occurred (one in Indonesia at the end of 2007 is potentially considered to have been human to human; but no other cases showed up and not enough evidence was available to determine if it was human to human transmission), it’s worth being prepared. Add to Avian Flu as a major issue, SARS and the common nature of people flying all over the planet (potentially being sick) and there’s a potential for significant impact on sizable populations. The Spanish Influenza is estimated to have killed (globally) between 20million to 100 million people. We might be better prepared somewhat nowadays; but with the increased global population and such, if a severe pandemic were to start, tens if not hundreds of millions of people could become ill and die. It’s scary; but a reality and a potential.

xampl
xampl
16 years ago

Late last year the US Treasury Dept. ran an exercise simulating the impact of a H5N1 pandemic on the US financial industry.

http://www.fspanfluexercise.com/exercise-info.aspx

The format they used had an introduction, and then scheduled updates where they designated a percentage of employees designated as ‘absentee’ due to the flu (either sick, dead, or simply stayed home to protect their families) Read them in order — it’s interesting/scary reading.

The supply of anti-virals (Zovirax, Valtrex, etc) ran out (simulated) by the second update. It’s probably not a good idea to stockpile these due to the cost (Valtrex is $15 a pill!), their short shelf-life, and that they’re only available via prescription. And there’s no guarantee, as you said, that they would be effective against the prevalant strain. Isolation would be the best preventative.