Over 83,000 people answered the above question on CNN.com since last October, and the great majority say the healthcare system isn’t going to cut it. Nor should people expect it to. The real question you should be asking yourself, is what am I going to do to take care of myself and my family when the hospitals are full, when there’s no medicine and no vaccine, when I might have to stay inside my home for up to two weeks to avoid being infected or because I am caring for a sick family member, when employees won’t show up to keep the stores open, and when the water or power might have short-term outages because 30% of the work force is sick?
A pandemic “wave” could last about 6 weeks, during which the healthcare system will fail in the sense that it is not set up to accomodate a massive influx of sick people. There will be more than one wave. To make things more complicated, a study released last month indicated that half of health care workers will not come to work in an influenza pandemic.
Here is a link to a helpful booklet written by a doctor, on how to care for the sick when you’re on your own. Similar items can be found here. There are official sites, for example the US pandemic flu page for individual planning is ok but doesn’t go too far into the weeds. At least it doesn’t pretend the possible impacts of a pandemic would be minor (may not be able to work, probably no school, maybe no transportation, etc.)
The point of this post is that there is a lot of talk in the news about how the government is going to function in a pandemic. I think you need to think about how you are going to function. That will take a lot of pressure off the government and allow them to maybe get something useful done. Can you take care of your family for a span of, say, two weeks without leaving your home…and without power or water? Can any of us?
Tags: H5N1,pandemic,preparedness,avian flu
Filed under: H5N1 avian influenza
