Re: Compared to 2008 traffic fatalities h1n1 fizzles
It's all good sbrooks. I get crabby myself on an all-too-regular basis. Your post did make me think though. There are quite a lot of things that kill people in large numbers. If this flu turns out to be as deadly as 1918, then, to quote one of our members, "it's like watching a train wreck in slow motion, you're on the train, and there is no way to stop it or get off the train. There are things that could be done to mitigate the impacts, but nobody wants to take drastic measures (like school closings) out of fear that it will incite panic or impact the economy. By the time things would get bad enough to consider these measures, it will be too late to have any impact.
One of my biggest fears is that this fall wave will be high and steep, so to speak, so that for a few weeks the ERs and ICUs will be so overwhelmed that people who have survived so far will not make it because there are no vents available, no room in ICU, enough staff who aren't sick to care for serious cases, etc. By deciding wholesale not to close schools and limit large gatherings, we've made this scenario much more likely. I realize that everyone will likely be exposed at some point, but if it happened over a longer period of time, some people might survive who would not during the above scenario.
Unlike many other causes of death, we have a chance to do something about this, but it is a very compressed timeframe. It's like developing anti-drunk driving or anti-smoking campaigns crammed into a few weeks. If we knew that 38,000 people would die in car crashes over a period of a month, I'm sure there would be traffic control measures put into place to reduce the number of deaths. For the flu, we seem to just be sitting on our hands, crossing our fingers, and hoping it's not that bad.
As part of my work, I help manufacturing and mining facilities develop plans for various contingencies related to environmental concerns and safety. So many of my clients spend a lot of money to have a plan written and then stick it on a shelf to collect dust. They've met the regulatory requirement, but it's a "Plan" in name only. When there is a crisis, often the plan is then read for the first time. I believe that many governments and agencies have done the same thing with their pandemic flu plans.
