Anyne preparing for worse case bird/spanish flu outbreak?

I listen to paranormal shows and read the websites. The cdc says the death from this is going to be really low, the conspiracy shows say up to 5.3 billion.

Anyway, inaddition to getting the flu or not, something interesting was said. If this thing spreads like widefire and are nearly full hospitals are over loaded, normal conviences of life would be haulted.

Public transportation, trash pick up, police, fire. If we have a bad winter to this with are medical system tied up, we could also face a labor shortage from those who are sick and fear of getting sick on top of higher fuel prices.

Sounded like this could be worse than y2k, of course y2k was a non event.

I think the 3rd world countries would get this harder than we would of more developed countries. I am going to make sure i have about a month worth of nonparisable food on hand incase of problems with the bus or cold winter with lots of snow.

Anyone else thought about this? The consipracy shows claim you have a 50% chance to die and nothing current on the market helps with it.

Umm, no, I'm not preparing for it. With all the natural disasters that could hit, it would be too much to prepare for them all. Falling celestial objects, volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis all happen. The last three might have some warning time, and maybe even the first. But how much? And mega-tsuanamis! Now that's scary alright.

Having a month supply of food or more is a good idea. Water is more important though, and although it could be done, I see it as harder to store that much, space being the main issue.

My friends never finished their stash of Y2K food. Others I know of horded gold and silver. It's a good idea to be prepared, and one should do what is going to reassure them.

A radio show here had a parody song about Y2K, set to the tune of The Beatles song Yesterday. It was hilarious, especially afterward. Of course there was ample time to prepare for Y2K.

I do think a pandemic is something that will happen though, maybe not from this, but it will. And with modern travel being so rapid, it will spread far and fast.

If the so called Spanish Flu did so much horror in a time of slower transit, I shudder to think what it could do now. I remember seeing a show on one of the Discovery Chanels that said they thought the Spanish Flu actually came from the States, soldiers crawling through pig guts in basic training.

I generally stay concerned with the more mundane things that'll get us in the end. Of course if Cheyenne Mountain ever comes up for sale and I can afford it, that'll be my next address!

Lightning, tornados and hurricanes, oh my. Those things are what concern me.

Oh yes, I am preparing for it. And I am really worried here. There are more than one indicator that clearly shows that there is an enromous danger of a flu pandemia about to come. Maybe not tomorrow, but still ...

So ... I have:
- several boxes of Tamiflu (Oseltamivir)
- enough Paracetamol, Ibuprofen and other supportive medications
- face masks
- food for at least 2 weeks stored

I also made sure I have enough Tamiflu to protect my family and close relatives.

As the critical mutation hasn't taken place yet the data about the possible pandemia is vague, but it is said that the expected death toll might be in the 300.000.000 range as opposed to 25.000.000 for the Spanish Flu in 1918. Reason is mobility.
The mortality of the current virus H5N1 (Avian Flu) is also a bit vague, guesstimates are between 60 and 80 percent chance of death upon infection. And this is for the hoel population, not just the old and sick.

Some interesting things that made me worry:

- Roche (maker of Tamiflu) in France was forced by the government to produce Oseltamivir in all production plants. This was kept secret untill a few days ago.
- All western European States are mass-buying Tamiflu in numbers of millions and millions of boxes to protect their people
- They are too late and have only stuff for about 10% of the population, prophylaxis for those working in hospitals not counted
- The production capacities of Roche France are approx. 200.000 boxes/month (IIRC that is)
- In France it seems that Tamiflu is sold out in the open market and black market prices are about to kick in
- In the media the tone chaged dramatically in the last days ... from "all is cool" to "emergency minister meetings" and "emergency preparations" to "no panic" ... while the facts remained the same and we didn't hear anything spectacular for weeks
- most of the above info cannot be obtained through normal media channels
- The virus is spreading quickly, it has reaches Rumania and Turkey. It is airborn with the birds.
- It is a well-known fact that Influenza viridae tend to mutate and can mix DNA with each other, and it happens very often indeed. As a result we have a few big and nasty ones per century that do some significant damage, just as in 1918.
- Nowadays it will hurt considerably more due to the global mobility.
- There are reports about Tamiflu-resistant H5N1 variations in Asia
- Upon outbreak of the big one the vaccine has to be developped, and it might be ready too late.

So ... that is why I am worried.
And that is why I am prepared.
I had my wife promise me that she will stay at home in the case of an epidemia in our town, regardless of the events.
I guess I will continue to work in hospital though, but to be honest, I am unsure if I will risk my life here. This might be payback-day for the lousy treatment of the doctors, but that is another story.

bernhard

iS Tamiflu available over the counter here in Germany, and how much should a prepared family have on hand?

No, it is not freely sold.
You'd need 5x2=10 capsules for one treatment, maybe slightly more.
It costs €34 for 10 pills.
As you can take one pill/d upon contact with infected persons for exposition prophylaxis youo might want at least 1-2 boxes per person.
bernie

They are saying the strain is unaffected by tamiflu here...

Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death...

Have some perspective. This is from The Week Magazine:

"Avian flu - How worried should we be?
10/14/2005

As many as 2 million Americans would die. Hundreds of millions of people would perish around the globe. In the chaos triggered by the pandemic, Third World regimes would fall, U.S. hospitals and undertakers would be overwhelmed, retail sales would plunge, and stock and housing markets would collapse. That's what could happen, said William Prochnau and Laura Parker in Vanity Fair, if the planet were suddenly ravaged by a widespread outbreak of avian flu. Though this mysterious disease has infected only 116 people so far, 60 have died. That's a mortality rate of more than 50 percent. If the virus gains a foothold in humans, and mutates so that it's more infectious, it could be more deadly than the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918, which, in a far less populous world, killed 500,000 Americans and 50 million people altogether. "A plague of biblical proportions could be just ahead."

Until last month, almost no one took such warnings seriously, said Christine Gorman in Time. But then "a couple of furies named Katrina and Rita'' called Washington's attention to ignored warnings. Last week, Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt seized on the opportunity to brief Congress, senior administration officials, and President Bush about the avian flu. Following one closed-door session, the Senate quickly voted to spend $3.9 billion to develop a readiness plan. Hearing the worst-case scenario, said Minority Leader Harry Reid, "scared the hell out of me."

It's about time Washington woke up, said Marcela Sanchez in The Washington Post. For two years now, health officials have been warning that a flu pandemic on the scale of 1918's Spanish flu was "not a question of if but when." That pandemic, recent DNA research has revealed, originated in an avian flu that jumped the species barrier and spread among humans. A similar virus is incubating in the vast, commercially farmed chicken population of Southeast Asia. Officially designated H5N1, the strain is now communicable only through direct exposure to infected birds. But some researchers fret that the virus will eventually mutate in a human host, become highly infectious, and spread like wildfire throughout the globe.

Some perspective, please, said Dr. Marc Siegel in the Los Angeles Times. Even if we take the Spanish flu as a model, we've come a long way since 1918, when "there were no flu vaccinations and no antiviral drugs." And most virologists believe the current bird flu has a very low chance of jumping the species barrier and turning into a global nightmare. Once again, fearmongers have taken a real health threat and blown it out of all proportion—just as they did with SARS, West Nile virus, anthrax, and mad cow disease. The lesson of these previous panics is clear: "The worst case is not the only case."

So what explains the current overreaction? said Holman Jenkins Jr. in The Wall Street Journal. After the Katrina fiasco, people in high places are falling over themselves to prove they're taking the bird flu seriously, so as not to someday face withering choruses of "I told you so." But that leaves you and me with two choices. We could join in the panic, and add a pandemic to the things that keep us awake nights, such as terrorist attacks, Category 5 hurricanes, and any one of a dozen other possible disasters. Or we could comfort ourselves with the thought that most of us will actually die years from now of something quite mundane. When it comes to the bird flu, my advice is: "Be afraid. Be somewhat, slightly afraid."

Wash your hands.... often.

I dont think tampiflu works for it.

I know its easy to over react, but it doesnt hurt to be prepared. I bought a two cases of water, case of gatorade, two cases of tuna kits, some packaged nuts, box of protein bars incase a storm came up the east coast. I normally consume the stuff I buy, so just means this spring when it quits snowing, I have some extra food to eat til hurricane season next year.

I doubt it will hit US that hard as it does third world countries.

There is really very little the average citizen can do to 'prepare' for a pandemic of a highly contagious virus with a 50%+ fatality rate.

One the virus makes the final, necessary mutation to allow for easy and efficient human to human infection, it will spread worldwide in a few weeks to a month.

We live in a global society, with hundreds of thousands of people traveling between cities by airplane every day.

Airplanes, with their limited fresh air exchange, are perfectly engineered to guarantee the quick spread of the avian flu virus from a single infected passenger to many other passengers. Add to that the crowds present at every major airport, and fast dissemination of the virus is a 100% certainty.

In 1918, during a time of very limited long distance travel, approximately 600,000 Americans died; about the same number as died during all of the 4 years of the American Civil War. We are in deep doo doo, and our 'government' is doing very little of any substance to combat the coming plague. They are too busy handing out 'no bid' conracts to Halliburton, to spend the money necessary to to anything substantial to protect the American public.

Bend over, and kiss your @ss goodbye.

i have a freind whom, hqappens to be a bird every 3 hours i ask him how he is feeling he sats sqack so im sure we all are ok

There's always the chance that if it mutates into an easily human to human transmissible form, it could become less deadly, more like a regular flu strain. Mutation doesn't mean a bug automatically gets worse. There are anecdotal reports of AIDS variants that may be non-lethal, and confer immunity to the more deadly strains. Much like how the mild but related cowpox was used as the first vaccine for smallpox.

But I am a bit worried. Mainly because we have four daughters, two sets of twins, 14 months and 5 months old, respectively. That doesn't make me more or less worried about the probability of a pandemic, the odds are what they are. I'm more worried about the virulence and mortality rates.

In the rare event of an outbreak that's "bad" but not so bad that people stop going to work etc. I'll have to decide if it's worth it for me to go live with my parents, and have my wife stay reverse-quarantined in the house with the girls while I stay outside, and run errands, and we "airlock" food & supplies into the house, until the worst of it passes. Even if that only delays the inevitable, I'd like to try and hold out until drugs or vaccines are widely available. Barring that, I'd still like to have my family hang on until the worst of it passes. That way my little girls would have a shot at a full ICU bed lest they get sick, instead of early on, where patients could conceivably be overflowing into the hospital halls as they struggle to even keep everyone on IV's during a mass casualty situation during the "peak".

It may not be the "bird flu" this time, if it keeps wiping out poultry, and bird populations are killed proactively, the virus might exterminate itself. Ebola and the other really bad hemorrhagic fevers do that now. They kill so well, they're difficult to spread. (Granted, they do cluster in African regions where transporation is primitive…)

But I do agree it's only a matter of statistics and time before a nasty bug does some serious culling amongst the human population. Although if such a pandemic holds off for another 50-100 years, biotech may be so advanced we can stop anything...

Nothing much that we can do until the strain figures out how to jump from person to person. Right now it is bird to person.

Bush is trying to divert attention away from things he can be blamed for and is much happier when we are thinking about 'other things'.

Wash your hands, and stay away from people that have no idea of personal hygiene and cough and spit all over the place.

If things get really bad, get a Nano face mask and hope our governments have enough balls to close down all movement of people coming from 'over there'.

Oh yes.......and wash your hands......

Anglepoise, I really doubt Bush can do any more about this than he can a hurricane or global warming. Last nights southpark was rather funny though.

AJ_Dual, would be interesting how they would screen people. I am not sure where, but somewhere in Asia they have scanners to screen folks body temps to find those who may have SARS. Think these are setup at airports to scan those coming and going. Of course that would only catch the infected, not the carriers. I cant imagine having kids with this if it comes full circle. I would keep my kids out of school for a while and making them wear masks and eat wearing gloves. Myself, I am worried about public services going down, bus, garbage, fire, cops.

goldenlight, yup. Must like with global warming, crime, drugs, etc we cant really do anything, just a passenger to what comes.