I'm normally NOT a person easily alarmed or a hypochondriac.
I read a book about 10 years ago about viruses - how they mutate and propgate. It covered AIDS, Ebola, and...flu. Once I read this book I've never been so sanguine about flu. The 1918 pandemic was pretty scary.
When I read about bird flu (current fatality rate ~50%) it is scary as well. On an average pandemics occur about every 30 years for flu. Flu tends to mutate to significantly different variants on about this time scale and this has been going on for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years. The last major variant was the Hong Kong flu in 1968. It was fairly mild as flu mutations go. We are now about 8 years past average duration for a major mutation.
The worst case would be a mutation in the current bird flu that became easily transmissable by air - coughs, sneezes, etc. This has not yet occurred.
On one hand it is easy to assume that since nothing very serious regarding flu has happened in my lifetime, I shouldn't find bird flu very worrisome. Yet if I consider a near worst-case scenario, I'd put flu higher than anything except other personal/family health issues as the #1 threat to my successful retirement (hopefully starting in a few years). The potential disruption to society if even 10% of the population was to die would probably outpace terrorism, a nuclear warhead in NYC or WA DC, etc.
Rich, what's your perspective as a medical professional?
To others, what preparations (if any) have you made for this possibility?
I read a book about 10 years ago about viruses - how they mutate and propgate. It covered AIDS, Ebola, and...flu. Once I read this book I've never been so sanguine about flu. The 1918 pandemic was pretty scary.
When I read about bird flu (current fatality rate ~50%) it is scary as well. On an average pandemics occur about every 30 years for flu. Flu tends to mutate to significantly different variants on about this time scale and this has been going on for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years. The last major variant was the Hong Kong flu in 1968. It was fairly mild as flu mutations go. We are now about 8 years past average duration for a major mutation.
The worst case would be a mutation in the current bird flu that became easily transmissable by air - coughs, sneezes, etc. This has not yet occurred.
On one hand it is easy to assume that since nothing very serious regarding flu has happened in my lifetime, I shouldn't find bird flu very worrisome. Yet if I consider a near worst-case scenario, I'd put flu higher than anything except other personal/family health issues as the #1 threat to my successful retirement (hopefully starting in a few years). The potential disruption to society if even 10% of the population was to die would probably outpace terrorism, a nuclear warhead in NYC or WA DC, etc.
Rich, what's your perspective as a medical professional?
To others, what preparations (if any) have you made for this possibility?
