Searching For Answers
#239
Of all of the crisis’ facing our fragile globe today, none has a greater capacity to affect the average individual more over the next few years than an avian influenza pandemic. Its effects on humanity have been likened to that of a global nuclear war. No area of the world would be spared, and no family likely to go unscathed.
Skeptics have pointed out that a pandemic is a low probability-high impact event, like the gigantic asteroid that struck the earth and wiped out the dinosaurs; but that ignores the true frequency of killer pandemics. Unlike asteroids, which bump into our planet every few million years, pandemics occur on average 3 times a century. Truly horrific ones, like 1918, come around about once every 100 years or so.
We worry incessantly about terrorism, mad cow disease, and e. coli in our burritos; all relatively low impact events, but so far the H5N1 bird flu virus is off the radar for most Americans and across the rest of the world.
Authorities maintain that they `don’t want to panic’ the people, and so they keep everything low profile. Information isn’t exactly hidden, but it is downplayed. Unless you are specifically searching out information on the pandemic threat, you are unlikely to hear much about it.
It is sobering, that in this age of information technology, and with the resources available on the Internet, that avian flu doesn’t even make a ripple in the top Google and Yahoo search terms. You’d think people would be interested. After all, their lives, the lives of their children, and their entire future could be at stake.
Instead, most people use the web to search for celebrity news. Britany Spears is apparently the most popular search subject on the Internet today. While I carry a modicum of concern that she might release another CD, I feel the damage that will induce is unlikely rise to what we would see in a pandemic.
Sadly, unless we can convince the virus to follow Ms. Spear's fashion statement and go sans panties, most people will ignore the H5N1 threat it until it is too late.
Of course, if the H5N1 virus does achieve the ability to transmit as a pandemic flu, those numbers will change. Avian flu sites will light up with millions of hits from anxious and worried netizens looking for answers. Most of these sites, I fear, will be brought down in short order by the sheer volume of hits.
For that reason, I’m suggesting all those who are interested in the subject download any information they might wish to have onto their computer, rather than rely on the Internet during a pandemic.
The flu sites and forums provide more than just a good place to talk about a pandemic, or catch the latest news. Most of them have libraries filled with information you will need during a crisis. Everything from how to purify water, or how to heat your home without electricity, to what drugs and therapies might best be used to combat the disease.
Many flubies are archiving these articles onto data CD’s, so they will have them available when they need them, and I see this as a good insurance policy.
It has been suggested that the Internet could be brought down by a pandemic, or at least severely compromised. One estimate, released last spring, indicated that the increased volume of people working from home, combined with frantic searches on bird flu information and back channel communication between friends and families could deep six the Internet in a matter of days.
While I have hopes that the Internet is more robust that that, I recognize that the handful of good flu sites are not. The wealth of information and wisdom out there is truly impressive, but I would strongly suggest you get it while you can.
For those who are so inclined, here is a short list of the best flu forums and information sites available today. This is a personal list, sites I visit every day. There are others out there, and new ones starting up every month. My apologies to any I may have omitted.
Information:
http://www.pandemicflu.gov/
http://tinyurl.com/agxgy (WHO)
http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/
Flu Forums:
http://www.fluwikie2.com/
http://planforpandemic.com/index.php
http://www.flutrackers.com/forum/
https://www.singtomeohmuse.com/index.php
http://www.curevents.com/vb/index.php?
Blogs:
http://scienceblogs.com/effectmeasure/
http://crofsblogs.typepad.com/h5n1/
http://birdflujourney.typepad.com/
http://tinyurl.com/ybhgv4
