# 692
I hear it almost every day. People tell me a pandemic can't happen. Not here. Not in this day and age. It simply . . . can't.
Who can refute logic like that?
I'm sure everyone reading this has run into this reaction; either from a friend, a colleague, or a relative. A deep and pernicious disbelief that we could ever be susceptible to another pandemic. It is either impossible, or a plot by (fill in the blank) to instill fear and control the population, or a gambit by big pharma to steal us blind.
Admittedly, accepting the concept, and dealing with it, can require a major adjustment reaction. Many of the people who will accept the idea at all put a pandemic in the same odds category as an asteroid strike, or a global nuclear war. Possible, but unlikely.
Whenever I talk one-on-one with a disbeliever I get the same arguments as to why it can't happen. And so I've developed counter arguments which I use to try to convey the seriousness of the situation.
Most of the time, with a little patience, I make headway. For those of you in the same position, I have a few examples of ways to refute the denial reflex.
Pandemics are something from the past. They just don't happen anymore.
It would be nice if that were true, but the reality is, we've always had pandemics, and they occur on a fairly regular basis. We saw three pandemics in the last century, with the first, in 1918, being the worst. Over the past 300 years, we've have ten recorded pandemics.
They've happened in the past, and will most certainly happen in the future. We've gone nearly 40 years since the last one. On average they come around every 30 or 40 years.
Statistically, we're overdue.
If the worst pandemic was 1918, and the one in 1957 was much milder, and the one in 1968 was milder still, then the next one won't amount to much. Our modern society is obviously immune.
Historically, some pandemics are milder than others. It's true that the 1957 pandemic, and the 1968 pandemic were comparatively mild, but that wasn't due to our modern society or medicine.
It was due to the genetics of those viral strains.
The 1957 Asian flu was caused by a reassortment of what was the currently circulating H1N1 virus with an unknown avian strain picked up in China . It kept most of it's genetic material from the existing virus, the one we all had some immunity to, and so it was milder than the 1918 virus, to which most had no immunity at all.
The 1969 Hong Kong flu was caused by a small (antigenic) shift in the Asian H2N2 virus, becoming the H3N2. This was enough of a change to spark a mild pandemic, but it too was very similar to earlier strains.
In both 1957 and 1968, the pandemic was caused by a virus containing genetic material to which most of us had already been exposed.
If the H5N1 virus becomes a pandemic, it will be radically different genetically from the strains we've had in circulation for the past 90 years. We won't have that built in immunity.
Pandemics are caused by novel strains. Some strains are more foreign to our bodies than others. There is no reason to assume that the next pandemic will be a mild one.
Even if it happens, we have modern medicines and hospitals, and so it won't be so bad.
Again, it would be nice if that were true, but hospitals would only be able to treat a small percentage of patients. Probably less than 10%. Most people will have to stay home and take their chances.
As far as medicines are concerned, we have made advances, but we have nothing that `cures' the flu. We only have some antiviral medicines that can shorten the duration, and hopefully lessen the severity. Unfortunately, we only have enough for perhaps, 10% of the population here in the United States.
Antibiotics are available today that we didn't have back in 1918, and they should help blunt some of the effects of secondary bacterial infections, but once again, they will be in short supply.
A small percentage of flu victims will have the advantages of hospitals and modern medicine, but most will not. For them, their treatment and care won't be much better than they would have received in 1918.
The government will make a vaccine, like they did for the Swine Flu. So we really don't have to worry about it.
It took us more than six months to create that vaccine, and that was at a time when we had a much greater capacity to manufacture vaccines in this country. Today, most of those factories have either closed, or moved off shore.
We obviously will attempt to create a vaccine, but we really can't until we see the pandemic strain develop. Any vaccine made now simply wouldn't be very effective. So yes, the government will try to create a vaccine, but the general public won't see it until 6 to 12 months after the pandemic starts.
Okay, maybe it could happen. But I'll worry about it once it starts.
By that time, it may be too late to prepare.
In 1918, before the advent of air travel, the virus spread to every corner of the world in 5 months. Now, with thousands of air flights every day, the virus would likely spread much faster. We could be talking days or weeks from the moment we know it has broken out, to the time it is in our backyard.
If you wait until the media, or the CDC, or the WHO issues a pandemic alert, then you risk not being able to get the things you and your family will need to prepare. Everyone will be rushing out simultaneously to stock up.
Here in Florida, the stores are a madhouse, and the shelves are cleared, 24 hours before a hurricane. Imagine that happening everywhere at once. The price of simple items, such as food, or medicine, or masks and gloves will skyrocket. It will be a seller's market. And most people will simply find they can't get the things they will need.
Our government won't let us starve. They'll bring us food, water, and medicine, just like they do after a hurricane or an earthquake.
Obviously, the government doesn't want anyone to starve. That's why they are encouraging every family to be ready for a possible pandemic. They've had a website, www.pandemicflu.gov, up for more than a year just to get the word out.
The US Federal government has already stated, emphatically, that they won't be able to provide disaster assistance to individual communities during a pandemic. It would be like trying to deal with 1000 Hurricane Katrina's at the same time.
If you and your family plan on waiting for FEMA or the National Guard to show up at your door with a load of food or medicine, it's going to be a long, hungry wait.
Sometimes, after enough talking, a little light goes off in their heads, and they actually do take the threat seriously. I've managed to convince a number of close friends and family members, that yes, it could happen here, and they are now preparing. At least a little.
Of course, I'm always quick to point out (repeatedly) that we don't know when the next pandemic will happen. It may, or may not, stem from the H5N1 virus. We could get blindsided by something lurking out there we aren't paying attention to. It could start today, or it might not happen this year, or even next.
For some people, that provides enough breathing room that they simply refuse to deal with the issue. If it might not happen this year, there's no sense in preparing for it.
And that can be discouraging. But I learned something very early in my paramedic career, something that I have to remind myself of from time to time.
You can't save everyone, no matter how hard you try.
