# 750
This story puts a little more meat on the bones of the Fox story in my last blog, and concentrates on the anticipated military response to a pandemic.
The headline is a bit of a misnomer, as the US military has been planning for a pandemic for quite some time. The report, released yesterday, was completed in August of last year.
US military begins planning for avian flu pandemic
Published: Thursday May 10, 2007The US military has begun to plan for a possible avian flu pandemic that could kill as many as three million people in the United States in as little as six weeks, a Pentagon planning document said.
The Defense Department's "Implementation Plan for Pandemic Influenza," which was posted Wednesday on a Pentagon website, lays out guidelines and planning assumptions for US military services and combatant commands.
Possible scenarios include US troops being called in to put down riots, guard pharmaceutical plants and shipments, and help restrict the movement of people inside the country and across its borders.
The plan envisions fast moving, catastrophic waves of disease that would overwhelm health facilities and cripple the ability of state and local authorities to provide even basic commodities or services.
"A pandemic in the United States could result in 20-35 percent of the population becoming ill, three percent being hospitalized, and a fatality rate of one percent," the document said in a section on "planning assumptions."
A human-to-human outbreak of avian flu was most likely to occur outside the United States and may not be contained effectively, it said.
"A pandemic outbreak will last between 6-12 weeks and multiple pandemic waves will follow," it said.
If a pandemic influenza starts outside the United States, it will enter the US at multiple locations and spread quickly to other parts of the country, according to the report.
A vaccine for the specific strain of flu would not be available for distribution for a minimum of six to nine months after a human-to-human outbreak had been clinically confirmed, it said.
Transportation within states or internationally will be restricted to contain the spread of the virus, and communities may voluntarily close schools and limit public gatherings.
"Quarantine and other movement restrictions, especially if the restrictions are involuntary, will have minimal effect on the spread of the disease due to a very short incubation period and the ability of asymptomatic individuals to shed the virus," the document said.
"Military and civilian medical treatment facilities will be overwhelmed," it said.
It said the military will be called on to evacuate non-infected people from areas abroad that are having problems, and to help allies.
But the guidance said the US military's top priority would be to preserve the operational effectiveness of the Defense Department and its forces around the world.
The entire plan can be viewed here.
As you'll note, their plan agrees with my last blog, that quarantines would be largely ineffective in a pandemic.
The assumptions used, that the CFR (Case fatality Ratio) would drop from the current 60% to 1%, may be overly optimistic, but one must remember the date of this report. August 2006. This was before the September WHO statement that basically said a high CFR event was possible.
Also, the CFR used here really isn't 1%, as stated in the report, or the newspaper accounts have got it wrong on the 3 million deaths.
Three million deaths here in the United States is 1% of the population, not 1% of those infected. If 40% of the nation were infected, and we saw 3 million fatalities, we'd be looking at a CFR of 2.5%.
A minor point, and one that is truly unknowable in advance, anyway.
The ongoing planning in the military is extensive, and they take the pandemic threat very seriously.
