Easier Said Than Done
# 1271
Thirty-one years ago this week I, along with thousands of others, participated in a 6-week long effort to vaccinate a nation against a feared pandemic.
Yep, that's me, pneumo-jet in hand, striking fear into the eyes of the elderly.
Despite six months of lead time, and the fact that no pandemic had erupted and life was relatively normal, things did not go smoothly. In six weeks we managed to vaccinate only about 40 million Americans.
Far short of our goal of 200 million.
We did, however, manage to make Guillain-Barre Syndrome a household name.
Things don't always go as planned. Murphy, you see, was an optimist.
While I believe that vaccines, and even a pre-pandemic vaccine, have merit and a place in pandemic planning, I fear far too many people believe we can simply buy our way out of a pandemic at the last minute. That there will be some deus ex machina just as we reach the brink, and it will deliver us from a terrible fate.
The truth is, it takes time and resources and boots on the ground to even begin to mitigate a pandemic. There are no simple solutions.
This isn't something we can dither about until it is upon us, and then suddenly go looking for answers. We won't solve a pandemic by whipping out a check book.
Over the past two-years, despite ample warnings, most governments have simply talked this issue to death, and done little to prepare.
There are a few agencies, along with the Military, that seem to be seriously preparing. HHS, DHS, and the CDC all take the pandemic threat seriously. The Pentagon see's this as a real national security threat, and has been aggressively planning to deal with a pandemic. A few states have been particularly proactive.
There are some hardworking, sincere, and dedicated pandemic planners out there, mostly doing a thankless and never-ending job.
But the rest of the world seems to be languishing between denial and ignorance. Waiting, I suppose, for proof-positive that the threat is upon us before choosing to act.
Of course, by then, it may be too late.
If a pandemic strikes in the next couple of years, history will show that we had ample warning.
The question is, will history show that we used it wisely?
For most government agencies, small and medium sized businesses, and individuals . . .the answer so far is `no'.
We are two-years downstream since the Department of Health and Human Services started telling Americans to prepare for a pandemic, and yet most Americans remain oblivious. We remain woefully unprepared.
States and local governments say they are preparing, but far too many appear to be making tepid responses, basing their pandemic assumptions on mild scenarios like 1957 and 1968.
And most businesses either have no plan at all for a pandemic, or an unrealistic one created simply to show due diligence. Fortune 500 and Multinational corporations do seem to be taking the threat seriously, and preparing, but the same can rarely be said for smaller entities.
Preparing for a pandemic is expensive, inconvenient, and disruptive.
But it is nowhere nearly as expensive, inconvenient, or disruptive as having a pandemic you are unprepared for.
Not even close.
