# 1996
The ability of people to ignore an obvious threat constantly amazes me.
Of course, this is nothing new.
When I was a paramedic often we weren't called for a heart attack (chest pains, actually) until about six hours after the symptoms appeared. Victims were very good at telling themselves it was `only heartburn', or if they watched Marcus Welby - and were therefore qualified to diagnose chest pain- that it was simple angina, and that it would go away.
Crushing chest pain, difficulty breathing, profuse sweating, and nausea and vomiting weren't enough to convince them. Sometimes people would wait 24 hours or longer.
And sometimes we didn't get the call until it was so late, all we could do was call the funeral home for the family.
The fear of a heart attack was so great for these people, they literally refused to acknowledge they were having one.
Today, I see the same sort of denial over the prospects of a pandemic. Even among my own family, there are a few who simply refuse to listen. My ex-wife's family, her mother and brother, have both failed to take this threat seriously.
While these are my ex-inlaws (making them my `outlaws', I suppose . . . ) I still would like to see them prepared. But both cite the same reason for ignoring the threat. They claim they never see any news coverage . . . that if it were a real threat, the media would be talking about it.
Of course, I've sent them articles from the Atlanta-Journal Constitution, the Augusta newspaper, and USA today. I pleaded with them to watch the Dr. Osterholm interview on Oprah, and the cable news specials back in the Spring of 2006.
But apparently those haven't convinced them.
You see, the prospects of a pandemic are so horrific, they may not believe it until there are bodies stacked up on their street corner.
Not that my outlaws are unique. Most people I talk to are oblivious of the threat, as if they tune it out every time there is a mention of it on the radio or television, or an article in their newspaper.
The news is out there, but most people don't want to hear it.
When there is a threat, there are three stages at which you can act.
- #1 When the threat is detected, but before it becomes imminent (prevention)
- #2 When the threat is imminent, or during the crisis (damage control)
- #3 After the crisis has ended (cleanup)
A good example are the levees of New Orleans. Prior to 2005, there were many predictions that the levees could fail in a major hurricane. The National Geographic printed an eerily predictive article about how the city could be swamped in a piece called Gone With The Water.
Scientific American ran an article in 2001 called Drowning New Orleans. And the local newspapers routinely complained that the levees were underbuilt, and likely to fail.
And yet, nothing was done. The first stage, prevention, was ignored.
Over the years, several hurricanes came close to New Orleans, but none came at the right angle, or high enough intensity, to stress test the levees. Those who claimed the city dodged a bullet after these close encounters were dismissed as Cassandra's. Fear Mongers.
As New Orleans discovered, once the threat was imminent, it was too late to do much to prepare. Damage control was minimal, and short lived. Some things take time to get ready for, months, even years. By the time Hurricane Katrina was chewing up the Gulf of Mexico, that option had passed.
All that was left was cleanup. After the battering storm, and the rising waters receded, all that could be done was to search for the dead, and condemn large parts of the city. Three years later the recovery is far from complete.
Amazingly, many parts of the gulf coast were hit just as hard, and yet we hardly ever hear about them. Out of sight, out of mind. And by the way, the 2008 hurricane season is just two-weeks away.
Had the warnings been heeded, and the levees built up before Katrina drowned New Orleans, we'd have saved more than 1,000 lives and have avoided more than a 100 billion dollars in damage.
Today we are at the same stage with a pandemic that New Orleans was in the years prior to 2005. When the next devastating storm would waltz out of the gulf was unknown, but we knew that one day it would - with disastrous results.
A pandemic is overdue. They come around, on average every 30 to 40 years, and it's been 40 years since the last one. While we can't predict when the next pandemic will happen, we know one will.
It's just a matter of time.
And yet, most of the world sleeps, ignoring the threat. Our levee's against a pandemic remain woefully underbuilt. Our people remain unprepared and vulnerable, and few businesses have a serious pandemic plan in place.
Michael T. Osterholm, director of CIDRAP, has warned that a pandemic would be like a Hurricane Katrina happening all at once worldwide, with multiple `storms' lasting 6 to 8 weeks, perhaps longer.
It's not something that anyone wants to contemplate. But we ignore his warning, and the warning of many other scientists, at our peril.
Once our `pandemic levee's fail', the world risks cascading failures that could exact an unimaginable toll on its people. If we are to mitigate the next pandemic, we are going to have to do it before it is imminent.
And for that to happen, like it or not, the world must open its eyes to the threat.
