The news coming out of Mexico City is worrying as 61 68 people are now confirmed dead, and more than a thousand sickened from a new variant of the H1N1 flu virus that has apparently jumped from birds to pigs, and is now easily transmissable through human to human contact. Mexican authorities have closed schools, theaters, libraries and museums in an effort to curb the spread, but with cases now being reported throughout Mexico, and confirmed in both Texas and California, officials at both the US Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization are sounding increasingly alarmed over the possibility of a worldwide flu pandemic.
And perhaps the most chilling news…
Most of Mexico’s dead were young, healthy adults, and none were over 60 or under 3 years old, the World Health Organization said. That alarms health officials because seasonal flus cause most of their deaths among infants and bedridden elderly people, but pandemic flus — like the 1918 Spanish flu, and the 1957 and 1968 pandemics — often strike young, healthy people the hardest.
It’s times like this when strong, decisive and well-prepared government leaders can make the difference between life and death. As the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918-1919 was killing an estimated 50 million worldwide, Seattle Mayor Ole Hanson preemptively shut down schools, theaters, businesses and other public places in a controversial effort to minimize the local outbreak. Seattle was relatively spared compared to other US cities… and Hanson was literally run out of town by outraged business and civic leaders angered over the loss of revenues and the disruption of the city’s daily routine.
In that tradition, King County Executive Ron Sims has long made the inevitability of another flu pandemic a primary focus of the region’s disaster preparedness efforts, a focus I first learned about back in September of 2005, when I heard Ron talk at a post-Katrina, Red Cross fundraiser.
But rather than talk about New Orleans, he spent most of his time talking about the county’s own disaster preparation efforts. By far their primary focus? Not earthquakes, not terrorist attacks… but avian flu. It was a sobering talk with zero political upside for a man who was in the midst of what was supposed to be a tough fight for reelection, and I came away wishing every voter had the opportunity to talk with Sims one-on-one.
And it wasn’t just talk. Seattle & King County Public Health has a detailed and informative Pandemic Flu Preparedness page, which includes links to videos, fact sheets, resources… even a 12-page comic book available in 16 languages. The agency’s 50-page Pandemic Flu Response Plan is available here.
It is ironic that the legislature is about to slash public health spending exactly at a time we might need it most. And more than a little bit scary.
Read about the great pandemic flu in 1919. Among the hardest hit were the young healthy ones. The flu attacks, the immune system counterattacks and the victim dies in their own mucus. The stronger immune system, the stronger the response (mucus, and the quicker you die.
But hey, let’s cut health care.
My brother, father and I were hunting rabbits in Wisconsin many years ago. We had our lunch break at a small and remote cemetary. As we eat our sandwiches, we reviewed the headstones. Four headstones reported the dates of the mother, father and 2 children deaths, all within a 2 week period. That was one history lesson of the Spainish flu I did not forget.
They just cut into the Flyers-Pens intermission with a report on this. I guess some kids in NYC have been diagnosed with this now…
It’s all the Republicans fault!
@4
Hell, yes!!!
That’s a joke, btw.
Katrina, torture, neocon, Cheney, Bush, Republican, racist, whitey, cracker, rich pig, warmonger. That’s all your keywords right?
My key words are closer to biking, swimming and homemade brownies…
It’s fiction, but the novel The Last Town on Earth does a fantastic job of looking at the 1918 pandemic, WWI Jingoism and what the Puget Sound Region was like back in the day.
http://www.amazon.com/Last-Tow.....1400065208
The solution to this problem is simple: Cut capital gains taxes. Aske any republicon.
@9
And stop the scary brown people from coming across the border.
@10
Yes. We are a nation of laws, so that justifies any measures to “deal” with illegals. With torture? Not so much.
That 15 year old girl who risked her life to cross the border so we could have our sheets turned down at the Ramada–isn’t her heart in the right place? And didn’t she help the economy? Isn’t a robust economy in the national interest?
Let’s move forward….
Ole Hanson..the “hero” who broke the 1919 Seattle General Strike.
Fucking scab.
Damn, this is causing me to think seriously about postponing or cancelling of our trip next month to my wife’s hometown of Aguascalientes, Mexico. Although it’s not Mexico City, I still don’t want to be anywhere near this shit.
re 14: You should have bought a Russian wife. This problem is non-existent on the Bosporus.
14
Aguascalientes is a damned nice place. I’m shocked–shocked!–that you’re married to someone que viene desde una ciudad Mexicana como Aguascalientes.
There is another, likely more important, message in this event.
The virus is highly “recombined.” That means it has acquired parts of human, swine, and bird DNA. The virus is MORE scary than HIV, because this little piece of DNA has not even been selcted to live peacefully in swine, never mine in us.
This is living evidence that evolution is happening AND that we endanger our entire species by the anti scientific rejectionism of the Bush era. Like global warming, we scientists knew this was going to happen. Even if this new virus proves less than catastrophic, we MUST invest the money to prepare ourselves for what we KNOW is coming.
The lessons?
1. Evolution is Real
2. The “Designer” is not on our Side.
3. WE need to and can protect ourselves by supporting the science of molecular virology.
OR??
we can trust in God!
No, not ironic. It’s irresponsible. Irresponsible to continue to fund public art while cutting public health. How many people here, if they were in serious financial trouble, would continue to buy art for their home?
“Hanson was literally run out of town by outraged business and civic leaders angered over the loss of revenues …”
What’s new about greedy businessmen sacrificing innocent lives to line their own pockets? That’s being going on since the first coins were minted.
@2 “My brother, father and I were hunting rabbits in Wisconsin many years ago.”
You were doing what??!!!
@16 He’s probably lying. Like everything else righty trolls post here, it’s fiction. No self-respecting Mexican — hell, no self-hating Mexican, either — would marry a Republican.
@17 “we endanger our entire species by the anti scientific rejectionism of the Bush era.”
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, you know. When you humans are gone and rabbits run this place, this will be a far more peaceful planet.
Imagine yellow-dotted green meadows of clover full of peacefully-grazing rabbits, as far as the eye can see, under blue skies filled with puffy white clouds. Mother Nature knows what she’s doing.
@18 Among your ilk, education seems to be the first thing to go, and art was never on the list.
Goldy,
Has King County done anything in the past few days as “step 1” after all of this preparedness? The papers, plans, comic books etc. measures you cited all can be categorized as “just talk”. Pretty meaningless preparedness unless the County has actually implemented any of these plans.
I’m not saying they haven’t…I’m saying your article is incomplete. Not your finest hour, Goldy.
@1 You may want to read up on cytokine storms.
Usually predators attack the weak, the young, and the old. Some flu viruses seem to take the opposite approach — they cull the human herd by using the healthy’s own defenses against them.
From a purely academic standpoint, this targeting method is frickin’ awesome (and scary as hell).