I don't know. I do know it's hard to balance the need for accuracy and hard planning with the uncertainly of not knowing when or whether things will go sour. It's the difference between planning for the probable and the possible.
Here's a good link from today's NY Times... some big names mentioned. I've heard a few who think less than 15% in the next 3 years. Some think never.
Top virologists have been appearing in Washington in recent weeks to sound the alarm about pandemic flu. All of them have said that predicting when the next pandemic will hit is impossible.
Talk to them privately, however, and they may whisper their best guess. For some, the dreaded year is 2025. This prophecy was first made by Dr. Maurice R. Hilleman, a microbiologist who died in April at 85.
And here's a story of where we need to go.
Although the predictions are all over the map, the important thing is that this is a low risk but huge impact situation that we're not prepared for nationally, whatever folks are doing individually.
I expect to hear much much more at the local and state level in the near future. Preparation may come in the form of education, or formal programs like CERT using citizens to aid earthquake victims. Whatever it is, preparation is relevant without guessing about when.
When I say guesstimates are all over the map, that means all over the map. It's not likely coming in the next 3 months. But what is coming is the presence of H5N1 in poultry and wild birds. That'll spread all over the world in 6 months.
Once that happens, several things then get to be issues:
- bird culling is an economic disaster especiually in poorer countries like Africa
- the chance of co-mingling with a human flu and recombining or reassorting its way to a pandemic is greater.
I wish folks would tone down the "when and how many deaths" stuff. That's not knowable and that's why the guesstimates are all over the place. What is knowable is that we need to rebuild our prepredness regardless of when and how many. We have time... panic not. But we also have a hell of a lot of work to do. If you knew it were within 5 years you should be doing the same things as if you didn't know. Because it might be some other virus, some other thing.
In a way, this is a race... do we develop vaccine capacity and new methods of production before we develop pandemic? What if we lose? What do we do?
Do whatever you want with the information. But maybe the sensible thing is just go and get yourself some CERT training so that when the [fill in blank] hits, you'll be better prepared. Maybe we include infectious disease training as part of CERT training. Maybe we vote to supply some bucks to do so. Maybe we take a community inventory so we know what resources we have now (don't assume we know). It doesn't mean that if you don't get your N95 mask by friday, or your Tamiflu prescription by next week, you're doomed. No one has said that, though many make fun of those who are trying to be rational about this (no one better than the Onion).
And at a personal level, prepare for 72-96 hours of being cut off from the electicity and travelling. It happens all the time in CT when we get ice storms.
If you're into it, do more. If not, do at least that. And give your respresentatives a piece of your mind about your sense of priorities. But knowing that Rumsfeld has invested in the company that licensed Tamiflu is the least important of any of this.
For more, as always, go to Flu Wiki.