# 250
Rarely do I see a public official lay it on the line like Richard Canas, director of the state Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness, did in an article by AP writer Linda A. Johnson published today on pressofAtlanticCity.com. Apparently, he not only `gets’ the gravity of a severe pandemic, he isn’t afraid to talk about it openly.
"You're going to be staying home for one year. There will be no school, there will be no work," he said. "All we'll be doing is trying to keep ourselves alive."
In recent weeks the tenor of statements coming out of our officials has ratcheted up a notch or three. This, along with the push for a `pre-pandemic vaccine’ over the past few days by health officials has ignited more than a little speculation by flu watchers. While news reports of human cases have been few and far between the past few weeks, the background noise has increased in volume.
NJ only partly prepared for expected flu pandemic
By LINDA A. JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer
Published: Saturday, December 16, 2006
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) - If New Jersey is hit by an anticipated influenza pandemic, more than 8,100 residents will die - and that's a conservative estimate from the state health department.
Whether the pandemic is due to a flu strain mutated from birds or a human super flu, sick and panicked people will descend on hospitals for help: an estimated 250,000 of them over just a two-month wave. Some 40,000 patients would require ICU beds and 20,000 would need a ventilator, many times more than now available.
Could the state's hospitals, health department and emergency
management agencies handle such a crisis?
"In a really bad pandemic, our system would be overwhelmed, quite frankly," said Dr. Eddy Bresnitz, deputy health commissioner and state epidemiologist.
http://tinyurl.com/u9kav
The remainder of the article is worth reading.
The reporter goes on to quote director Canas, and then lists the steps that New Jersey has taken to prepare for a pandemic. Nowhere are there `happy assurances’ that things will be fine. In fact, this is one of the more realistic assessments that I’ve seen reported.
The title of the article refers to an `expected pandemic’. This too is a change, from `possible pandemic’, which has pretty much been the standard designation in the press.
Whether any of this means we are any closer to a pandemic is impossible to say; but it does indicate a heightened level of concern.
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