# 3617
Understandably, governments around the world would like their citizens to adjust to life with the H1N1 pandemic virus with as little disruption to their society, and economy, as is possible.
And from a `macro’ perspective, that makes sense. The virus has been relatively mild for most people, and at the rate it is spreading, there is little that most people can do to prevent exposure.
Accordingly, most governments have declared that schools should remain open, businesses should continue to operate normally, and that people `not panic’.
Of course, people don’t generally operate from a `macro perspective’. Their concerns are for their families and loved ones.
It is probably true that all pandemics are local.
And local officials, who are less insulated from the public than their federal counterparts, often come under pressures that national policy makers do not.
The result is that state and national decrees like the one in India recommending that schools should remain open during this pandemic sometimes falter in the face of local reaction.
First this report from Bloomberg, then a few more comments.
Mumbai to Shut Cinemas, Schools as Swine Flu Spreads (Update1)
By Paresh Jatakia and Saikat Chatterjee
Aug. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Mumbai, India’s commercial capital, shut schools and movie theatres as swine flu related deaths rose, forcing local officials to disregard federal government advice to keep educational institutions open.
Schools will close for seven days and malls and movie theatres for three to contain the virus, Prajakta Lavangare, a director general of the Maharashtra state government, said today.
India allowed privately owned hospitals to treat swine flu cases as the number of locally transmitted cases surged, putting pressure on government-run hospitals that were earmarked for the treatment of the flu. Deaths because of the virus have risen to nine as of yesterday after the health ministry reported the country’s first fatality in Pune on Aug. 3.
<SNIP>
Earlier this week, Pune shut classrooms for a week while malls and movie halls were closed for three days, according to a spokesman for the Maharashtra chief minister’s office, who declined to be identified.
The federal government has decided to purchase an additional 20 million doses of generic versions of antiviral drug Tamiflu to fight the outbreak after it almost expended the 10 million it purchased earlier, Ghulam Nabi Azad, minister of health and family welfare, said on Aug. 10.
Closing schools for a week in Mumbai when no vaccine is on the horizon probably makes little epidemiological sense. It is unlikely to do much to interrupt the spread of the virus, and once classes resume, so will transmission.
But that doesn’t mean it is without value.
One of the things that governments have been slow to understand is, people view policies based on how it affects them, their families, their friends, and their jobs.
Not on what makes sense at the population level.
Telling parents to send their kids to school in the face of a pandemic may make perfect sense to public health officials once the virus is already in the community, but it sounds crazy to most parents.
And every time a parent sends a healthy child to school, only to have them come home with the virus, they are going to blame local officials.
We are seeing that play out right now in New York City as the family of assistant principal Mitchell Wiener, who was that city’s first swine flu victim, have announced plans to sue for wrongful death.
Assurances and advice from government agencies based on science, or even practical considerations, will carry very little weight for many people in the opening weeks and months of a pandemic.
There are numerous `adjustment reactions’ that those of us who have been following the pandemic issue for years have already made. We’ve thought about, and accepted, many of the limitations that societies face in controlling an epidemic.
We may not like them, but we accept them.
The general public, however, hasn’t had that opportunity. Their fears are often stoked by a sensationalistic press, and government policies that are deemed `best for society’ may carry little sway with them.
The public will need to make their own adjustment reactions to this pandemic as it progresses. Better communication and public education will go a long ways towards making that happen, but to date, we’ve seen precious little of that.
It is going to take time for the public to adjust to life in a pandemic.
Governments that try to move too rigidly ahead with policies that work on a `macro-level’, but ignore individual concerns, are likely to find themselves facing a nasty political backlash.
And that’s an adjustment reaction that governments need to make.
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