# 4206
. . . in a blog entitled Looking Forward On This First Morning Of The Last Year Of The First Decade Of the 21st Century, I wrote . . .
Looking forward, 2009 may or may not be the year that we see a pandemic. No one really knows. All we know is that the conditions appear to remain conducive to seeing one sometime `soon'.
`Soon' could mean this year, five years from now, or perhaps even further off. But history tells us that pandemics happen, with frightening regularity. Roughly every 30 to 40 years.
And they generally strike with little warning.
We have a choice, of course.
We can prepare for something we know is coming, and in doing so also be better prepared to handle less catastrophic events like hurricanes, floods, and earthquakes . . . or we can pretend that it will never happen to our family, or our business, and go on our merry way with blinders on, hoping that this year isn't the year our luck runs out.
Disasters are going to happen. We can't predict, or control, where earthquakes are going to occur, or hurricanes are going to make landfall, or epidemics are going to erupt.
All we can do is be ready for them.
We aren't helpless in a pandemic. But in order to weather one, we need to prepare for it before it happens.
Like I say, we have a choice.
We just have to be willing to make it.
As luck would have it, we did see the first pandemic in 40 years strike . . .with little warning.
It came from out of left field, sparked by of all things, an H1N1 virus circulating among swine in our own backyard. Not from the dreaded bird flu, which continues to threaten in Asia and the Middle East.
There can be little doubt, we got very lucky this time.
Our level of preparation has improved over the past five years, but the experience of 2009 has shown that we are nowhere near ready for a 1918-style pandemic.
Everything from vaccine production, emergency room and ICU capacities, our public health infrastructure, to personal and community preparedness must be improved.
Had we been struck by a high CFR (Case Fatality Ratio) virus like H5N1, our response would have been woefully inadequate. Millions could have died, and the social and economic costs would have been staggering.
There is absolutely nothing that says we couldn’t see another pandemic virus arise, or a serious mutation to the novel H1N1 virus, in the next few years.
Nothing at all.
As we slide into 2010, we should indeed be thankful that the novel H1N1 pandemic has not been any worse than it has been. But we’d be absolute fools to ignore the very real possibility that something far worse lies somewhere in our future.
I can’t tell you what global health crisis will next come down the pike. But I can assure you that nature’s laboratory is open 24/7, and it is quite capable of serving up something quite nasty with very little warning.
It’s worth repeating.
We aren't helpless in a pandemic. But in order to weather one, we need to prepare for it before it happens.
Like I say, we have a choice.
We just have to be willing to make it.
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