Bet on it: Pandemic flu looms

Let’s think, for a while, about the unthinkable:

  • America’s modern medical system grinds into gridlock as victims of a pandemic influenza overflow hospitals and crowd into makeshift wards in school gyms and church halls.

  • Schools close because they are “virus factories,” as Dr. Tom Locke puts it, and crowds aren’t allowed to gather at events like basketball games.

  • Between sick days and family leave, from a third to half of most businesses’ employees are absent – including those who provide such vital goods as food and fuel, or services like police protection and fire fighting.

  • The first wave of illness lasts one month, two, three. Not until four to five months after the outbreak is a vaccine available.

    Some of these thoughts are from a worst-case scenario, admits Locke, health officer for Clallam and Jefferson counties.

    But you can bet the farm that a pandemic of avian influenza will occur in the foreseeable future, he told a recent public forum on pandemic flu and preparations to avoid it.

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