More cases of swine flu continued to pop up across the globe Monday as health officials struggled to predict just how dangerous — or not — this new flu strain might be.
The possibility of a deadly pandemic sweeping the United States is frightening. With our military and National Guard already maxed out overseas, and an anemic economy still struggling, a pandemic could be devastating for the U.S. and global economy.
But the reality, as of early Monday evening, was that no one in this country has died from the flu, and only one person has been hospitalized.
At times like this, it’s important to root your fears in reality, not wide-eyed speculation. However, our planning — both as individuals and as a government — should be based on the more wide-eyed speculation.
As we learned from Hurricane Katrina, we can’t wait for the federal government to swoop in and save us. If such an emergency arises, Colorado, and local communities, will be called upon as the first responders.
In 2007, the Bush administration made clear that if a flu pandemic hit the country — back then, the worry was bird flu spreading from Asia — states should be prepared to go it alone without help from the federal government.
Knowing that, we were pleased to see Gov. Bill Ritter and Ned Calonge, the state’s chief medical officer, take pro-active steps of requesting Colorado’s allotment of antiviral medication from the federal stockpile.
The state also is in contact with all of the local public health agencies in Colorado, as well as medical providers and pharmacies. That’s important to help isolate any cases that may surface, and to track the spread of the virus.
In 2007, the state’s Division of Emergency Preparedness and Response conducted a mass vaccination exercise to test state and local coordination to see how many people could get vaccinated quickly in the event of a pandemic. With roughly 26,000 doses of vaccine available, only about 12,000 people showed up at 29 sites around Colorado. Even with the low turnout, the effort, at that time, was the largest state-sponsored flu vaccination program in the country.
Health experts say the speed and the scope of the world response show the value of preparations made because of the avian flu and SARS scares. We know it’s impossible to prepare for every possible scenario, but we do hope previous state planning has been thorough enough to deal adequately with any possible outbreaks here.
No one is talking about containing the virus. With today’s international air travel, it would be impossible. So we all must do our part to take needed the precautions. For more information, go to .
