What Is Our Government Not Doing To Help Us Survive Bird Flu?

I guess the answer to that depends on what sort of person you are...
Are you content to believe that the authorities know best?
Or do you prefer to have the facts and decide you own fate?

Such is the vacuum left by the absence of sound leadership from our government that a quick internet search reveals that newspaper articles like the following are considered significant:
Sunday Mirror 24th February 2006 : A senior ministerial source told the Sunday Mirror: "People should be reassured we are making the best possible preparations. We have ordered 200,000 body bags, and plans are under way to limit some foodstuffs and fuel if necessary."
The Sunday Mirror doesn't represent the best of the UK media, but it is read by millions. Sadly, it is quite possible that this story is true, but how sad that there isn't more positive news to print?

So, why has the government got to do more?

Obviously, we are not going to argue that more could be done to stock drugs like Tamiflu or develop vaccines. We have already pointed out that these are false hopes. So we must say that what we would like to see is the government no longer hiding behind these feeble precautions, but doing something much more important - organising.
Yes, ORGANISING!
After all, that is what they are elected and paid to do...

We are facing a difficult time - a natural and predictable epidemic threatens to make a lot of people very ill.
It isn't going to be some 21st century equivalent of The Plague or The Black Death. When all is said and done, we are talking about influenza.
But there are enough people refusing to believe that anything bad can happen to our advanced society without the government joining in the game of ostrich and refusing to face up to facts.
We need a good dose of reality before the pandemic starts - not when it is already coming.

If the next bout of flu lives up to predictions, then it is likely that there will be periods of weeks when as many as 20% of the population will not be turning up for work. This will include doctors, nurses, receptionists, hospital staff, factory workers, warehouse staff, lorry drivers, checkout girls, garage staff, funeral directors and grave diggers. And it could go on like that for a couple of years! (It did in 1918)
No profession can miss as many staff for so long and still provide "service as usual".

Usually, if you wake up feeling unwell, you ring you doctor's surgery. We joke about how you get offered an appointment in 3 days time. To be serious, they usually do respond if you insist on urgent treatment. Or failing that, there is a local hospital...
With 20% of their staff missing, but 20 times as many sick people as usual, and 20 times as many dead people as usual, don't expect your local clinic and local hospital to function normally.
This is simple arithmetic.
Now add on the fact that everywhere you look for help, the individuals concerned are 20 times as likely to be suffering a bereavement - feeling bad, scared about the future, having to organise a funeral.
And the knock on effect is that when they pick up the phone to complain of feeling ill, or to organise a funeral, they are going to answered by another set of people with problems of their own...

Then, outside of the medical setting, consider that when any of us go to buy some petrol, buy some bread, or buy some aspirin, it is 20 times more likely than usual that someone in the supply chain has been taken ill or been bereaved - or just feels like hiding.

These are things that we are not used to. But they do happen. Usually, we see it on the news as something happening to other people. It is either happening to people far away, or as an isolated occurrence to a small community in our own country. We all feel sorry for the victims and give to an appropriate charity.
But influenza is very politically correct. It visits every country and every town. It's coming to visit all of us.

So, what is the government not doing that it could be doing?

• We need to organise for the probability that normal medical services are going to be overwhelmed. Our General Practitioners are not getting any government advice to re-organise - even though many are now complaining that they can foresee an emergency.
• We need to have in place a system to dispense drugs that may be useful - without relying on the standard procedure of waiting for a qualified doctor to see a patient (not anti-virals, but drugs like antibiotics for the complications that follow any flu).
• We need to ensure that pharmacies have adequate supplies in advance to meet a demand that is going to be many times higher than usual
• We need to plan for the social dislocation that arises from so many being affected at the same time. Our enquiries to doctors, nurses, and funeral directors show that there has been no government guidance as to how to cope.
• There needs to be emergency planning to alleviate the effect of increased levels of illness and bereavement amongst all professions. So far, we can detect none...
  

On top of all this, consider the added disruption that comes with fatalities from flu increasing from a usual yearly average of about 50,000 to maybe as many as 750,000. Bereavement always affects people badly, but consider the added effect when it is not just the elderly but the young and able-bodied who die...
Just recently, I talked to a friend who is a school governor about the repercussions throughout a junior school when a young teacher died. (The first time she had known that in years of service as a governor.) Imagine that being repeated time and time again throughout the country...

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