I'm getting more than a little concerned with the President's use of military force against civilians in non-wartime conditions.

Somebody (elsewhere online) made a crack that "Katrina was the equivalent to the Spanish Civil War for domestic totalitarianism".

I'm beginning to wonder if they weren't right.

Since when does a really bad cold necessitate martial law?

After all, I don't see Mr. President enforcing such measurse against far more dangerous communicable diseases, such as AIDS.

For me, the scenario is not as black-and-white as you describe. I don't like the idea of the feds -- military or not -- being the "first responders," but woe unto those souls who reside within the boundaries of a state like Louisiana.

Equating a highly communicable disease capable of killing millions with a bad cold is on the other end of the spectrum from those Howard Hughes lookalikes who are instituting an immediate personal quarantine from all human contact until this thing blows over...never mind that it might not blow at all. Neither position can be logically supported. The comparison to AIDS doesn't stand up either. I'm not sure where you're heading with those analogies.

In any event, the experts in the medical community are skeptical that quarantines will work in the event of an outbreak large enough to warrant them.

Maybe I'm over-reacting...

I hope the government doesn't, though.

Maybe this would be a good time to re-read King's "The Stand". ;-)

Gentlemen, This is really serious. We have to date never seen this potential true decimation (1 in 10) threatening our population.

50% of everyone who gets this flu DIES.

Spanish Flu of 1918 mortality was less than 15%.

I hate the idea of forced quarenteen. But weigh that against 20 million people dead in America. Or half a billion world wide.

I wish I knew how to link you to the site that keeps this information up to date.

This is life and death.

I'm thankful at least Bush is paying attention finally.

Gene, thanks for the additional information and insights. Here's the link to the site you mention:

influenzapandemic.blogspot.com

This is certainly an issue that bears close monitoring...for a number of reasons.

I had an elder in my church here in Lawton, OK, who is now with the Lord. He was 11-12 years of age during that pandemic in 1918-19. It hit pretty hard here. The bug was fast-acting; you'd be in class one day with your classmate, and the next day he wouldn't be at class because he had sickened and died of drowning in his own fluids in the meantime. It seemed that there'd be a funeral wreath on every third house or so, where someone had died from the flu or complications from it. It wasn't uncommon for several family members dying within days of each other. Parents would sometime be buried with a child in the same coffin.

This elder later became a physician. I asked him how it would affect things if it were to hit today. He said the mortality rate would be down to about 10-15% (instead of 50%). This is due to more advanced respitory care and anti-biotics to handle secondary infections. Still, 10-15% mortality is nothing to sneeze at.

Another of my congregation members, also now with the Lord, was awaiting shipment from an Army camp in Texas to France. Their regiment was held in quarantine in the camp to avoid their being contaminated. He missed out seeing action in France because of the flu.

John, thanks for sharing those historical perspectives. I had wondered if the difference in the overall health of the population now vs. then might make a difference in the mortality rate. OTOH, we've got a much larger population of elderly folks in the country today, and they're more susceptible and vulnerable; I wonder if that factor might nudge the rate back up again?

One factor today that would help facilitate the spread of the flu -- we are a much more mobile society than that of 1918-19. But with that mobility comes higher infection rates from lesser flu strains, and increased resistance in our systems due to continual exposure. The folks in the Spanish Influenza pandemic didn't have as high a resistance factor due to a greater degree of "isolation."

As to old-folks today; Keep in mind most older folks back then weren't warehoused in "old-people's prisons" (aka "nursing" homes). I shudder to think of what it would do today in one of those places.

John, those are good points. This would make a very interesting case study in probabilities...if it wasn't so scarily relevant!

Eric -- you may have heard of this, but a "virtual plague" broke out in the online "World of Warcraft" community -- it seems a bug in the programming caused the plague, entirely unintentionally, according to the company that oversees it. They are open to working with sociologists to study players' reactions / actions in the light of the plague that broke out. Interesting studies in human behavior, to be sure. http://blog.ryaneby.com/archives/virtual-disease-dynamics-world-of-warcraft-plague/

I wasn't aware of the WoW "plague" (I'm definitely not a gamer!) but it sounds like an interesting way to observe and model the effect and spread of a disease. I wonder if the CDC has a similar "wargame" model?

I posted something this morning about the number of virus-y posts and stories yesterday, including the WoW plague and how people are looking for insights into human behavior during non-virtual epidemics based on what happened in the game world.

Seems there's definitely a fascination there since all three of the stories on virus's that NPR ran yesterday are currently in their top 5 emailed stories.

Our country is considering closing our borders if the pandemic flu becomes a concern. They are also considering quarantine. Fortunately we are a self sufficient nation with not a large amount of people!

You might be interested in this story:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3435491a11,00.html

Rachel, I especially like the headline for that article (emphasis mine):

"Health Ministry officials are planning for the possibility of completely or partly closing New Zealand's borders when the looming global influenza epidemic breaks out."

Considering that most of the health and scientific community view the risk of a global epidemic as being extremely low, headlines like this serve only to upset people. I guess that anything worth reacting to is worth overreacting to. ;-)

Doesn't sell newspapers otherwise does it? LOL

Oooh, I'd better not respond to that. I've already upset the local newspaper guys once this week. ;-)

%%% EXPERIMENTAL%%% URGENT: HIS EXCELENCY, PRES. GEORGE W. BUSH, US SURGEON GENERAL, UNITED NATIONS

One effective yet very cheap way to avoid a flu epidemic is to quarantine the noses and mouths of each and every person with a burka.

Air coming in and air going out will all be filtered. The burkha can be washed, boiled or mirowaved with water until steamy hot. Then it can be reused again!!!

Eric, Kindly E- Mail this to the PRESIDENT AND THE US SURGEON GENERAL AND THE UNITED NATIONS AND THOSE OTHER BLOGS BECAUSE WINTER AND THOSE QUARANTINE THREATS ARE FAST APPROACHING.
the-eurasian@earthlink.net

Odd.

I posted on this topic yesterday, couched in a brief discussion on a book about the 1918 pandemic.

Never let it be said that we can't overreact with the best of 'em!

I read your post after I put mine up, and then I saw similar things everywhere I turned. You couldn't swing a dead cat today without hitting a story about it on CNN or Fox.