For reasons other than this blog (I actually have a real life) I was reading a 1965 text by Leavell and Clark, Preventive Medicine for the doctor in his community: an epidemiologic approach, and found this on pp. 67-68 regarding tasks in a disease outbreak:
"Further spread must be prevented; the sick must be cared for, hospitalization must be provided, if necessary; the population must be told how to protect itself; inoculations may be required; and particular attention to the safeguarding of water, milk, and food supplies may be essential."
Concise and to the point. I wonder how much further we've come.
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Planning was tremendously streamlined over the last few years:
"when in trouble or in doubt,
run in circles, scream and shout"
...don't forget, wave papers furiously overhead while running in circles.......
To play the devil's advocate, this outline of pandemic planning pays no attention to
-Social justice and planning for underserved and minority populations
-The protection of public health infrastructure and maintaining public trust in public health operations
-The protection of vital supply lines throughout the world including coal and petroleum, not to mention important supplies such as pharmaceuticals and ink
...just to name a few.
Physicians are only one of many groups of experts that need to consider pandemic planning if it is going to be at all effective in mitigating the coming global catastrophe. That fact doesn't seem to be reflected here.
SrrAB: Good points, all. But it is starting to get a lot more complicated and hard to communicate, not to mention implement. I think the civil infrastructure part is implied. You are correct it is silent on social justice. As are many things.
"The Era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and bafflilng expedients, of delays, is coming to it's close. In it's place we are entering a period of consequences."
Winston Churchill (1936)