Effect measure has another good swine flu entry
one thing I haven't seen laid out explicitly is why the school closures etc?
I mean, this is a new variant flu and we are all going to get it.
Statistically that means a few percent of us will have mystery immunity and maybe 1/3-2/3 of the population will get it in the first full blown wave.
Well, there are three reasons to take proactive precautions against contagion, despite the inevitable:
one is that the current wave might fizzle, possibly just because the weather is getting warmer in the northern hemisphere; that still leaves the likelihood of a second wave next winter, possibly worse, but that if for later;
secondly, it is intrinsically bad to have everyone be sick at the same time.
even if you can't damp the contagion out completely, slowing the spread reduces the economic and psychological damage and makes it easier for medical personnel and hospitals to cope.
Too many seriously sick people at the same time decreases care and increases fatalities.
thirdly, if the contagion can be slowed, even if only till next winter, then there is the possibility of a vaccine.
We know how to make flu vaccines, and the classical production method takes six+ months. Developing the new vaccine and putting it into production will help.
It might even avert the next wave completely, or attenuate it through strategic vaccination of high risk populations, emergency personnel etc.
If the flu turns out to be virulent, now or in the next wave, then extra time also allows for deployment of new techniques for vaccine production - these have been slow to be put to use because of capital cost and liability concerns, but if there is a 1918 level pandemic or worse, then I suspect many countries will ignore such concerns and employ all new methods for rapid vaccine production that are at some R&D stage close enough for production to take place.
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