Blogging can be exhausting. A blogger who wants to be read (not all do) has a hungry mouth, a mouth best fed daily. This one gets fed twice (once on Saturday), seven days a week, 365 days a year. The Reveres have been shoveling stuff into this ravenous maw for over three years. So we sympathize and understand the plight of the excellent flu blogger Sophia Zoe who has been missing of late. She explains where she's been in A Lesson in Real Life (hat tip Avian Flu Diary). Characteristic of her excellent blogging, she also draws a pandemic preparedness lesson from it worth pondering. Here's the essence:
I have found it difficult to impossible to understand how so many people could turn a blind eye to such a potentially catastrophic event [a pandemic with H5N1]. I found out how easily it can and does happen.Being someone who at least believes I know and understand the myriad potentials we would face during a severe pandemic I very consciously turned away from pretty much everything AI and PanFlu at the exact moment that threat levels were rising as significant new outbreaks in new geographic locations were occurring. If I could do it with an intrinsic understanding how much easier is it for someone who has a superficial, at best, grasp of the potentials? (Sophia Zoe)
It's not just individuals like Sophia Zoe who find themselves in this predicament (and predicament it is). Institutions do, too. Health departments, households, schools, businesses often have no reserve at all for anything beyond their immediate and urgent needs. Like families with no savings account because all their disposable cash goes to pay bills, bills which if not paid will result in something bad happening to someone, health departments are gasping for breath and now are facing tougher times yet. We want them to do what's needed but we aren't willing to sacrifice any of our own income via taxes.
I guess every one who doesn't want to pay more taxes must have bills of our own. So they should understand why their state and local officials haven't gotten ready yet.
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I guess every one who doesn't want to pay more taxes must have bills of our own. So they should understand why their state and local officials haven't gotten ready yet.
Yes,
It seems the bottom line has to be watched by people and entities all the way from the bottom to the top! In a perfect world science and the wisest course of action could always come first. Some people tell me that they think if we get a federal governmental change there will be steps towards that perfect world.
Dave Briggs :~)
Sophia Zoe has it right on the money! I belong to the upper-middle class, surrounded by engineers, business people, teachers etc. and they are all indifferent or even laugh at the whole pandemic scare. It is amazing to realize how so many people obviously make it through life on just pure luck since no intelligent decisions seem to govern their behavior
I understand this... I have brought this (H5N1)in various forums to bring attention to the Bird Flu and the repsonse I get is, well it hasn't happened yet and other dieases kill more such as Ebola or seasonal flu. People I have talked to aren't even aware of the horrible threat this is. I get frustrated so i don't bring up the topic anymore. We discuss it as a family and self prepare and of course hope all these opinions I have heard are right.