LAURAN NEERGAARD - The Associated Press | Posted: Wednesday, May 3, 2006 11:00 pm
WASHINGTON -- A flu pandemic would cause massive disruptions lasting for months, and cities, states and businesses must make plans now to keep functioning -- and not count on a federal rescue, the Bush administration said Wednesday.
"Our nation will face this global threat united in purpose and united in action in order to best protect our families, our communities, our nation and our world from the threat of pandemic influenza," President Bush said in a letter to Americans noting the release of an updated national pandemic response strategy.
Much of that plan is telling everybody to be prepared.
"A lot of the federal and the state plan is based on the fact of a local response," said Lance Madigan, spokesman for the Utah County Department of Health, adding the federal government couldn't come to the aid of the entire country. "The whole idea is the fact that a pandemic means that everybody is going to be dealing with it."
The problem cities and counties are running into is the number of unknowns. State and local health officials can't predict exactly how hard an area would be hit or what the exact effects would be.
"There's a lot of different scenarios and issues, and we're trying to plan for those and deal with those as they come," Madigan said.
Bush last fall proposed a $7.1 billion plan to prepare for the next worldwide outbreak of a super-strain of influenza. Wednesday's report updates that plan, an incremental step that basically outlines exactly which government agency is responsible for some 300 tasks, many already under way.
Even the most draconian steps, such as shutting down U.S. borders against outbreaks abroad, would almost certainly fail to keep a flu pandemic from spreading here, the report acknowledges -- and thus it outlines more limited travel restrictions that would be used instead.
Influenza pandemics strike every few decades when a never-before-seen strain arises. It's impossible to predict when the next will occur, although concern is rising that the Asian bird flu, called the H5N1 strain, might lead to one if it starts spreading easily from person to person.
"I should make clear from the outset that we do not know if the bird virus we are seeing overseas will ever become ... a pandemic," said Frances Townsend, Bush's White House homeland security adviser.
But if that happens, "we will take immediate action to prevent or to slow the spread of the infection," she added.
If a human outbreak of any super-flu strain occurs abroad, the United States will work with international health officials to try to contain it in the country of origin.
But if it escapes and begins a worldwide spread, the report makes clear that the main goal will be to slow that spread, giving time for the nation to brew protective vaccine, dispense stockpiles of critical medical supplies -- and limit the almost inevitable economic and social chaos.
In a severe pandemic, up to 40 percent of the work force could be off the job for two weeks, the report estimates. Because 85 percent of the systems that are vital to society -- food production, medicine and financial services -- are privately run, the administration aimed to use the new report to energize businesses in particular to start planning how they will keep running under those conditions.
"No less important will be the actions of individual citizens, whose participation is necessary to the success of these efforts," Bush added.
A flu pandemic would roll through the country, likely causing six to eight weeks of active infection per community.
"Local communities will have to address the medical and nonmedical impacts of the pandemic with available resources," the report warns, because the federal government won't be able to offer the kind of aid expected after hurricanes or other one-time, one-location natural disasters.
The report assumes a worst-case scenario of up to 2 million U.S. deaths. But Townsend sought to downplay the perception that chaos will consume the nation.
"The whole purpose of planning ... is to take the fear out of it, so there's no chaos," she said.
Within a year, federal health officials should approve states' individual pandemic plans, it says.
For businesses, the report encourages setting clear, non-punitive sick-leave policies to limit the possibly infected from staying at work, and using alternate offices, work-at-home and "snow days" to minimize employee contact. Also, it advises regularly cleaning offices -- flu can live on hard surfaces for 48 hours -- as well as not shaking hands and keeping co-workers at least 3 feet apart.
Daily Herald reporter Heidi Toth and Associated Press Writer Nedra Pickler contributed to this report.
On the Net:
Heath and Human Services Department site on pandemic flu: www.pandemicflu.gov
Utah County Health Department: www.co.utah.ut.us/Dept/Health/.
This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page A1.