April 30, 2009 – Nearly three years ago, I wrote an article (see below) called Personal Finances and the Bird Flu. In addition to writing articles for ACCESS, I was also maintaining a daily blog on bird flu that I was publishing under the title of FluFactor.com. Because of this, I was asked to participate in a call with Secretary of Health and Human Services and other bloggers who were following the topic. Based on that call, I’d have to say that the government today is not being completely honest with average Americans about what they can or should expect if the new swine flu actually becomes a pandemic.
One thing that the Bush Administration did do right was increase research and development spending on flu vaccines. The result of that foresight is that vaccines for most forms of flu can now be developed in four to five months. That may sound like a lot of time, but just eight years ago it took anywhere from ten months to a year to develop a flu vaccine.
The new vaccine development timeline may be critical over the summer. That’s because most flu pandemics begin with a mild outbreak in the spring and then the disease seems to disappear over the summer. During that time, it is actually mutating to become a more effective pathogen and killer. That’s what happened in 1917. In that pandemic, more than 50 million people worldwide were killed. And troublingly, the strain of flu may have been the same as the one that is now floating around.
This means that the summer months, and a lull in the disease will be critical to developing a vaccine. And for the first time a pandemic may actually be headed off because we actually have a fighting chance of creating an effective vaccine before the disease can actually take hold.
That’s the good news. The bad news is that a full blown pandemic, if one develops, will have real economic consequences for everyone. While I was not happy with the plans of the Bush Administration to deal with a pandemic three years ago, the present administration appears to be completely over their head in dealing with this issue.
When Janet Napolitano (Secretary of Homeland Security) testified before Congress two days ago, her attitude was cavalier at best. At worst, she displayed incompetence. When asked about closing the border, she told Congress that the administration didn’t plan on restricting cross border traffic. She said, “the virus itself doesn't know when to stop at a border or not.” She went on to say of corporate America that, “ it's time to dust off their pandemic flu plans if they haven't exercised them to get them ready and really to focus on business continuity planning as we move forward.”
Not only was Napolitano’s public comment about business continuity planning stupid, it is also an indication that the government expects a very bad situation in the event of a pandemic. In the case of Bird Flu, the government expected that 40% of people would be out of work, either because they were sick, afraid to go in, or because of disruptions to the transportation system. Whether they expect this level of disruption with the current flu strain is unknown. But they wouldn’t be talking about “business continuity” unless the situation was a lot more serious than the administration is letting on.
This type of disruption could be economically devastating for the county and for individuals; more so today than three years ago because of the economic slowdown. The average person is only two paychecks from the street! And many companies are teetering on the brink of financial ruin.
The article below is probably a pretty good indicator of what you should expect if the current flu strain turns into a pandemic. Keep in mind while reading it that the bird flu is a different strain than the current outbreak but, at least in Mexico, it has had a mortality rate of 7% to 10% depending upon which numbers you believe. Even so, that is significantly lower than the 50% rate expected from a bird flu pandemic.
Personal Finances and the Bird Flu (Originally publisher on June 21, 2006)
Families and small businesses need to plan now in order to avoid an economic crisis in the event of a bird flu pandemic.
The federal government is trying to get the word out to consumers that the bird flu is probably coming but that it may not develop into a pandemic. But in a question that I posed to Secretary of Health and Human Services, Mike Leavitt this morning I was told that if a pandemic does hit the United States, the economic net that many families will hope to find will probably be limited to existing programs such as unemployment, welfare and food stamps. The message here is that families need to put together a financial disaster plan and that they won’t be able to count on the government to intervene on their behalf.
The conference call lasted about an hour and it featured HHS Secretary, Mike Leavitt, Secretary of Agriculture, Mike Johans and Dr. Rajeev Venkayya, Special Assistant to the President for Biodefense. The purpose of the call was for the government to begin an outreach program to bloggers and other internet news media, and to begin delivering information to those on the call on the state of the spread of the disease.
The first 15 minutes of the call were taken up with a synopsis of what the government knows about the current state of the bird flu. Information of specific importance included the fact that it has not arrived in the United States yet and that there are two varieties of the H5N1 virus; one that is highly pathogenic and the other that is not. The government is most concerned with the highly pathogenic variety as this is the type that is most easily spread to people.
After the initial synopsis, the call was opened up to questions. And the question that I asked was if the government would do anything to help consumers who on average are two paychecks from the street in the event that they couldn’t work or were quarantined during a pandemic outbreak?
This question led to about ten minutes of discussion on personal and business planning, in which Dr. Venkayya said that all businesses, including small businesses and families needed to put together a plan to deal with the bird flu. These plans need to deal specifically with surviving the economic consequences of a pandemic outbreak. Secretary Leavitt followed up by saying that the consumers do have some economic net in the form of food stamps and unemployment. But at present, the government does not apparently have any other plans to help consumers economically.
This issue is more than just academic. The federal government estimates that as many as 40% of workers will remain home in a pandemic, either due to illness or fear of getting sick. This means that a pandemic could cause tremendous economic damage at all levels within the economy. Since most businesses do not presently have a formal plan to remain in business during a pandemic, the economy could also suffer from staggering job losses.
In a full scale pandemic, consumers should assume that they will be faced with a variety of adverse conditions. Among these could be an inability to access cash due to quarantines or infrastructure breakdowns, a lack of general supplies such as food and medicine, and an inability to receive medical treatment due to the overwhelming number of people who will be flooding hospitals. One specific area of concern for consumers will likely be price gouging by some unscrupulous merchants.
If you don’t know where to start in your planning for such a disaster, you should figure that you may be on your own for as much as 30 days. How much cash will you need? What medicines do you or your family members take? How much food will you need to get by? Do you have pets (if so, you need to prepare for them too)?
The good news that was delivered on the call was that government thinks that the US is in a much better position to keep bird flu out of the food chain than most other countries. This is because of requirements that keep domestic poultry raised in large farming operations away from wild birds, and the fact that the government will compensate farmers for any losses. Because of this, the US should not face some of the reporting problems that other countries face.
The bad news is that Secretary Leavitt did say that he expects the H5N1 strain of bird flu to arrive in the United States although he did not speculate about when. The government is monitoring wild birds that migrate through Alaska to Asia and back as this is the most likely route for the disease to spread naturally.
Secretary Leavitt also said that it will likely be up to local governments to deal with the day to day issues involving a crisis. This means that how well individual communities will fair may be largely due to the planning that their elected officials do now.
Consumers should start asking their employers if they have prepared a bird flu plan. This could be the difference between remaining employed and looking for work.
Here are some quick facts on the bird flu:
What strain of the bird flu has scientists worried?
There are a wide variety of strains of bird flu. The type that is currently concerning the scientific community is H5N1.
Where can the bird flu be found?
Until late last year, H5N1 had only impacted a few countries in Asia. These included China, Vietnam and Indonesia. In late 2005, it began to spread rapidly to new regions and can now be found in more than 40 countries in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Europe.
How do you get the bird flu?
Most human cases of bird flu have been as a result of direct contact between people and birds. In many third world countries, it is very common for people to live with domestic poultry. This is one of the primary reasons that all human cases so far have occurred in the third world.
Until recently, scientists were saying that direct contact with infected birds was the only way to contract the disease. But a wide variety of scientists now believe that there have been a limited number of human to human transmissions of the disease and it is actually unknown how nearly one third of all victims came down with H5N1.
What are the symptoms?
H5N1 has similar symptoms to the regular flu, but is causes serious respiratory problems that often lead to death.
What is the mortality rate?
More than 50% of the people who have come down with the disease have died from it.
