The next pandemic flu is an inevitability. The 1918 flu killed more people than WWI. Today we talk about steps you can take to protect yourself and family.

Thanks for joining me for this bonus podcast.  As we talked in the flu

podcast, a global flu pandemic is pretty much inevitable.  Proper preparation is the vaccination for

fear, and today we will discuss what you can do.

Today’s episode is:

Pandemic influenza: 

You can’t fight the flu with kung fu

As we talked previously, if the next flu pandemic is like

the 1918 Spanish Flu, the worldwide death toll could approach 1 million.  This is despite all the medical advances that

have been made since 1918.

Were we prepared for the 2009 flu?

The problem with the flu is that it is a constantly morphing

threat.  An evaluation of the 2007

pandemic flu strategy is a good illustration. 

When this plan was made, the assumption was that the next pandemic would

be a highly pathogenic avian strain in the H5N1 family.  To this end, vaccine for this family was

strategically stockpiled for rapid response.

Another assumption was that the virus would emerge overseas,

lengthening the available response time.

When the next pandemic strain emerged in 2009, it was from

the H1N1 family, a swine-origin virus rather than avian.  Instead of emerging overseas, the strain

emerged in Mexico and rapidly spread to California.

Fortunately, the strain proved to have a fairly low

lethality and so the consequences of being wrong were not catastrophic.  Once the strain was recognized in April

production of a vaccine was immediately started.  However, the vaccine wasn’t completed until

October-6 months later.  It wasn’t until

December that enough vaccine could be produced to protect the general

public.  That’s 8 months to produce

enough vaccine to protect the public once the strain is identified. 

Can't we just make a vaccine for pandemic flu?

These vaccines will be central in slowing a pandemic, but

remember that the efficacy of most vaccines is only ~40% and the protection

begins to wane rapidly.  Unless we get

very lucky or better at predicting future strains, our most effective medical

intervention will be unavailable for at least half a year. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/66/rr/rr6601a1.htm

If the strain follows the 1918 model, where the first wave

of the pandemic isn’t particularly lethal, this delay before the more deadly

waves may be the advantage we need to get ahead of the virus.  There is no telling whether the next pandemic

will follow this model.

I wouldn't feel comfortable waiting 6 months before I took

action to protect myself.  There are

things we can do besides medical treatment. 

The CDC calls these actions Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions.

Communities fight the pandemic

These include both community-based and personal protective

measures.  Community-based interventions

could include cancellation of schools, cessation of public gatherings and

working from home or not at all.

These measures would not be without difficulties.  As we are seeing in the coronavirus outbreak,