Shot in the arm
This year’s flu crisis should wake us up to the dangers of a real epidemic hitting the US
WE’RE suffering through one of the worst flu outbreaks in years. According to the CDC, hospitalizations for the sickness are as high as they’ve been since 2009 and, so far, at least 63 children have died.
It’s enough to make you feel suspicious of anyone who’s coughing on the subway.
But what we’re experiencing now is only a shadow of what we’ve endured in the past. In 1918, the Spanish Flu killed an estimated 675,000 Americans. Horsedrawn carts full of corpses rolled through Philadelphia streets, as drivers called on people to “bring out your dead.” In Kentucky, the Red Cross reported that people were starving to death, not because food was unavailable but because they were terrified to venture outside near the infected.
If we’re not vigilant, it could happen again in the not so distant future. In West Africa where 11,000 died of the Ebola virus in 2014, we’ve already seen how rapidly a modern plague can spread.
Jonathan D. Quick, MD, and Bronwyn Fryer delve into this frightening future in their book, “The End of Epidemics” (St. Martin’s Press), describing what might happen if a similar plague were to break out in the US. “Business and industry grind to a halt,” the authors speculate.
“Up to $3 trillion . . . evaporates as fear of infection stifles travel, tourism, trade, financial institutions, employment and entire supply chains. Children stop attending school. Neighbors scapegoat neighbors. Millions of unemployed poor resort to theft and violence in an effort to stay alive. People starve.”
As we live in an increasingly interconnected world, the idea that a plague will reach our shores seems like less of a hypothesis and more of an inevitability.
Fortunately, Quick and Fryer also share thoughts on what we can do to lessen the likelihood, or at least the impact, of such an outbreak. They suggest a “power of seven” plan to defeat epidemics. That requires help from various people in many fields, namely:
1) Leadership — Presidents, prime ministers and other global leaders must work to defend public health and stay abreast of scientific developments (even when it’s politically inconvenient to do so.) If they attempt to ignore a disease’s spread, the disease often only spreads further.
2) Creating resilient systems — Quick and Fryer note that “National governments, the private sector, communities and faith-based organizations have been enormously successful when they work in concert to fight disease.”
3) Prevention and early detection — Self-care habits like receiving vaccinations and taking adequate precautions in places rife with infection are important.
4) Fighting fake news — Rumors spread even faster than disease in times of crisis. Professional communication teams are needed to make sure the media is getting facts communities can trust and rely on, even if those facts may be frightening.
5) Support scientists — We need to fund scientists who are working towards creating new vaccines, developing new tests for early detection and otherwise working to stop epidemics before they start.
6) Start investing now — By investing approximately a dollar for each person on earth (around $7.5 billion) in prevention and response measures, we can substantially reduce the risk of an epidemic spreading.
7) Be an advocate — Concerned citizens are necessary to let leaders know they will be held accountable to the people they serve.
Sadly, epidemic prevention doesn’t currently seem to be a priority for the US government. In February, the CDC announced they would need to cut their global disease-prevention efforts by 80 percent due to lack of funding. However, there is also reason to hope. TThe US was also “one of ththe first countries to use ththe 2016 WHOJoint External Evaluation tool to assess its own capacity to pprevent, detect and rapididly respond to public hhealth threats,” Quick and FFryer write.
“It scored well on nearly all 48 indicators, as might be expected frfrom its resources and ininternationally recognnized expertise.” Being scared of an outbreak is useless. Being prepared, and asking our leaders to be prepared, is not. After all, no one wants corpse carts rolling through the streets again.
And in the meantime, if you haven’t gotten a flu shot yet — get one. At the very least it will make subway rides less harrowing.