Fristy & The Birds

Still don't think that Captain Chirps (avian bird flu) is a big deal? In today's Washington Times, Senate Majority Leader (haha) Bill Frist sounds the alarm:

[T]he avian flu may not remain trivial for long. The virus — known as H5N1 — changes very quickly. Humans have no natural immunity to it. And infected birds may be able to transit it before they show symptoms. Any virus with these characteristics could devastate the human population while causing massive economic and social chaos....

Given the world has nearly four times more people and far more efficient means of travel [then during the 1918-19 Spanish flu outbreak], another pandemic could spread more quickly and kill more people than before. If it were to become transmissible between humans, avian flu might kill 160 million to 200 million people.

Given our inadequate preparation, indeed, many deaths could happen in the United States. The effects, needless to say, could be catastrophic: massive declines in GDP, limitations on travel and enormous loss of life....

Right now, our national stockpiles of anti-viral drugs sit at dangerously low levels — about 2% of what we would need in a serious outbreak — and no existing vaccine can provide perfect protection against the avian flu virus. Vaccine and drug production in the United States, furthermore, couldn't make up this difference quickly enough were a serious outbreak to occur. While HHS has drafted a Pandemic Influenza Response and Preparedness Plan, it remains incomplete....

The United States needs to act immediately: We should stockpile enough anti-viral drugs to treat at least half of the U.S. population while simultaneously improving our ability to defend against an outbreak at home or abroad.

Again, if you want to get some idea of what a pandemic of this magnitude might look like, read the first half of Stephen King's 1978 novel The Stand. I think we should all be able to agree that that, or anything remotely in the same ballpark, is a fate that we should do everything possible to avert.