Report: States, cities shouldn't count on federal rescue if bird flu hits

[lovuian]

http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/redir.php?jid=30de48b58b2c7f46&cat=a1e025da3c02ca7c

WASHINGTON (AP) — A medical reality is complicating federal preparations for the next pandemic: Flu spreads in ways that make it extremely unlikely the U.S. could avoid being hit.
Even shutting U.S. borders against outbreaks abroad offers little reassurance, because people can spread flu a full day before they show symptoms. With 1.1 million people legally entering the country every day, that means a super-strain would probably be incubating here by the time it was diagnosed abroad.

The government's latest national response plan, obtained by The Associated Press, acknowledges the difficulty as it warns that states, cities and businesses shouldn't count on a federal rescue if a super-strain of influenza strikes — and that people may have to rely on creative if not scientifically proven ideas such as staying 3 feet away from co-workers and not shaking anyone's possibly contaminated hand.

snip...
Other nations have been implementing their plans for years, but we're reading ours for the first time now. These needless delays have put Americans at risk," Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., said.
more...
Staying 3 feet away from coworkers and don't shake their hand... Ya gotta be kidding me!!!

[hatrack]

1. Nor should they count on federal help if a hurricane hits, or a tornado .

Or an earthquake or a forest fire, or a dyspeptic grizzly bear or a swarm of killer bees, for that matter.

For any of you who haven't been paying attention since 29 August, 2005 - we're on our own. This is just a touch more confirmation - as if it were necessary.

[AlienGirl]

7. Ownership Society=You're On Your OWN

[oscar111]

19. Needed: a federal government we CAN count on

many things can only be done by a federal government with massive resources and the top talent it can get.

We should not let these republicans off the hook just because they want to get off the hook.

That's broad daylight irresponsibility.

[DearAbby]

2. So where is the billions going to for Bird Flu Preparedness?

Into some Monster Vacuum?

Yeah Katrina has shown the country we are on our own in any disaster.

[Fridays Child]

6. Rumsfeld got the Tamiflu profits. As for the rest...

...probably to tweaking the virus so it will decimate certain ethnicities and to a vaccine that only works on whites.

In the infamous PNAC document "Rebuilding America's Defenses," which coined the phrase "a new Pearl Harbor," the authors referred to bioweaponry that could target individual genotypes.

[Zynx]

3. Bird flew? Where did it fly?

That's about how seriously I take this.

[uppityperson]

4. Well, think of this applied to earthquake, tornados, floods, fires, etc

In a disaster, we will be on our own.

[Zynx]

12. Dealing with earthquakes, floods, fires, tonados, etc is much easier

than containing a flu pandemic. You know when they have hit and then they are over and it is a matter of going there and cleaning up the mess and helping people out. With flu, particularly easily spread flu, it is impossible to stop it with anything short of totally fascist measures.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

5. Good luck to you.

[Zynx]

11. The bird flu issue is nothing but doomsday talk nonsense.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

13. Right. That's what they thought at the beginning of the 1918 Pandemic...

...and some doctors still managed to screw up the diagnosis for the first few months.

Hey, if denying the possibility of a modern-day pandemic floats your boat, by all means, have at it.

[Zynx]

15. Given the way that it would spread in modern society there is little

hope of containing it anyway. You would have to basically shut down our economy to do that.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

20. Now, that I definitely agree with.

[w4rma]

8. Not with these jerks in charge. (nt)

[Robbie Michaels]

9. Where's This Government's Priorities?

They have no problem passing legislation to break up illegal immigrant families, but they won't do anything about bird flu if there's an outbreak?

What's more dangerous to our country? An immigrant or a deadly virus?

[undergroundpanther]

10. I think

Remember The US has biological weapons.
It has used them before(think indians and smallpox laced blankets)
Some people have no ethics or respect for human life if they think they are divinely appointed rulers.
http://forum.fearbush.com/index.php?s=c38a2f2fa322390758064b8398098913&showtopic=11827&pid=175182&st=0&#entry175182

The conservatives are sick son of a bitches.They'll do anything to preserve thier own hegemony and power.
http://www.worldwatch.org/pubs/mag/2004/175/
http://www.geocities.com/tetrahedronomega/pianka-mims.html
Better for these elitist psychopaths to let millions of americans die and the rest get panicked into submission and debt slavery.

They are not going to do jack shit about bird flu.After people die in droves they'll send in blackwater just to plunder and kill the stragglers and these pigs will clean up bodies to sell for "parts". Just like Katrina.It is basically genocide by"natural disaster". Can't blame the weather on Nazis
http://www.unknownnews.org/050909a-up.html

no more than you can blame them for the flu..Riiiight?
Howcome so many microbiologists are dead than?http://freepress2005.blogspot.com/2005/01/author-theorizes-40-microbiologists.html
Why was the Spanish flu from 1819 massive outbreak before
exhumed?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3455873.stm
Coinkidink?
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2005/10/327041.shtml
http://www.inforos.com/?id=7869


These so called "leaders" do not want us to have a free country or a properous one.. They want to stay on top. Because inaleiable human rights,free speech,an educated populace and social equality is thier biggest fear.
http://www.unknownnews.org/060502a-Panther.html

[Media_Lies_Daily]

14. The problem with your theory is that the Avian Flu variant....

...currently making the global rounds is not infectious human-to-human. Humans are currently getting Avian Flu from contact with live chickens, and/or eating uncooked/poorly cooked chicken meat

Why would the NeoCons release a bio-weapon that doesn't work? Does that make any sense?

[oscar111]

16. SEAL THE BORDERS.. not one entry at all.. that will work

see my longer post for details, Health forum today


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=222x7641#top

As to foreigners with no symptoms entering, as mentioned in the OP, ... if we end ALL entry into the US, then even those foreigners with no symptoms will be UNable to enter.

Thus, all americans will be safe. No one here needs to get sick with this plague.

[meisje]

17. Who's going to tell the birds to stay away?

[oscar111]

18. birds dont spread the dangerous form of bflu. Only humans do that

At least, that is the big risk they tell us... human to human mutated form of the b flu.

bird to human is so rare, it is no problem in itself. Only a mutated form later on , HTH, is the pandemic risk.

So let the migrating birds fly, but keep foreigners out at all costs.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

21. Given that humans are infectious before they begin to show symptoms....

...when would you decide to close the borders? How do you determine who is infected when they may not show any symptoms? We are a just a plane flight or ship docking away from someone arriving in the U. S. carrying the H2H variant of Avian Flu. Heck, an infected person could come across the Canadian or Mexican borders and we would never know it.

Then again, researchers of the 1918 Pandemic currently believe that the Pandemic actually started in Kansas and spread outwards.

[Bridget Burke]

22. What if the human to human mutation begins in the US?

We can't close the borders to birds. Of course, they carry Avian flu that only infects other birds--or humans in close contact with them.

If the human-to-human mutation starts in the USA, the world can just keep us isolated.

[oscar111]

26. dark humor for sure. Well, if it starts here, then we do bush's plan

of quarantining parts of many cities.

but experts expect the HTH to emerge in other places, places with more birt to human cases.

logical, i think.

[Zynx]

23. You have to balance risks in a situation like this.

Granted, Bird Flu becoming an easily trasmitted human to human virus would be disasterous, but odds are low and the impact is likely overstated by quite a lot. Shutting off the country for years and years while the virus rampages around the world, if it does, will destroy our economy.

[Minnesota Libra]

24. Since when could we depend of the feds - except under Clinton - to .......

.....come riding in with the calvary anyway???:shrug: This will be no different.:grr:

There are still plenty of reports/pictures the prelude to Katrina as well as the aftermath of Katrina to prove what the feds are capable of in a real emergency.:banghead: So give it up people, if the bird flu hits you're on your own:hide: although I do think this bird flu is way over hyped.:eyes:

[stepnw1f]

25. Why Do We Pay Federal Taxes AGain?

Oh... right... to bail out big corporations everytime they claim bankruptcy and of course give the uber-rich a mighty tax break(borrowed money).