- Hello Jeff - I have news for the pentagon... Even if
the pandemic were to originate in Asia, border crossing shut-downs, quarantines,
etc. would NOT stop the pandemic.
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- It is one thing to work out pandemic plans on paper or
even to hold a simulation but the actual event is quite another issue.
It is usual for a couple of weeks, or more, to go by, even more, before
anyone realizes that there is a novel disease circulating, much less term
it pandemic.
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- It was probably late February or early March when the
first victim got Swine Flu. The Hernandez boy was probably not the very
first victim, he was the first IDENTIFIED victim.
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- Whilst the first victim is ill and the disease begins
circulating, visitors to the index pandemic country are unaware of anyone
ill in the country. They go about their sightseeing and enjoy their vacations
and then head home. Often taking the disease with them while they are still
asymptomatic. The disease may still not even be noticed in the index country.
Then, one day, people begin turning up ill. Meanwhile, more and more people
come and go, to and from the index country from around the world.
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- Eventually, the hospitals begin to notice clusters of
cases and put out an alert to their respective health departments who notify
the national agency involved. Whilst these agencies all decide on what
is happening and samples from the patients get sent to the national lab,
people from abroad still come and go.
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- Finally, the US CDC gets a call about a novel pathogen
here...and then hospitals in the US notice illness in international travelers.
If we are really unlucky, the outbreak begins at a time like Spring break
when thousands of college students travel abroad. And the rest, as they
say, is history.
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- It would not have mattered if the Swine Flu A-H1N1 had
begun in Asia, the results would still be the same. I suspect that any
novel pathogen outbreak would not and will not be identified by the CDC
in a timely fashion, i.e. in time to stop any outbreak in the US.
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- As is the case in many novel outbreaks, some patients
are asymptomatic or some have only mild symptoms which means a delay in
notification as these folks don't go to a doctor.
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- As for the military, in the case of a 1918 type bug,
we could see many troops take ill (living in close quarters in barracks).
Many who are ill and others who fear getting ill will go AWOL, still others
will leave to be with their families. It will be very difficult to depend
upon the military in a really bad pandemic. Police also will find some
among their ranks who simply leave and go home to their families.
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- The best hope would be to have a quick identification
of a possible pandemic bug...and that would take major inter-country cooperation
among agencies and international cooperation...oh, and one important thing,
LUCK.
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- Patty
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- http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jN8GvBVLVABijW7-1V8NIW5nSx_wD989QTF82
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- Swine flu outbreak reveals military plans, gaps
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- By LOLITA C. BALDOR 11 hours ago
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- WASHINGTON (AP) - The rapid spread of swine flu from
Mexico surprised Pentagon officials, who had been focused on a possible
Asian-borne pandemic in a response plan that would give the military a
last-resort role in helping to impose quarantines and border restrictions.
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- Drafted and overhauled several times in recent years,
the military's closely guarded plan for an influenza pandemic assumed that
officials would have more time before the flu hit U.S. shores. The Associated
Press obtained briefing documents about the military's pandemic contingency
plan.
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- The H1N1 flu outbreak set U.S. military commanders scrambling
to monitor and protect troops based near the 2,000-mile southern border
and on ships nearby.
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- The virus spread quickly across the border into Southern
California, infecting at least 27 sailors on a ship docked at San Diego,
four Marines at Camp Pendleton and at least one Marine at Twentynine Palms.
Several dozen Marines have been quarantined, and nearly two dozen other
sailors had flu symptoms but have so far not been confirmed as having the
H1N1 virus.
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- "We anticipated scientifically that we would have
time to do different things," said Amy Kircher, an epidemiologist
with U.S. Northern Command's surgeon general's office. Northern Command
oversees the country's homeland defense, including coordination with Canada
and Mexico.
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- While there are only a limited number of airports and
seaports that could provide U.S. entry for the virus from overseas, the
military was faced with an almost limitless number of cars, trucks and
pedestrians traveling across the easily accessible, expansive border with
Mexico.
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- In an interview with the AP, Kircher and several senior
military officers from U.S. Northern Command said that since the swine
flu has been far less lethal than anticipated, it has allowed the military
to stop far short of the worst-case scenarios that the Pentagon prepared
for in its long-range planning.
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- But in the event of a widespread pandemic, the Pentagon
maintains standing plans to use the active-duty military as a last-resort
force to help law enforcement manage quarantines, limit state-to-state
travel and restrict access to government buildings.
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- Those plans represent "the kinds of things that
the lead federal agencies might ask us to do or that we might have to do
on behalf of the Department of Defense for force protection," said
Air Force Brig. Gen. Tony Rock, who until recently was deputy director
for operations at Northern Command.
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- Officials would turn to the military for those domestic
duties, Rock said, only when other authorities become overburdened and
request assistance.
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- The requests must then be evaluated and approved by top
officials, such as the defense secretary or the president.
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- "Some of these are in extremis, and certainly wouldn't
be the first tasks we would do," said Army Col. Curt Torrence, a key
military planner for Northern Command. He added that they would be carried
out only under catastrophic circumstances and in accordance with federal
laws.
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- Northern Command briefing documents obtained by The Associated
Press include explicit assumptions that intelligence oversight laws and
the Posse Comitatus Act would remain in effect.
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- Under that Civil War-era act, federal troops are prohibited
from performing domestic law enforcement actions such as making arrests,
seizing property or searching people.
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- In extreme cases, however, the president can invoke the
Insurrection Act, also from the Civil War, which allows the use of active-duty
or National Guard troops for law enforcement.
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- Under the military's pandemic plan, the key goals are
to defend the country, maintain the force and provide whatever support
is needed to protect the national infrastructure and ensure that the government
continues to function.
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- Rock, who recently was named commandant of the Air Command
and Staff College at Maxwell Air Force Base, said states generally would
turn first to police, border control officers and the National Guard under
the governors' command. Those public safety officials would be the first
line of defense to stem the spread of the virus through travel restrictions
at the borders and along state lines or outbreak areas.
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- The military, however, would be prepared to aid in establishing
"mass casualty" treatment sites, provide shelter for displaced
persons, dispose of dead bodies and help provide postal, power, water and
sewer services and food deliveries. Troops also could provide logistics,
communications and other support for law enforcement and the National Guard.
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- The Defense Department and Northern Command have refused
to publicly release the details of their operations plan for pandemic influenza.
Labeled "for official use only," the plan lays out the active-duty
military's six-phase response to an influenza outbreak.
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- In interviews, Pentagon officials repeatedly expressed
concerns about alarming the public, stressing that the plan would only
unfold in a crisis situation and under orders from the president.
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- The plan also includes measures by the Pentagon to protect
its own, with the understanding that if the nation's armed services fall
to the flu, it would be difficult to provide aid to those within the U.S.
and defend the country in the event of a concurrent terrorist attack or
other disaster.
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- Steps would be taken to immunize soldiers, their families,
retirees and civilian workers who support the military's mission. And,
if needed, access in and out of military installations would be restricted.
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- The military is more vulnerable than most to the spread
of disease, because of its very nature. Troops live together, eat together
in mess halls, sleep together in barracks and bunk together by the thousands
aboard ships.
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- As a result, said John Pike of GlobalSecurity.org, "The
military has a long and glorious association with pandemics."
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- Associated Press writer Pauline Jelinek contributed to
this report.
- On the Net:
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- Patricia A. Doyle DVM, PhD Bus Admin, Tropical Agricultural
Economics Univ of West Indies Please visit my "Emerging Diseases"
message board at: http://www.emergingdisease.org/phpbb/index.php Also my
new website: http://drpdoyle.tripod.com/ Zhan le Devlesa tai sastimasa
Go with God and in Good Health
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