Pandemics & politics

This current quasi-pandemic of swine flu is a prime example of George Santayana’s dictum that those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it.

A mere 90 years ago, the “Spanish influenza” pandemic of 1918-19 killed more than 40 million people world wide. That’s more than were killed in four years of total war across Europe.

In the US Woodrow Wilson was afraid of his administration appearing weak, so despite medical and public health professionals frantically trying to get governments to order people to stay inside, avoid assembling in public places, cancel concerts, close schools, etc.—Wilson actually encouraged the populace to “carry on as usual.”

The butcher’s bill for that policy was a death toll of more than 500,000 Americans.

The thing about the flu was that it struck the young and healthy—they dropped like flies while the elderly or youngsters carried on. It made no sense, and epidemiologists still haven’t quite got it figured out. In some respects it was like the Black Death of the 14th Century: you could wake up healthy in the morning and end the day dead.

Now while governments are taking action—in Mexico they’ve banned all public meetings, gracias a Dios—the fact of the matter is that we’re still wrong-footed. There have been outbreaks in several US states, and now Europe. We don’t have a vaccine developed for this particular strain, and supplies of treatment drugs are limited (and the pharmaceutical companies will therefore charge through the nose for them).

You can expect to find a brisk black market in bogus Tamiflu and Relenza shortly.

Apparently the news has sent the stock market into a spin. Quelle surprise.

“But, Bas Bleu,” you ask, “where’s the connection to Santayana?”

Ah, mes chers enfants—it’s that Obama had included $900M in pandemic preparedness funds in the economic stimulus bill only a couple of months ago. And the Republicans in Congress (a group notorious for denying and therefore reliving history) whacked that out with liberal (if I may use that term) amounts of outrage and umbrage.

In the context of $13.4B going to GM, which is about to enter bankruptcy, and $700B going to banks that lent themselves into bankruptcy, $900M hardly seems extravagant to, you know, save lives.

That’s not quite $2 per death from the 1918-19 pandemic here in the States.

Now, of course, even if this money had been approved back in February, there wouldn’t have been enough accomplished in two months to make a real difference.

But just keep that in mind when you start fighting the symptoms, can’t get an appointment with your doctor and it turns out the “antidote” you bought from a friend of a friend is saline solution. There could have been plans and budget in place for dealing with similar eventualities; but there aren't.

People still marvel that anyone could get upset over “just the flu”. They equate it to a sore throat and the sniffles. Check the comments to any announcement of cancellation of a sports event—you’ll find plenty of “what the hell—you cancelled that for the flu?” statements.

Forty million deaths just 90 years ago; and hundreds of thousands of them every year since. It's real, it's deadly, and (thanks to the GOP) we don't have a plan.