Lodown:
Obviously, by the way the WHO is treating this, it is regarded as serious. Schools are closing in the US for two weeks, but that action is seemingly causing more problems than it attempts to solve. Parents have to stay home from work to look after the kids and the kids are congregating in public places regardless. I, like many, try to look for a balanced coverage of the circumstances and seek opinions of those knowledgeable on the subject for advice. It doesn't help to be a doomsayer on the subject, assuming the worst case scenario, as many in the media attempt to highlight. It yet could be an isolated development and a mild form of influenza. It doesn't help to spread panic when, for most people, they have little control over the outcome.
Firstly, the WHO is about a week behind the action according to the epidemiologists. This thing may last for up to Eighteen months and it is only just starting.
Secondly, the closing of schools was always known to be going to cause trouble. There are an infinity of scientific papers on the subject of that because it is one of a range of NPI's (Non pharmaceutical interventions) that are known to slow the spread of a pandemic should it occur. Public health professionals have been studying these matters for decades.
To put it another way, the closing of schools, restaurants, churches and the cancellation of public events is not a knee jerk reaction by scared politicians, it's a recommended course of action
called social distancingthat has been studied and debated to death for Thirty plus years. Furthermore, it won't stop the pandemic, it will merely slow it, and yes, we know about teenagers and shopping malls, you are going to need a set of handcuffs.
Thirdly, the only "balance" applicable at the moment regards the question of the Case Fatality Rate of the first, and perhaps second and third waves of the flu. We already know that the attack rate (infectiousness) is rather high, although the reliable figures will have to wait until the epidemiologists can get enough accurate data.
Fourthly. I am not a doomsayer. The papers are filled with garbage on the subject. The reality is that you have not seen anything yet. If you go to the websites mentioned (especially Flu Wiki) you will start to learn that this event has not even properly begun. The peak of the first(and hopefully only) wave will occur in about Three months from now unless this thing fizzles out, which it currently shows no intention of doing. Please go and read about it and the mathematical modelling, conducted by epidemiologists, that has been going on for at least Thirty years.
What I am strongly suggesting to you is that you apply the same discipline to understanding what is happening and, what is going to happen, as you would put into your flying. There are precautions you can take. There are preparations you should make to mitigate the effects of this on you and your family. All major companies have pandemic plans, so should you and your family.
Mickjoebill, W.H.O. have revised the pandemic levels Three times in the last Eighteen months under the Directorship of Margaret Chan. Each time she has pushed the trigger points deeper forward into a developing pandemic. Under the Two previous standards
we should have been at level 6 last week, but she revised them again only days before declaring level 4 and was pushed by events to level Five Two days later. You will probably see Level Six this weekend. Chan's reasoning for this is problematic and highly political because there are economic and political consequences of declaring pandemics and Chan is a highly political animal. There are also going to be massive geopolitical upheavels if this is severe because of what it might do to the populations of China and India.
Furthermore, the 1918-1919 Pandemic had a Case Fatality Rate around only 2.5%, it started with a fairly "mild" wave in the Northern Spring of 1918 as well. Furthemore, life at that time was a lot more rural, people were not packed into badly ventilated office buildings and shopping malls. Though we have better medicines and knowledge these days, our hospital system will be overwhelmed in a very few weeks if this goes badly. The damage and danger is not just a result of the lethality of the disease. Imagine a situation when around 20% - 30% of the population is incapacitated at once and the economic dislocation that would cause to the closely coupled global supply chains that support our society today compared to the 1918 economy.
P.S. If you want doomsaying, let me tell you that in a pandemic, Government is about preserving itself, not you.
P.P.S. And all of you can Thank Christ we live in Australia. We have one of the Four World reference centres for influenza and we have a company (CSL) that can make a vaccine that may be able to stop this thing in its tracks.
Ferchrissake, stop being up that river in Egypt - de nile - and go and do your own research about this matter.