Existing govt. plans for swine flu pandemics, OR, “The Pig Has Flown. Repeat: THE PIG HAS FLOWN”

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Existing govt. plans for swine flu pandemics, OR, “The Pig Has Flown. Repeat: THE PIG HAS FLOWN”

Tuesday, April 28th, 2009 | News |

Los Alamos Natl. Lab simulation of flu outbreak:

Simulation of a pandemic flu outbreak in the continental United States, initially introduced by the arrival of 10 infected individuals in Los Angeles. The spatiotemporal dynamics of the prevalence (number of symptomatic cases at any point in time), is shown on a logarithmic color scale, from 1 or fewer (blue) to 100 or more (red) cases per 1,000 persons. Without vaccination, antiviral drugs, or other mitigation strategies, the entire nation becomes infected within a few months. Depending on the reproductive number R0, effective intervention strategies including vaccination and targeted antiviral prophylaxis can be successful without resorting to economically damaging measures like school closure, quarantine, and work or travel restrictions. This large-scale agent-based simulation involves 280 million people, and uses demographic and worker flow data at the Census tract level, as well as long-range travel statistics, to describe the geographic movement of people. In this simulation, long-range travel is assumed to occur at a lower-than-normal rate (10 percent) due to travel advisories, but with no other mitigation strategies the pandemic quickly spreads nationwide, peaking about 90 days after the initial introduction.

There’s a QuickTime video at that link simulating the spread of an uninterrupted infection. In the simulation it takes about 45-60 days for the infection to be widespread and 90 days to peak. So even if this swine flu scare becomes something of concern it could take weeks before we know it. Question: when do you count the beginning of a pandemic?

Today’s Google Map of swine flu infections: