September 17, 2005

The Next Big One

Consider this:
  1. As many as one billion deaths.

  2. A sick child comes to a school at 8:30. By 3:00 pm everyone in the school is dead.

  3. Dogs devouring corpses in the streets of major cities.

  4. Complete paralysis of urban systems, travel, and trade.

  5. Total panic.
This is not a movie. This is what could happen if bird flu mutates to become infectious in humans.

Read this book. It happened less than a century ago.

I don't think we're prepared. Twenty million doses of an unproven vaccine is not enough.

This is a real, substantial risk. There are things that can be done. Do them.

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