U.S. Plans For Bird Flu Disruptions

Report Sees Quarantines, Closings, Masks, Possibly Civil Disorder

(CBS/AP)  Employers should have plans to keep workers at least three feet apart, colleges should consider which dormitories could be used to quarantine the sick, and flight crews should have surgical masks to put on coughing travelers under a draft of the government's pandemic flu plan obtained by The Associated Press.

The Bush administration forecasts massive disruptions if bird flu or some other super-strain of influenza arises in the United States. A response plan scheduled to be released at the White House on Wednesday warns employers that as much as 40 percent of the work force could be off the job and says every segment of society must prepare.

"The collective response of 300 million Americans will significantly influence the shape of the pandemic and its medical, social and economic outcomes," says an undated 228-page draft version of the report that had not been finalized. "Institutions in danger of becoming overwhelmed will rely on the voluntarism and sense of civic and humanitarian duty of ordinary Americans."

An outbreak in the U.S. could lead to a variety of restrictions on movement in and around the country, including limiting the number of international flights and quarantining exposed travelers. But the government does not foresee closing U.S. borders to fight the spread of flu.

“If you were able to limit the number of individuals with flu from coming into this country by 90 percent, if you had a magic wand to remove 90 percent of individuals, you might delay the peak of a pandemic by one to two weeks,” Rajeev Venkayya, special assistant to the president for biodefense, told CBS News chief White House correspondent Jim Axelrod.

It's impossible to predict when the next pandemic will strike, or how great its toll might be. But concern is rising that the Asian bird flu, called the H5N1 strain, might lead to one if it eventually starts spreading easily from person to person.

So far, H5N1 has struck more than 200 people since 2003, killing about half of them. Virtually all the victims caught it from close contact with infected poultry or droppings.

The government is preparing for a worst-case scenario of up to 2 million deaths in the United States.

With no border restrictions, pandemic influenza would arrive in the United States within two months of an outbreak abroad, the document estimates. But models of influenza's spread suggest that sealing the U.S. border would not only be impractical — 1.1 million people cross the nation's 317 official ports of entry daily — but it would only delay the inevitable by a few weeks, it says.

"Even if 99 percent of international air were stopped, every country would in all probability still be infected," said Ben Cooper of England's Health Protection Agency and an author of the study being published in the online science journal PLoS Medicine Monday. "Even if 99.9 percent of travel were stopped, very few cities would escape the pandemic."