Bush: Bird Flu Is 'Global Threat'
A flu pandemic would cause massive disruptions lasting for months, and cities, states and businesses must make plans now to keep functioning, and not count on a federal rescue, the Bush administration said Wednesday.
"Our nation will face this global threat united in purpose and united in action in order to best protect our families, our communities, our nation and our world from the threat of pandemic influenza," President Bush said in a letter to Americans noting the release of an updated national pandemic response strategy.
Mr. Bush last fall proposed a $7.1 billion plan to prepare for the next worldwide outbreak of a super-strain of influenza. Wednesday's report updates that plan, an incremental step that basically outlines exactly which government agency is responsible for some 300 tasks, many already under way.
As CBS News correspondent Bill Plante notes, the report is meant to catch the attention of the private sector, as well as government agencies.
Even the most draconian steps, such as shutting down U.S. borders against outbreaks abroad, would almost certainly fail to keep a flu pandemic from spreading here, the report acknowledges, and thus it outlines more limited travel restrictions that would be used instead.
Read the National Strategy For Pandemic Influenza
Influenza pandemics strike every few decades when a never-before-seen strain arises. It's impossible to predict when the next will occur, although concern is rising that the Asian bird flu, called the H5N1 strain, might lead to one if it starts spreading easily from person to person.
"I should make clear from the outset that we do know if the bird virus we are seeing overseas will ever become ... a pandemic," said Frances Townsend, Mr. Bush's White House homeland security adviser.
But if that happens, "we will take immediate action to prevent or to slow the spread of the infection," she added.
In related developments:
If a human outbreak of any super-flu strain occurs abroad, the United States will work with international health officials to try to contain it in the country of origin.
But if it escapes and begins a worldwide spread, the report makes clear that the main goal will be to slow that spread, giving time for the nation to brew protective vaccine, dispense stockpiles of critical medical supplies, and limit the almost inevitable economic and social chaos.
In a severe pandemic, up to 40 percent of the work force could be off the job for two weeks, the report estimates. Because 85 percent of the systems that are vital to society, food production, medicine and financial services, are privately run, the administration aimed to use the new report to energize businesses in particular to start planning how they will keep running under those conditions.
"No less important will be the actions of individual citizens, whose participation is necessary to the success of these efforts," Mr. Bush added.
The messy medical reality is that people can spread flu a full day before they show symptoms, meaning even shutting U.S. borders against outbreaks abroad offers no reassurance that a super-strain isn't already incubating here.
"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.
The government is preparing for a worst-case scenario of up to 2 million deaths in the United States. Right now there's only enough vaccine to treat 5 million people, Plante reports, but the government would like to have enough on hand for 80 million.
Once a pandemic begins, expect massive disruptions with as much as 40 percent of the work force off the job for a few weeks at a time, even if the government slowed the spread by limiting international flights, quarantining exposed travelers and otherwise restricting movement around the country, the document says.
"Local communities will have to address the medical and nonmedical impacts of the pandemic with available resources," the report warned, because federal officials won't be able to offer the kind of aid expected after hurricanes or other one-time, one-location natural disasters.
A flu pandemic instead would roll through the country, causing six to eight weeks of active infection per community. And the report doesn't actually put anyone in charge of checking whether vital businesses are heeding various warnings.
Few are, suggests a survey that found 66 percent of mid- to large-sized companies have made no preparations, said former Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, whose new Deloitte Center for Health Solutions conducted the survey.
Businesses and local governments need specific instructions, he said.
"Everybody is asking, 'Well, we want to do something. How do we do it?'" said Thompson, who heard those questions Tuesday while addressing pandemic preparations at a Michigan law-enforcement conference. "We've got to be much more specific."
The incremental plan was drawing complaints Tuesday that despite months of dire talk about the threat of a pandemic, the Bush administration hasn't accomplished enough.
"Other nations have been implementing their plans for years, but we're reading ours for the first time now. These needless delays have put Americans at risk," complained Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.
Influenza pandemics strike every few decades when a never-before-seen strain arises. It's impossible to predict when the next will occur, although concern is rising that the Asian bird flu, called the H5N1 strain, might lead to one if it starts spreading easily from person to person.