A Journey Through The World of Pandemic Influenza

A Few Stolen Minutes

We are still in search of our "Third Body" at work and not much promising on that front. After today I am pretty much ready to say if they are breathing and can show up, hire them. If anyone writing the pandemic plans for their companies or organizations happens to read these words at some time in the future, I am here recording that running a department at 50% staffing levels is not fun, nor is it especially efficient.

I have reached the point that I am tempted to record a message on my voice mail that states: "I don't know the answer to your question but please feel free to leave it anyway; I will eventually get to it and then eventually find the answer. Although I'm confident that by the time I actually get back to you with said answer it will no longer be relevant – but by all means – please do leave it just the same – it does my ego good to be reminded of my ignorance. "

Of course, I wouldn't really leave such a greeting on my voice mail, but it is tempting at times.

 

This blog has never been strong on chronicling the news as it relates to pandemic influenza, generally if a story of the day catches my interest I will comment on it, but for the most part this blog is about me running my cyber mouth about PanFlu issues in a more general fashion. Being a person who possesses an opinion on just about everything it just seems to come natural.

Another opinionated woman is making a cyber splash of late, Standingfirm of PreparedCitizens. I have come to know Jackie (aka: Standingfirm) quite well as we participate in several of the same forums. She is a woman of unbounded passion and energies when it comes to preparing to face a severe pandemic. I hope you check out her offerings if you have not already done so, I promise, she will more than make up for my silence as I less than patiently wait for that elusive "Third Body" at my day job.

I was inspired to dust off my old (OK – ancient) and tattered copy of Thoreau's Walden the other day when someone tickled a long forgotten memory of formative inspiration and as it has sat on my table I have picked it up at random moments, yearning to re-read it with loving thoroughness. Doing so I came across a passage that brought Standingfirm clearly to my mind's eye as I read it:

BUT WHILE WE are confined to books, though the most select and classic, and read only particular written languages, which are themselves but dialects and provincial, we are in danger of forgetting the language which all things and events speak without metaphor, which alone is copious and standard. Much is published, but little printed. The rays which stream through the shutter will be no longer remembered when the shutter is wholly removed. No method nor discipline can supersede the necessity of being forever on the alert. What is a course of history or philosophy, or poetry, no matter how well selected, or the best society, or the most admirable routine of life, compared with the discipline of looking always at what is to be seen? Will you be a reader, a student merely, or a seer? Read your fate, see what is before you, and walk on into futurity.

 

The cyber flu community is enriched by her energy and her contributions.

 

[Jackie, I know you are blushing – sorry – sometimes praise just has to be gracefully accepted.]

 

SZ

Yet Again

Yet again my life was turned upside down. By now it has begun to feel normal. My boss turned in his resignation and without dwelling on it – life is not especially blog friendly.

There is a promising candidate being interviewed tomorrow so wish me luck.

But I will admit – I'm beginning to think there's some sort of cosmic conspiracy going.

 

SZ

 

The Germs of Discord

As the below piece highlights, the propensity to lay blame is a practiced art and past time. It is not something that only occurs in South Asia, sadly, look just about anywhere where there are intractable problems and you will see finger pointing and vitriol.

The piece does have it right in that we just can't seem to work together, even when doing so is in the best interest to all involved.

From India's Economic Times:

The germs of discord 9 Feb, 2008, 0000 hrs IST, TNN

You can have all the regional agreements, pacts of friendship and mutual understanding you want, but dark deeds and shady plots are never quite far away in our brotherly region. It is also a truth subcontinentally recognised that we never seem to want to accept responsibility for any of the myriad ills plaguing our lands. Bangladesh, it seems, has now decided that the bird flu that's now spreading fast over there is a prime example of Indian perfidy. But then, that's quite usual. Everyone habitually blames everyone else in South Asia, for everything from illegal immigration, smuggling to terrorism — Afghanistan blames Pakistan, the latter blames the former as well as India, we here periodically blame everyone around us — and now Dhaka has waded in as well. In fact, it could be rather enlightening were one to substitute 'terrorism' for 'bird flu' in the statements emanating from Dhaka and New Delhi as well as the reports on the spread of the potentially deadly virus. Bangladesh is alleging that it's them birds from India that are spreading the virus in its territory, while some Indian politicians are now claiming that it is the illegal poultry trade from Bangladesh into India which started the crisis in the first place. Here, we seem to have suddenly forgotten that birds, after all, do have a propensity to fly. And borders possibly don't signify much to them. And one can hardly expect a virus to be mindful of the BSF or the Bangladesh Rifles. But then, that's just us, officious South Asians, sticklers for protocol, all. Where else, one could ask, would we find the external affairs ministries of both nations trading charges over the spread of a virus? Not to put too fine a point on it, we just don't make for good neighbours. And one might as well forget proper, sane practices like putting collective heads together and seeking a joint response to a problem during such a crisis, as would happen in any other part of the world. Now, formal requests, one wearily learns, have finally been made to share the genetic history and other information on the virus. While that is duly processed, we can regale ourselves with watching denizens of the affected areas on both sides cheerily chomping chicken on TV. It's certainly never a dull moment, living in South Asia.

Super Tuesday

No Pandemic or Avian Influenza post today so that I can feed my love of politics. Today being the all important, and oh so exciting (at least to us political junkies), Super Tuesday Primaries/Caucuses for the US Presidential race.

 

SZ

Clamp on Itahar

An interesting little tidbit of news about Itahar, West Bengal, India

The Telegraph Calcutta, India

Clamp on Itahar

Feb. 4: The North Dinajpur administration has promulgated prohibitory orders under Section 144 of the CrPC to prevent poultry owners from smuggling birds out of Itahar, where mop-up operations are under way.

"We apprehend attempts to smuggle out poultry by people travelling in groups. The assembly of more than five persons in public places has been prohibited until the end of the mopping-up operation," said Raigunj subdivisional officer Asoke Kumar Das.

[snip]

Das said police stations in the area had been asked to step up patrol and arrest those violating Section 144.

In the 13 bird flu-hit districts, animal resource teams went house to house for the mop-up. Police teams accompanied them but villagers handed over their remaining birds willingly. The operation will continue for another five days.

"We wanted the police to accompany officials to pressure villagers to hand over their birds. But our door-to-door campaign in the past few days worked," animal resource minister Anisur Rahman said.

Poultry samples have been sent for tests from Sultanpur in ward 46 of the Howrah Municipal Corporation after 200 chickens died there over the past few days.

 

This is a tiny blurb and, as always, may not be entirely accurate. That said, however, it raises my concern on several levels.

First, and probably most: OK—they are concerned about bird smuggling. Good to be aware of this all too familiar problem when it comes to controlling the spread of H5N1 but— why are they concerned about smuggling carried out only by groups? The single or even tandem smuggler is not a problem? Or, do the officials feel that constraints of personnel allow for only the bands of smugglers, easier to spot, with fewer vehicles to stop, are the most effective utilization of human resources?

I certainly hope that is not the reason only groups are being checked. Five lone smuggles could potentially spread H5N1 farther and faster than a single group of five. This just doesn't make any good sense to me.

Secondly, why are "groups" mentioned again as being prohibited in general if it is five or more gathering? Why five, why not ten, why any at all? Why the restriction to begin with? Is this instead some form of political dissent being cracked down on in the guise of containing the spread of H5N1? If so, the world doesn't need control and containment response tied up with a blood red bow of political strong arm tactics. Containment and control is difficult enough even under the best of circumstances.

Lastly, why are the police involved? Goodness knows I love police, well, the law abiding, civil rights respecting police anyway, but they are not trained in the health issues of gathering and culling of birds. Should they become infected they would be near perfect vectors of wide transmission if a transmissible virus was operative.

Needless to say, I found this little tidbit of an article more disturbing than anything.

 

As always, I suppose time will tell.

The Developing World, AI, and Taiko Drums

As I often do when I sit down to compose a blog post I am sitting under my noise cancelling headphones. Today's music of choice happened to be Oedo Sukeroku Taiko's The Drums of Tokyo. I particularly enjoy percussion, whether Native, Urban, New Age, or the Formal as is Taiko.

For me drumming recalls a time before I was middle-aged, but more specifically, when I was a patrol officer, when life, and survival, had a flow and energy all its own, often an immediacy that was raw and primal. Now, as a member of America's middle class, living an insular, staid, and safe life I no longer "hear the beat" of urgent survival as an integral part of that life—hence the artificial invocation through music.

Life in Third World or developing countries is often dominated by the ever present "beat" of simply surviving. Sometimes I chuckle, albeit mockingly, at so many Western Environmentalists who envision a pre-industrial existence as the optimal human condition. I have found myself wondering how many of them have felt the raw immediacy of just making it through the day alive and in reasonably one piece as they pushed their shopping carts through their local organic grocery.

Don't misunderstand: I appreciate the environmental and the organics movements, but I believe there is a genuine disconnect between idyllic fantasy and harsh reality. I was reminded of the dichotomy of fantasy vs. reality as I thought about some of the posts on the flu forums in regards to Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan and listened through my headphones to the drums being struck.

 

When surviving is at stake there isn't much room for magnanimity and world viewpoints. Back in the days when surviving a day weighed heavy upon my mind the world still faced the threat of a nuclear exchange. Fingers on Buttons seemed so bloodless and calculated, so sterile. Today the threat the world faces may see actualization from a small holding of chickens in the slums of Calcutta or Dhaka. Nothing bloodless, calculated or sterile there. Instead life's blood pulses to the all too primal rhythm and beat of simply surviving.

Who can worry about tomorrow when this day, this hour, this moment has to be survived?

 

The drums are beating—do you hear them?

A Lesson in Real Life

This post will be more a recap of why I had pretty much dropped out of Flublogia for a month, but as always, I will try to tie what happened into a general PanFlu perspective.

On January 2^nd my counterpart at work (what I call my "Day Job" and what pays my bills) announced his immediate retirement and the fourth member of my four member department had to go out on emergency medical leave. This left my boss and me to run the entire department just as we were facing end of fiscal year requirements.

I tend to lean to being a Type "A" person, highly driven and action oriented. To say that my life during the month of January became all about my job would not exactly convey the fact that I was pretty much reduced to work and a few hours of sleep each day. I would occasionally drop into Flublogia to glimpse the overall situation but with all the demands on my time and attention I really lost touch; I no longer had my fingers on the pulse of the virtual world that is Flublogia.

The thing that I found most illuminating for me was the simple fact that my life had so many "here-and-now" demands that I was nearly buckling under I just didn't care about some theoretical threat in the distant realm of "maybe".

Upon reflection I found this fascinating.

I have found it difficult to impossible to understand how so many people could turn a blind eye to such a potentially catastrophic event. I found out how easily it can and does happen.

Being someone who at least believes I know and understand the myriad potentials we would face during a severe pandemic I very consciously turned away from pretty much everything AI and PanFlu at the exact moment that threat levels were rising as significant new outbreaks in new geographic locations were occurring. If I could do it with an intrinsic understanding how much easier is it for someone who has a superficial, at best, grasp of the potentials?

 

The traditional Navajo concept of hózhó encompassing beauty, balance, order and harmony distills, at least to me, to the concept of grace, or gracefulness: handling life and all that it throws at us with grace.

During the month of January my life was decidedly out of balance and chaotic. Grace and gracefulness were nowhere to be found within my tiny personal universe. But, isn't that what we will each have to face and deal with should a severe influenza pandemic strike anytime in the near future? We will each have to do what I did: buck up and just do what has to be done in the tiny personal universe that represents our individual lives.

The degree that our lives will become unbalanced and lacking in grace will be a direct reflection of our in-place knowledge and preparations. Unlike the situation I found myself in at the beginning of January we will have had plenty of time to inform and prepare ourselves.

The fact that life in general often affords us little to no time, or inclination, to peer into our futures for potential threats on the horizon will offer us no comfort or succor should we face the worst. Instead we have to adjust like I had to do. Sometimes we have to reach inside ourselves with deliberateness and find that new point where hózhó leaves little room for chaos or the unattended necessities.

While I will probably never attain that perfect place where there is nothing but hózhó I have at least realigned enough to be back at the optimal operative point for me. Now, I have the daunting task of catching up.

 

One last personal note:

A heartfelt Thank You to all of you who dropped me a line to check up on me or to let me know that my cyber voice was missed. It was much appreciated during a time that found me not only stretched to my capacity but coinciding with an all-time low PanFlu morale in general. I drew strength from knowing that others were standing watch and that even during a time when I had to withdraw the invisible web of connectedness to "Fellow Travelers" gave me comfort.