Just a reminder.

-- Deborah (infowars@yahoo.com), October 05, 1999

Answers

To the top.

-- Deborah (infowars@yahoo.com), October 05, 1999.

Saw it. I was somewhat disconcerted by the local government and expert panel. (Note: the panel was asked to give responses on what to do from various governmental agency viewpoints at the day 4 stage of an apparent terrorist anthrax attack in a city subway.) Most of the responses did not seem well coordinated and well thought out. This mirrors my own experience with local government in emergency situations-- intentions generally good, execution mixed or worse. The two common denominators seemed to be: keep panic down, and seek federal/military help. The police guy, when asked whether he could count on all his officers to report for extended duty under such circumstances, hinted at a third theme: every person for himself. There was reference to people entering hospitals with shotguns holding up doctors for antibiotics-- sounded like a clip from that Kyle McLanahan movie that was recommended here a couple of weeks ago.

I imagine one could draw a lot of parallels between a Y2K "10" and a bio-terrorism attack (with a major exception that the former has a timetable of sorts). Apparently, in both cases, it would be well to be out of densely populated areas. Also goodbye to individual rights and hello to martial law, Clinton style.

Overall the scenario made me wonder if medicine (specifically antibiotics) is the Achilles heel of the doomers, both short term (who's my friendliest doctor and what story would I use to get penicillin, etc., especially as now I believe there is a shortage) and long term (in a Triple Ought scenario, where does the resupply of penicillin, etc. come from?).

Should I really make that trip to the vet?

Has anyone talked with a doctor and asked flat out for antibiotics for Y2k?

What are doctors doing for their families? (I suppose I already know the answer for that one...)

-- Ann Y Body (annybody@no.where.disorg), October 06, 1999.

Ann,

Very good questions!Thanks for reminding me to make an appointment with my Doctor for prescriptions for down the road.I don't have an HMO and pay for my own medicine,so it should be easier to get what I need.At least I hope so.

-- Maggie (aaa@aaa.com), October 06, 1999.

"I imagine one could draw a lot of parallels between a Y2K "10" and a bio-terrorism attack (with a major exception that the former has a timetable of sorts). Apparently, in both cases, it would be well to be out of densely populated areas. Also goodbye to individual rights and hello to martial law, Clinton style."

If it weren't for controls such as martial law during an outbreak of some infectious bioagent the likelyhood of a "lethal burn" thru the population of a region is vastly increased. I don't think I know anyone in emergency services who likes depriving a citizen of their rights. When I worked landslides near here a couple years ago there were idiots who wanted to go back into homes that were slowly filling up with mud and there was another 100k yards of hillside just waiting to come down. Maybe we should have let them go back in, afterall it would only affect the individual.

In the case of smallpox an infected individual can sluff off thousands of hot viral particles a day before they become symptomatic and even know they're afflicted. This constitutes a lethal "hot zone" for an area at least 10 feet around them....it may only take breathing in 1 to 3 of these particles to be fatally infected. Some government studies indicate that one smallpox victim might be able to infect 20 others per day. Anthrax is a lightwieght compared to some of the hot agents out there. Not good...

Let's say...There's a known smallpox outbreak in a city in your region. Should the folks in the general population of this city be free to go where they want even though many of them might be infected or should they be contained and checked out? Given the lack of smallpox vaccine, control and containment may be the only way to keep an outbreak from growing from thousands to millions of victims. As much as I cherish my freedom I also understand a little about epidemiology. If attacked with biological agents we won't have too many options to control it's spread and without minimizing/controlling travel we'll have basically nothing at all.

Keeping my fingers crossed we're lucky......DCK

-- Don Kulha (dkulha@vom.com), October 06, 1999.