CRISIS RESPONSE AND PREPARATION!!!!!!
June 26, 2009
– Comments (3)
Otherwise known as CRAP!!!!!!!
And this from out buddy Karl Denninger:
Bah. I'll tell you what I think they're preparing for:
CDC is now estimating that the novel H1N1 virus will be “Category 2” in severity. They are closely watching the situation in the Southern Hemisphere for validation of this estimate.
A category 2 pandemic has the following characteristics:
Case fatality ratio of 0.1 percent to less than 0.5 percent. Between 90,000 and 450,000 deaths in the U.S. (compared with estimated 36,000 deaths during a typical influenza season). Excess death rate of between 30 to less than 150 per 100,000 people. Illness rate of between 20 and 40 percent. Similar to 1957 pandemic. Eek. Let's not. And by the way, if the attack rate is between 20 and 40% the death rate, if the "serious complication" rate looks anything like it has thus far, will end up closer to that upper boundary.
Why? Lack of ability to treat, and that's in the US. In other parts of the world, especially out of the "first world" western nations, the death rate will be insanely high.
Here's the problem: If you need a ventilator you're in deep trouble and there's a decent chance you'll be leaving the hospital in a pine box. But if you need one and there is none available, you are almost certainly going to leave the hospital in a pine box!
Hospitals run with a fairly small number of "free" ICU beds and vent equipment at any given time. They simply are not geared up for something that happens once every 50 years, nor should they be.
Our medical system, indeed all of western medicine, does a great job of treating the usual illness cycle where the events are (mostly) random and well-modeled. But if we have 2 million people showing up at hospitals within a few weeks and a significant percentage need supportive respiratory therapy, all pretty much at the same time, a huge percentage of those people are not going to get it, as the equipment simply does not exist, and they will die.
If this flu bug turns into that sort of event nations will go on "lockdown" almost immediately in a last-ditch defensive attempt to control contagion. It will help but not fix it (there is no fix) but in that situation having local currency will be critical to be able to have basic needs delivered to you - like for instance food!
By the way should that sort of event occur you can say goodbye to any idea of "green shoots". The economic damage of such an event will be tremendous.
Let's hope we avoid it; pay attention to that part of the world where its winter now for some sort of indication as to what we're in for here in the northern hemisphere's "western world" developed economies in six months or so.
http://market-ticker.denninger.net/archives/1160-Paranoid-Rantings.html
Alstry better slow down....he just surpassed last months record blogging......but you gotta admit is makes an interesting read!!!!!
RSS Headlines
Fool UK