So there we have the stupidity of sentence two. If you're not going to mass immunize, you're not going to stop a disease. It worked with smallpox and polio. It might have worked with a bunch of other diseases, but we got weak. There's a program in the works right now to get started on slamming the door on everything possible, that is everything that transmits only through humans and domesticated animals. Don't know if it will ever work but it's worth a shot.
So, Warrick you pinch-faced lying incompetent bitch, let's take a look at sentence three.
"My advisors recommend them primarily for the elderly and the young."
What advisors? Her advisors for a situation like this were the National Science Advisor, the Director of the National Institute for Health (NIH), the Surgeon General, the Director of the Center for Disease Control and the Commander of USAMRIID.
All five have testified under oath at this point about the decision process, such as it was, leading to 423. Two, the National Science Director and the Surgeon General, took the Fifth. Fuckers. The other three, including the only two epidemiologists consulted, have, however, spoken at length.
The first meeting was called by the National Science Advisor and included, along with various hangers on, the Director of the CDC, the NSD, the Secretary of Homeland Security and the Surgeon General. At that meeting, the President announced that the vaccine was to be distributed immediately and that it should be available through county health services. And that it should be given to the young and old first.
Note: This was before any input from the advisors. This according to both the DCDC and the Secretary of Homeland Security.
The DCDC has stated that he demurred after it was clear that neither the NSD or the SG were going to. Why?
First, there was a plan already set up for vaccine distribution. Called, incredibly, the Emergency Vaccine Distribution Plan (incredibly because it actually made sense), it had been in place for years and regularly updated. It was a complicated distro but, effectively, it spread the vaccine through both military and emergency civilian channels to all healthcare providers. There were identification methods. Following initial distribution there was a forced immunization program as a sub-codicil noboby wanted to really use. It was cumbersome. Everyone knew it was cumbersone and that it would take at least a week to get the vaccine down to civilians. But it was designed to work. Might not have, but it was the Plan.
In the first three minutes of the meeting, the Prez had thrown the Plan right out the window. So much of sentence one and two. This is really about sentence three.
Bird Flu was strange. Most flus, the major deaths occurred in the old and the young. And, don't get me wrong, the bird flu killed off both groups.
But like the earlier Spanish Flu, bird flu was not a secondary killer, it was a primary. Secondary and primary . . . Sigh.
Most flus don't kill you. They just get you very sick and, notably, flood your lungs with fluids. Secondary viral and bacterial infections then get in those fluids and kill some people through pneumonia. Notably . . . the old and the young. Thus, the deaths are from secondary infections. Secondary killers.
There are very rare flus, though, which are primary killers. Death qua death, the Grim Reaper, Pushin' Up Daisies, occurs because specific portions of the brain (we don't need all of our brains, just ask Al Gore) die. There are various ways that those portions can die; anything that cuts off oxygen to them for long enough will do it. (Such as, say, having your head cut off.) But something has to kill them.
Besides all the usual stuff that bird flu did, it spread systemically. First there was the danger of pneumonia. But even if you survived that, it tended to hang on. Blood vessels are designed to keep fluids in. Infected vessels let the fluids out, they accumulate in lungs, in body cavities, kidneys fail, brain swells, pressure kills neurons, breathing stops, etc. If your immune system couldn't kill it, it got into the brain. Fluid builds up, pressure on brain causes dementia, then strokelike symptoms . . . And then, well, you quickly went mad and then died. Thus the pattern of get sick, seem to recover, relapse, die.
Worse, like the Spanish Flu and for reasons that are still being studied, it hit the "prime" population harder. That is, the young and old tended to get the pneumonia but if they shook that off (which if there was health care was normally possible with antibiotics) they survived.
People in "prime ages" went through all that, (if they didn't die of pneumonia) felt better for a couple of days, relapsed and then died.
Mortality amongst prime population, 15–55, was twenty percent higher than among peripheral population, the young and the old.
So, let's see, in that one meeting the Prez ignored the Plan and chose the wrong group to focus on immunizing.
Don't get me wrong. I care for all living beings except slow drivers in the left-hand lane, terrorists and pedophiles. And I'd have loved to be able to save all those youngsters and old folks. Well . . . Sort of. The youngsters, certainly.
Face facts. I loved my dad and he wasn't even in the "old" category. But old people, retired people that wander around playing shuffleboard . . .
We were looking at surviving. Not prospering. Not becoming better. Surviving. The advisors knew how lethal H5N1 was. Destroy a certain percentage of any society and it crumbles. The models based on wars and previous famines and pestilence was twenty percent. At that point, the society devolves to survival level. (At least that was the model. We found out how robust some societies were and how weak others. But I'm getting ahead of myself.)
But of that twenty percent, old people don't matter. They're done. Even if they have the desire to rebuild, they don't have the strength or stamina. They're smart, they're wise, sure. (The good ones.) But they can't rebuild a society. They're the past. If you have to sacrifice any group in a survival situation, The. Old. Go. First. Cold survival logic is like that. Not nice, but survival logic isn't.
Sigh. "Women and children first" would have been the right call. Why? Because they matter. Children are the future of any society. Immunize the kids first? Hell, yeah. Forget that they're less susceptible. They're going to take care of the survivors in the survivor's old age. If they make it.
Children are important.
But . . .
Kids can't rebuild a society. I don't care what you've seen or read in a science fiction story, they just can't. They don't have the experience; they don't, yet, have the strength that is going to be needed. Most of them would, eventually, become of reproductive age. If they survived.
Look, mortality from H5N1 dropped with age to about seven then picked up again. Say that it was even more lethal than it was and killed off everyone in the middle.
You'd have a planet filled with oldsters and children.
Think they're going to get factories going again? That they can run farms?
Think again.
You'd better have that functional middle or the kids are going to starve and the oldsters are going to starve and die off and nobody's going to remember or care what the fuck the Mona Lisa was or why she was smiling like that. Kids growing up scavenging in the ruins. Read "A Boy and His Dog." But don't believe the end; there's nothing a teenage boy won't do for pussy.
Women? I'm just a sexist, right?
Not if you're looking at survival. Look, it's logic most people don't like but here it is: