Banning public gatherings


Shutting down subways and schools, and banning weddings and other gatherings could be the key to damage control in the event of a communicable disease pandemic,

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070403/hl_afp/ushealthpan...500EkoBI7J1vq4DMWM0F



hum and if this is put in place the anti's are sure to use it to maxise the tobacco control issue.. and change the claim that tobacco ETS is a communicable disease

If you access to government television you can see these plans have been designed for your community in the event of a pandemic. Everything will close, people will be under martial law, we are suppose to maintain enough supplies in our homes to survive.

Subways are a small part of these plans. If you are at all concerned I would avoid air travel or any means of mass transit.

Should anything like this actually happen, smoking will be the least concern of the people.

On that basis, buy tobacco products in bulk.

As was shown during Katrina in New Orleans, smoking was banned at the refugee sites and tobacco was valuable to smokers, like insulin and all drugs. Don't leave home without them.

I think what's interesting (sic) about this story is that it shouldn't even be a story.

It reminded me of when I hear something, but can't figure out the "why?" part of it. I then google it, find my answer and that's that. I certainly wouldn't try to get reporters involved with my big discovery.

In this case the government wanted to know why, they looked, found their answer and that should've been that. How many people call reporters when they find an answer to a question they had about their work? And a question they should've asked 89 years ago I might add.

"Scientists with their eye on the possible outbreak of a bird-flu epidemic found from studying past practice that by intervening early and aggressively to restrict the public's freedom of movement, they may be able to curb the transmission of a virus in the early phase of an epidemic and buy time for investigators to come up with a vaccine."

That's just common sense. If you wait 10 minutes to put out a fire, the fire will be harder to put out. That's a no-brainer. They could have called me for that.

"The findings come from two analyses of US cities in the 1918 Spanish influenza pandemic that killed 600,000 people in the United States and tens of millions around the world."

"The study could provide important lessons for agencies tasked with planning for the next global pandemic."

Like I said, these questions should've been asked and these lessons should've been incorporated into a plan 89 years ago. (As if they haven't been already. Didn't they (and don't they) lock up TB patients?)

And Bruce Fox, in the post above mine notes plans already being in place.

"But researchers have always puzzled over why the early death toll varied so much between cities which used the same tactics."

Puzzled, but never interested enough to find out? Way to go Public Health.

"Going back over the data, US researchers found..."

Exactly what you'd expect them to find.

"US authorities have already incorporated many of the lessons of 1918 into planning, drawing up guidelines for closing schools, canceling public gatherings, teleworking strategies and voluntary isolation of cases."

And how did they know what to do before this study was done? LOL

Either the government is trying to slowly warm us to the idea of home confinement or authors of studies are just DYING to see their names in the news.