Okee doke, all settled.
I really feel like a tinfoil-hat-wearing Cassandra but I'll respond and then return back to my lane (Errr...TR - I know I have no lane, that means I'll shut up.)
JAGeorgia - Sir, I never meant to imply that there is an ongoing pandemic. In the start of this thread I cite a very new study whose authors include respected CDC and Scripps researchers. They present troubling evidence that H5N1 "binding" molecules have mutated to become very close in structure to the 1918 pandemic virus. At the same time the virus has not lost any of its lethality. The researchers say this is "worrisome." I am not nearly as smart as these guys so I ask LOTS of stupid questions. I determined that "worrisome" translates into "holy shit" in normal-speak. There was talk at a recent meeting (beer talk, not formal presentation talk) of a 50/50 chance of this going pandemic. Now, I wouldn't bet this month's mortgage on a coin toss but that's enough to make me think prudent, thoughtful preps are in order.
Couple that with what are to me
weirdass extraordinary preps and demands by my gov and pharma clients and a little bell went off. I felt obligated to share.
Your differentiation between avian, seasonal, and pandemic flu is concise and correct, but misleading when you go into the 'zebra' analogy. All influenza A (the kind that passes into humans) has a single origin: birds. (A geneticist told me that the virus could be 275 million years old, meaning it originally infected dinosaurs -- cool/freaky, eh?) The seasonal flu that my wife got in January, the H5N1 that's killing birds, and the 1918 H1N1 variant that caused a pandemic all have the same primary source.
I only brought up SARS because TR asked a direct question about it. It was a good question, and when TR asks a question I have learned it is never rhetorical. (I am still awaiting a rebuke because it wasn't a very direct answer.)
The only differences between avian, seasonal, and pandemic influenza viruses are 1) the ability to infect human cells via aerosols and 2) resistance levels in the target population. The 1918 H1N1 pandemic flu didn't go away, it became seaonal flu after post-pandemic resistance developed (well, it
did go away but it slowly mutated into seasonal flu variants over the years).
I'd like to niggle another point: there has been, and continues to be, human-to-human transmission. It is limited in nature and very inefficient. This fact is generally not bugled from the rooftops, primarily because it would kick the WHO alert level up a notch to level 4 and that would trigger mandatory action that probably isn't warranted at this point. You will hear "there has been no H2H transmission yet" all over the standard media. But, see the New England Journal article below. It's old (6 months ago is ancient, things are moving fast) and there are newer human-to-human cases in China, Turkey and possibly Iraq, but it's the only published cite I have without searching. It documents numerous H2H cases:
http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/353/13/1374
The key point is that there is only one case of H2H transmission
to health care workers (Vietnamese nurse; she survived). Health care workers are canaries in the coalmine. WHO has said they will begin unprecedented containment measures (massive anti viral administration to whole populations) when three hospital workers at a single site are infected (proposal circulating in draft form, can't cite).
Social distancing is only half the reason for stored supplies. Supply chain disruption is the other one. We live in a just-in-time world where a single wobble has profound consequences. If the projections come true and 40% are infected simultaneously then the Pringles may not make it to the shelves for a while.
If you haven't already got Tamiflu if the coin toss comes up 'tails' then I'll wager you won't be getting it (unless you have a 'priority' job -- health care, police, water/electric, etc.).
Regarding antibiotics -- there are some made in the CONUS but for a variety of reasons (tax boondoggles) many are made overseas with JIT deliveries. Ask a pharmacist about back orders and shortages that exist now, when skies are blue.
Finally, canned government web sites are good for basic prep information but you have to consider how politcal they are. For instance, the WHO site draft documents currently circulating for review say pandemic "may be imminent." The "imminent" word was as carefully avoided in
official WHO communications as the word "genocide" was in US gov releases about Rwanda when that was going down. Words have power in these matters and can force action.
Well, I'll go because I feel a bit weird. I certainly hope that this comes to nothing -- that the coin toss comes up 'heads' this time -- and that the truly smart people working on this have the time to come up with good solutions for the next time. The upside to all of this is that truly novel approaches to prevent pandemic in the future are being developed and we just need another year or so to get them going. Happy days to everyone.