Brrrr... I miss Orlando
At conclusion of the summit yesterday afternoon a few of us waded into the pool in our business casual wear, trying desperately to catch a bit of sun just to show everyone back home we actually did enjoy the Orlando weather, but we all knew we had to come back to reality and the frigid below zero temps that were a short plane ride away. The plane ride back gave me time to reflect on the last couple of days, and all of the information I had heard regarding pandemic preparedness. I must admit when I opened the USA today newspaper I had taken from the hotel, and saw there was an article about bird flu, I almost skipped over it, having felt I had reached my two day limit concerning all things flu related. After reading it though and acknowledging that much of information in the article was still unknown to me, I realized there is still so much about the situation that is constantly changing and still unknown to everyone.
That afterthought was pretty much the theme of the conference for me. There were so many issues brought up by the various speakers that I had never even considered as potential consequences of a pandemic, and the amount of planning that is needed to prevent such consequences is a daunting task. One such example of a consequence of a severe pandemic that I had never even considered is the potential crashing of the internet. If millions of people were forced to stay home and work from home combined with millions of students forced to take online classes, the online world ( of which I technically know very little about) would crash. Members of my family have a hard enough time going 1 day without checking their email, imagine if the internet, something we almost take for granted today, were gone. How would the world of instant gratification get their news? How would we stay up to date with what is going on with the Pandemic? This is something I never even thought about until yesterday.
There was an additional panel held during the end of day that I found very interesting about vaccines and antivirals. Dr. Osterholm took a poll on the percentage of companies present at the summit who had already begun to stockpile antivirals or N-95 masks, and somewhere between 25-35% answered they already had taken this action. One of the panelists, however, remarked that Tamiflu only has a shelf life of 5 years max, and N-95 masks only have a shelf life between 3-5 years. These statistics make me nervous as to what will happen if a pandemic doesn't occur for say 7 years, and rather than keeping up the stockpiles, companies let down their guard and decide not to invest any more money ( since all they had spent on the previous supplies will have gone down the drain) in supplies or say even planning. Then if a Influenza Pandemic does occur would they be less prepared than today?
I guess I should not be so negative on what could happen, but reflect more on the positives that came out of the summit. The summit gave large businesses and their leaders the chance to communicate with one another and with experts in the field of public health to prepare their business and protect their employees. I am really grateful for the opportunity I had to have a window into the world of pandemic preparedness, and listen to so many experts give differing viewpoints concerning the pandemic and what could happen. I truly wish I would have had more time, say a week, in Orlando (most of that is due to the fact it took me a good 5-10 minutes to get out of my boots, hat, gloves, scarf, coat, and long underwear when I returned home from class today), but also to have heard more information, particularly the questions other attendees had, about the topic of pandemic preparedness. It was really a fascinating couple of days and I'm happy to have had the chance to attend.