Pandemic Plan

Economic Impact of swine flu on Mexican tourism

As an example of the indirect impacts of a flu outbreak (which I've discussed before), Reuters reports:

Mexico could lose up to $4 billion (2.65 billion pounds) in tourism income after foreign visitors cancelled trips to popular beach resorts and colonial towns due to the flu scare, Tourism Minister Rodolfo Elizondo said on Monday.

Swine flu: Immediate Social/Economic Impacts

Pandemic plans must include not just the sickness-related direct impacts, but the other indirect impacts. (For background, see my earlier posts here and here.)

To illustrate, consider what steps are being taken by the Mexican government.

How smuggled chickens endanger us all

In recent days, I've seen several news reports about the smuggling of poultry in areas of India experiencing an H5N1 bird flu outbreak in birds. For example, Reuters reports ....

More than a dozen poultry farmers in [the] country's bird flu-hit northeast have been caught trying to smuggle flocks of chickens out of the quarantine zone, police said on Saturday.

Local residents were helping police stop people sneaking chickens and poultry products out from within a 5 km radius of a small farm at Chingmeirong village in Manipur state, the site of India's latest bird flu outbreak this week.

[snip]

Health workers have already killed around 25,000 chickens and destroyed thousands more eggs since Thursday to try and contain the virus. They plan to cull 150,000 in all within the quarantine zone by next week.

Unhappy at the thought of their livelihood being culled, some poultry farmers are trying to escape with their flocks before the culling party arrives, a state police spokesman said.

Boeing still needs 1,000 "nails"

I wrote on June 19th ("For want of a nail....") about a problem Boeing was having getting enough high-quality titanium bolts for its new 787 Dreamliner.

Granted, these aren't garden-variety bolts you'd pick up at the local hardware store. They're titanium fasteners, made-to-order.

But these aren't headphone jacks in the armrests. They're key parts; they hold the airplane together. You'd think they'd be on the critical list of "must have" components.

And this isn't a quickie, rush project. The 787 Dreamliner is Boeing's first all-new plane in 12 years. (And it's sort of important financially, already attracting more than $100 billion in orders.)

This is Boeing. The fasteners are being made by Alcoa Inc. These are veteran manufacturers working on a multi-year production job.

The plane was officially unveiled yesterday at the company's Everett, Washington plant. Reuters reports:

The plane is not scheduled to begin flight testing for at least another six weeks, and still needs its internal power and control systems fitted and functioning. It also needs about 1,000 temporary fastening bolts replaced by permanent ones, which Boeing said it will start work on immediately.

For want of a nail....

An article in today's Wall Street Journal - "Boeing's Nuts-and-Bolts Problem" - begins:

When Boeing Co. engineers first set about developing their new 787 Dreamliner, their biggest concern was whether they would be able to pull off making enormous sections of the wings and fuselage out of carbon-fiber plastic.

What they didn't count on was a shortage of nuts and bolts to hold it all together.

Major components, such as the new airplane's wings, are arriving from Japan, Italy, South Carolina, and elsewhere held together by temporary fasteners. That's because Boeing can't get enough high-quality titanium bolts from it's primary supplier, Alcoa Inc.

While customers are pushing Boeing to hurry production, Boeing officials say suppliers' ability to deliver parts will ultimately determine how quickly it can build airplanes.

Poultry growers need financial incentives to fight bird flu

From an April 13, 2007 Agence France Presse news report:

Sales of chicken in Kuwait have dropped by around 40 percent since an outbreak of bird flu was announced in February, the official KUNA news agency said on Friday.

In other words, some people are experiencing financial loss because of the presence of bird flu in birds in Kuwait. The loss probably is from a combination of (a) lower consumer demand due to worries about getting sick from chicken and (b) the culling of about 1.7 million birds because of the outbreak of the H5N1 strain of bird flu in Kuwait.

This scenario has been repeated many, many times in a number of countries over the last 3-4 years. It is a matter of concern. The commercial growers and sellers are feeling a financial loss. So are many individual owners of small flocks.

How lax mortgage lending can worsen a pandemic

The New York Times published a news analysis today about the unfolding crisis in the U.S. mortgage securities market. Believe it or not, I think this has a bearing on pandemic planning.

Before explaining the connection, here's a quick summary of the mortgage securities problem, in case you haven't been following these developments. (You might as well get familiar with this topic. I predict you're going to hear a lot more about it.) As the Times recounts, the following has happened in recent years:

A hawk kills one of my chickens ... and I'm sad

Last July, I told you how my family was surprised to find ourselves owning three (later, four) chickens - Old English Blue-Red Bantams, a miniature breed.

An acquaintance offered them to us unexpectedly - extra two-month-old chicks from a mixed-breed flock he keeps as a hobby and for eggs. He thought our teenaged son would enjoy them.

As it turned out, my wife and I became far more interested in the birds than did our son. In fact, we sort of became attached to them.

Now vs. 1918: Looking beyond the obvious - Ripples

In two recent posts (Part 1 and Part 2), I talked about ways in which the modern world differs from the world of 1918 (the time of the severe pandemic known as the "Spanish Flu"). While many people think we're better positioned to face a pandemic, I'm not sure they're correct.

For one thing, we lack enough "surge capacity" to respond to a pandemic-driven surge in the need for health care. (Hospital administrators are frank about it; their facilities would be overwhelmed.)

Secondly, in a pandemic, sickness is just part of the problem. Being sick or caring for the sick is the pandemic's direct impact. But any time that many people are that sick, there can be less apparent - but very important - indirect impacts, also. These are the domino effects, the ripples, the hiccups in the system, the "gotchas." To see them, you have to look farther outward or farther downstream. You have to Think It Through.

Stated differently, if you pull enough people out of their normal roles in daily life, it can have major consequences.

Now vs. 1918: Looking beyond the obvious

A couple of days ago, I noted that some people believe we're much better equipped to deal with a pandemic today than we were in 1918. Some even think a severe 1918-scale pandemic is not possible. I think it's dangerous to make that blanket statement. In fact, some of today's conditions may put us at a disadvantage.

Those who think a severe pandemic can't happen again happily note that we have much better medical knowledge and resources than in 1918. It's been pointed out, however, that it doesn't matter if we have modern medical tools, if we can't deliver enough of them when and where needed. A pandemic will cause a surge in the need for health care. But our "surge capacity" is limited.

As I wrote last month, sickness-related issues - like avoiding sickness, treating the sick, and coping with an overloaded health care system - deal with the most direct consequences of a pandemic. We don't want to make the mistake of just thinking about the direct effects of a pandemic - those which are more readily visible. Rather, we need to look downstream at the relatively hidden indirect effects - the ripples, the domino effects.