The Real Worst-Case Scenario for Swine Flu 2.0

Could a new wave of the H1N1 virus become as radioactive for Obama as Katrina was for Bush? Or could the threat of tens of thousands of children dying help him pass his health-care package? An in-depth assessment of the risks to moms and politicians across the country.

Continue reading this week's World War Room column at Esquire.com.

Comments

[David Sutton]

Talking to my Mother whose a doc, and who has an unhealthy interest in the study of viruses, she thinks this while this one may not be as bad as the 1917 fl, it will hit hard. A two phase virus that pokes its head up and throws a few light punches and then dissipates, and then comes back with the body blows that floor us hard.

How that translates to American politics is going to be interesting to see. As I see it the best case is that a stressed American health care system shows up how fragile both it and the citizenry are. That may, one hopes, push people t ward an understanding that rather than some crazed socialist policy , good, affordable health care is a measure that secures everyone, not just the rich and well provisioned.

If a near disaster can highlight that the government does need to put more money into that system, and allows it to do so than perhaps the inevitable deaths will have accomplished something

[Joe Michels]

David,

You make may assumptions about government run healthcare. The biggest being that the government can do it better centrally controlled than can distributed individuals and teams of health care providers can do of their own initiatives.

I liken the idea to giant main frame computers in the back room of some big entity, vs many millions of little computers connected by the internet all working together. We know what model has won.

Sure that government can and should play a role in our society, but not the central role; instead its should provide the connecting wire, or to change metaphors, the grease for the skids.

Let's not forget that Canada and Great Britain will also suffer through swine flu. We will watch to see how those centrally controlled health care systems will fair. I believe they will fair poorly and we will fair good to very well.

[Mark Fragale]

Tom,

90,000 dead out of 300,000,000 is .03% (+/-).

Sucks to be one of the dead. I am sure your sources are better than mine on this topic. I respect your work. I am not buying this is going to be THAT bad. The cop BS detector is ringing in my head. Gotta disagree (with all respect) on this.

There is no reason that this issue should be linked to healthcare, other than as Mr. Sutton points out that it could be a good way to improve the system.

[haruvatu]

Nice article.But what about the cure , the vaccine?Any potential dangers there (Guillain-Barré syndrome )?Could the vaccine have more bad for the working economy ( except the pharma) then the effect of the flu?What kind of statistics can you show on that part of flu - economy case?

[large]

Another crisis to replace the Anthropogenic Global Warming crisis that won't happen.

There are currently, I believe, 5 manufacturers of an approved N1H1 vaccine, and three announced this morning that thier vaccine would require only one shot rather than the previously stated requirement of 2.

Add to that, many more people died from the common influenza last spring than even were deigned to be sickened by the N1H1 strain . . Allowance for evolution is a good thing, but panic . . Don't think so . .

[Tom Barnett]

The exact death prediction range for the worst-case is 0.01 to 0.03 percent.

Page 17 of the report.

If the flu is as widespread as predicted, I don't find 3/100s of one percent to be unbelievable as a death toll, especially since that means 99.97 percent of the population survives a pandemic.