Severe Respiratory Pandemic: Scenarios and Response[edit | edit source]
We can use "H5N1" as a place holder for a more general category of "severe respiratory pandemic" (SRP). Around 2005, the term that was used was "panflu": pandemic flu.
For the purpose of this page, a SRP is defined as the introduction of a viral species (a new, highly lethal, respiratorily transmissible virus) in the human population (8 thousand million people in around 200 countries).
"Severe" refers to the potential of such a pandemic to cause many deaths, severe disease, and intense self-amplified disruption in societies' vital and important systems. The impact is a function of the biological severity of the virus in humans (how many people are ill, severely ill, chronically ill and die, per age group and previous health status) and societal responses (prevention, treatment, and coping with the direct and indirect consequences of such a pandemic).
To make impact more imaginable, in this page we use the following parameters: Virus, H5N1 capable of human-to-human transmission, as transmissible as common flu. 10% of those who catch the disease, including those previously young and healthy, and including children, die within the first few weeks of catching the disease. Response is as coordinated and effective as we have seen with covid so far, but the biological impact is an order of magnitude greater, and the potential impact is way greater.
Probability can be thought of in two time frames. In the long term (say a decade or several decades), probability appears high enough to take some action in preparing our species' responses, such that planners refer to it as "when, not if". In the shorter term, point probability, "how likely is it in a given day, week, month, or year", appears to be unknowable but higher than zero.
The first makes us think we have time. The second makes us think we have no time at all. Both are obviously false, but obviously very effective in conditioning our actions and inaction.
It is probably more useful to think of scenarios: what would we do if we knew it was going to start in, say, exactly one week, one month, one year or one decade.
This page takes starts with one scenario and then makes room for another.
Base scenario and mini-max improvements[edit | edit source]
If the described scenario were to unfold within the next week, what response should we anticipate? What could be improved?
The anticipated response would possibly include intense reactions in everyone, including those directly involved in governance, science and public communication. Those reactions would be primarily emotional (fear, anger) and secondarily cognitive (white noise, denial, racing thoughts, dissociation). Actions would probably be fast, related to individual perceptions of what's going on and what's prioritary, highly uncoordinated and, ultimately, ineffective in stopping the virus.
What could be improved? We can think of two main directions: ways to stop the virus without stopping societies' vital functions, and coordination. Doing both in real time, in the suggested time frame, can be thought of as an impossible task. This page has the purpose of inviting the reader to temporarily put emotional responses aside, to abandon thinking in terms of point probability ("how likely is is in the short term?"), and, instead, consider minimal actions that could be done now, to help us in that scenario.
For the purposes of this page, the scenario is a biologically capable virus in today's real societies. We can give ourselves some time to note some of the details that we'd anticipate, then remind ourselves that "it's just a scenario", and then get to work.
Stopping the virus without stopping vital activities[edit | edit source]
One of the priorities is stopping the virus, using what we have now in practical ways. We assume no immediate increase in resources, so we would use exactly what we have right now.
Goals would include: reduce respiratory contacts as much as possible with minimal impact on vital functions, and protect those contacts (effective masking indoors, etc) for as high a percentage of the human population as possible.
Resources would include: present capacity to educate rapidly, present capacity to produce masks, and present computer and communications infrastructure.
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Increasing effective coordination[edit | edit source]
... emotions: draw on what humanity knows about that; cognition proposals: keep it simple, thinking modes & long tables, OODA & SCIM, action & learning ...
Http://Resiliencemaps.org/files/fluscim has http://Resiliencemaps.org/files/FluSCIM-69p-English.pdf which was written in 2010. It has a useful 2.5-page index. If used as a base for conversations, it could be skimmed keeping in mind what we now know about aerosol transmission, longcovid, societal responses, and communication infrastructure including apps. (In a wider context of conflict, climate change, economy, rapid changes in technology, etc.)
What if we have more time[edit | edit source]
If we have more time, say more than a week or a month, we can work in two different directions at the same time. First, improve the short term reaction. Second, improve longer term conditions.
You can help improve the short term reaction by adding better information to this proposal, noticing the flaws that are obvious to you, and adding whatever would improve the practical actions for the stated short term scenario. Other reactions (emotional, dismissive, destructive, distorting) are probably less helpful.
Improving longer term conditions can be done without having a short term plan, and in fact is what many are already doing. In the context of this page, improving longer term conditions starts with having some short term plan and then looking at what would improve a short term reaction to an immediate scenario.
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