A new AP-Ipsos poll says half of Americans aren't too confident that its government can handle the situation if bird flu gets into birds in North America.
In the poll, 52% said they were not confident the government would handle an outbreak properly; 48% were confident. Almost two-thirds expect U.S. birds to become infected.
Fear is likely to spread if the virus is detected in the United States: Half of the people questioned said they thought the bird flu would kill them if they got it.
The survey found strong majorities in favor of these steps to contain any outbreak among humans: quarantining those who have been exposed to the bird flu, closing the borders to visitors from countries that have experienced the flu, closing schools, offering experimental vaccines or drugs, and encouraging people to work from home.
The poll of 1,001 adults was conducted Tuesday to Thursday with a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points. (USA Today)
The public has no particular reason to believe in the competence of the government, since all it has seen from this Administration is a surfeit of incompetence. I won't bother with the whole list (Katrina, Iraq, etc.) It's too long.
But does it mean the public health system can't handle bird flu? Unfortunately, it probably does. Because one aspect of the incompetence has been to starve public services that would be needed in the event of a pandemic, including health care and public health but also the social services what we would all depend on.
To make matters worse, everyone, ourselves included, are learning on the job about this virus. There are confusing and mixed messages coming from Washington, from academia, from state officials, from the private sector, because we are all more than a little confused by this virus and there are more than the usual mixed opinions. This bug is presenting surprise after surprise. But it is an unusually nasty virus, of a type that periodically sweeps the globe in pandemic form. What most people agree on is there is serious public health potential here and recognizing this and preparing for it quickly would be, to understate the case, prudent.
Most people.
There are still a few contrarians who are making a living (literally) by muddying the waters further. The two most prominent flu deniers are Wendy Orent and Marc Siegel. Despite errors in fact and atrocious judgment they continue to peddle their shoddy wares wherever and whenever they can get a hearing. Since the press loves man-bites-dog stories, they are often successful. Here's a sample:
But a small group of skeptics say the bird flu hype is overblown and ultimately harmful to the public
