Pandemic Planning

• Main Authors: Battin, Margaret P., Francis, Leslie P., Jacobson, Jay A., Smith, Charles B.
• Format: Book Part
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford University PressNew York 2009
• Subjects: Avian flu
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195335842.003.0017; https://academic.oup.com/book/chapter-pdf/45008674/book_3846_section_145348686.ag.pdf

Abstract With the pressing risk of avian flu, jurisdictions across the world have devoted considerable attention to pandemic planning. This chapter employs the PVV view about the justifiability of constraints to explore several aspects of pandemic planning that have been less discussed to date. It argues that the use of models must be sensitive to both the risks of too much constraint and to the possibility that there is a mismatch between what models predict and what may actually occur. Too few plans have built in careful mechanisms for reconsideration as pandemic conditions develop. Plans should devote more attention to social distancing—which considers people as vectors—but in so doing should also attend to their plight as victims. It is argued that too few plans have devoted sufficient attention to such matters as the delivery of food, essential medical supplies, or palliative care for those who may become isolated under stay-at-home and home quarantine strategies for pandemic management.