Bird Flu Pandemic

Last October, in the midst of the stock market crash and the heated election, my Uncle David sent out information about the Bird Flu Pandemic that scientists are starting to warn us about. When I read it, I thought, "Oh Great! Another huge thing to be worried about!"

But since then I have read everything I could read about it. There are plenty of websites devoted to Pandemic Preparation:

PandemicFlu.gov Read the article listed on that page, "What would be the impact of a pandemic?".

The Totally Ready Blog See the list of topics going down the right side of the page and click on "Pandemic" to read all the articles Carolyn Nicolaysen has written.

I like to read about natural disasters, mostly because I want to know who survived and why. I read a book called Natural Disasters that Changed the World, by Rodney Castleden, and at the back he listed the seventy worst natural disasters in history.

Number One: The Toba volcanic eruption, which was way before recorded history.

Number Two: We've all heard of the Black Death in the Middle Ages that killed approximately 100 million people.

Number Three: This shocked me, #3 was the Spanish Influenza pandemic, 1918-1919, which also killed between 20 million and 100 million people. I really didn't understand the magnitude of that pandemic, we never studied it in school. All I knew was that the president of our church, Joseph F. Smith, died and couldn't have a funeral because no public meetings were allowed. In 2006 I read a book about it, The Great Influenza by John M. Barry, but it had completely left my memory. (Note: I will review that book here this week.)

At last count, bird flu (H5N1) has infected 399 people and killed 252 of them, according to a
Reuters story from Jan. 26, 2009. Looks like a pretty high mortality rate to me. I think we better be thinking about this.