Avian Flu

Over at TomDispatch, Mike Davis writes about the forthcoming avian flu pandemic:

The avian flu outbreak at Lake Qinghai was first identified by Chinese wildlife officials at the end of April. Initially it was confined to a small islet in the huge salt lake, where geese suddenly began to act spasmodically, then to collapse and die. By mid-May it had spread through the lake's entire avian population, killing thousands of birds. An ornithologist called it "the biggest and most extensively mortal avian influenza event ever seen in wild birds."

Chinese scientists, meanwhile, were horrified by the virulence of the new strain: when mice were infected they died even quicker than when injected with "genotype Z," the fearsome H5N1 variant currently killing farmers and their children in Vietnam.

As you'd expect, the article focuses on the state of preparedness for a pandemic in the US; Davis even mentions at one point that the British government is much better prepared. Which sounds quite comforting, until Davis puts this in persepective:

[The British press...] revealed that officials were scouring the country for suitable sites for mass mortuaries, based on official fears that avian flu could kill as many as 700,000 Britons. The Blair government is already conducting emergency simulations of a pandemic outbreak ("Operation Arctic Sea") and is reported to have readied "Cobra" — a cabinet-level working group that coordinates government responses to national emergencies like the recent London bombings from a secret war room in Whitehall — to deal with an avian flu crisis.

Note to self: must stockpile three months-worth of food, pronto.