Well, here we are. The Swine Flu is sweeping over the country like an invisible Tsunami, or maybe like an invisible Katrina. Several months ago the government – CDC etc – promised that they were on top of the situation and there would be plenty of flu vaccine available. “Brownie, you’re doing a heckuva job.” Doesn’t this seem sort of like deja vu all over again? I mean, during Katrina it was – at first anyway – difficult to tell whether the government just didn’t care or if they were just sublimely incompetent. Now we know.
OK. Now we have a new government in place. We all knew last spring that the Swine flu was spreading around the world and that it would be coming around here again in the fall. Well, it’s the fall. Several months ago our government told us that there would be plenty of flu vaccine around, and remember, at the time no one knew whether the H1N1 flu would be morphing into something very deadly, like its cousin the 1918 flu pandemic that killed millions of people worldwide. So, there was a lot of concern and we were assured that there would be a lot of vaccine available. But there isn’t.
As of today, the H1N1 flu is widespread in just about all the states. Meanwhile there is precious little vaccine available. It appears that the flu might even have peaked in some areas. So, how are things going at the CDC? It seems they are confused. They thought they were going to have plenty of vaccine – but they don’t. So what happened? Did someone drop the eggs? How can we go from expecting maybe 100 million doses to be available to hoping for 42 million by mid-November? How can we be at the peak of the flu and have only 16 million doses available right now? There are 300 million people in this country. And if you get a flu shot today, how long does it take before you have built up immunity to the flu? It doesn’t happen overnight.
There are only two conclusions that can be drawn from the H1N1 vaccine debacle – either our government doesn’t care or it is incompetent. There is an amazing similarity between the Katrina catastrophe and this – at least in the way the government has reacted. The primary difference is that the flu is not nearly as deadly as it might have been had it morphed – scant comfort, I suppose, to those whose children have already died from the H1N1.
One would have thought we had learned a lesson from Katrina, but it seems we didn’t – at least the elephantine U.S. government didn’t. How could they not know there wouldn’t be sufficient supplies of vaccine? Were the manufacturers lying to them? Did anybody actually bother to do a calculation to see how much vaccine would be available on any given day? Have the people who work for the government ever heard of a spreadsheet? Do they have any idea how to use a computer to project future supply and demand? I don’t think so.
We are simply at the mercy of an incompetent, uncaring assortment of Civil Servants who couldn’t care less if they rescue people from Hurricanes or germs or anything else for that matter. And where is the Presidential anger? Where is the Presidential outrage at this gross incompetence? Where is my CHANGE? Why isn’t there any foresight, why no vision, why no imagination? Who is responsible for asking, “What if?” What if this had turned out to be a very deadly flu variant, as in 1918? It happened once – it will certainly – CERTAINLY – happen again. Don’t these people get it?
We lucked out this time. There are plenty of embarrassed, red faces in DC, but there should instead be plenty of embarrassed red faces out on the streets of DC. But that will never happen because when you are a Civil Servant you have a job for life come Hell, High Water, or the Flu. Nobody takes responsibility or gets blamed for anything – ever.
The problem is this: we have an incompetent government that is unable to protect the people of this country. It was demonstrated in Katrina and it has been demonstrated again with H1N1. Change is needed like never before, but it hasn’t come where it is needed most – inside the halls of government where intelligent, crucial, lifesaving decisions are supposed to be made, but they aren’t.
That is the lesson of the H1N1 vaccine debacle.