Psychological Preparation

[indigo girl]

Psychological preparation

http://crofsblogs.typepad.com/h5n1/2009/07/psychological-preparation.html

Getting it into our thick heads that people will fall ill in great numbers, that institutions like hospitals and corporations will shut down, even if the mortality is not great.

We will not be able to leave the theater after two hours of delicious, vicarious fear. We won't be able to change the channel. It will not be happening far away, but on our block.

For people in the developing world, long accustomed to violence, malaria, dengue, HIV, and infant mortality, a pandemic may be easier to take than it will be for us in the industrial world. We have been very well protected for half a century. Almost four years ago, we saw how quickly things could fall apart when Katrina hit New Orleans, but we did our best to forget it.

Stress reveals character. I hope that the stress of the next six months reveals character worth respecting in those of us who have enjoyed the greatest benefits of the last 60 years.

[oramar]

I can't help but think about my grandmother and her time and how illness and death were things that people saw on a regular basis. People gave birth at home, the sick were cared for at home, the old and ill died at home, hardships of all types were born in silence. This generation bears nothing in silence. I have harped on this but I am going to say it again. Our medical establishment has really downsized over the past ten years. It can't handle a bad outbreak of even a milder form of influenza like H1N1. We have a population that has a sense of entitlement and what they are going to need is just not there. Who is going to bear the brunt of their rage?