More BushCo incompetence

Bush Plan Shows U.S. Is Not Ready for Deadly Flu - New York Times:

WASHINGTON, Oct. 7 - A plan developed by the Bush administration to deal with any possible outbreak of pandemic flu shows that the United States is woefully unprepared for what could become the worst disaster in the nation's history.

A draft of the final plan, which has been years in the making and is expected to be released later this month, says a large outbreak that began in Asia would be likely, because of modern travel patterns, to reach the United States within "a few months or even weeks."

If such an outbreak occurred, hospitals would become overwhelmed, riots would engulf vaccination clinics, and even power and food would be in short supply, according to the plan, which was obtained by The New York Times.

The 381-page plan calls for quarantine and travel restrictions but concedes that such measures "are unlikely to delay introduction of pandemic disease into the U.S. by more than a month or two."

The plan's 10 supplements suggest specific ways that local and state governments should prepare now for an eventual pandemic by, for instance, drafting legal documents that would justify quarantines. Written by health officials, the plan does yet address responses by the military or other governmental departments.

The plan outlines a worst-case scenario in which more than 1.9 million Americans would die and 8.5 million would be hospitalized with costs exceeding $450 billion.

It also calls for a domestic vaccine production capacity of 600 million doses within six months, more than 10 times the present capacity.

[...]

The plan also calls for a national stockpile of 133 million courses of antiviral treatment. The administration has bought 4.3 million.

Worst case scenario has 1.9 million Americans dead... one would assume that that would be if the plan were implemented as written.

After last years debacle with the flu vaccine, which was you'd think that this administration would have worked on fixing the situation with vaccine manufacturing... but noooo.

Why do I have this sinking feeling that the BushCo clown show will screw the pooch on this one, as they did with Katrina and that the worst case scenario will seem like a day at the beach compared to what we'll likely face.