'œSometimes a president's summer reading can change lives,' said The Philadelphia Inquirer in an editorial. Back in August, George W. Bush picked up The Great Influenza, John M. Barry's eye-opening look at the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918, which killed at least 50 million worldwide. 'œThe narrative jolted him into action.' Last week, Bush announced a national strategy to combat the avian flu, which has killed 60 people and now threatens to spread around the globe. The proposal calls for $7.1 billion in preparation and prevention, mainly to develop vaccines and stockpile anti-flu drugs. Critics have 'œdetected a whiff of desperation' in the president's announcement, said the Los Angeles Times in an editorial. Not only is his administration late in recognizing the very real risk of a bird flu pandemic, he seems overeager to show some leadership at a time when public confidence in him is plummeting. At least, though, he's got a plan.
Unfortunately, said The Boston Globe in an editorial, 'œNew Orleans had a plan too.' Bush's bird flu blueprint says virtually nothing about how we'd actually mobilize federal and state health-care agencies to combat an outbreak. Other nations already have detailed, step-by-step plans in place, should the deadly bird flu mutate and enter the human population. If 'œa viral Katrina' hits the U.S. in the next year, it will be New Orleans all over again—but with a death toll in the hundreds of thousands, instead of the hundreds.
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