Flu Pandemic

I've been doing a lot of reading using the Kindle app on my phone. When snuggled under my sleeping bags, it's a nice way to pass the evening. Recently I read, Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mandel.

In the book there's a flu pandemic that kills over 99% of the world's population. The flu's so fast moving that you go from sniffles to dead in two days. Unlike a lot of pandemic books, it covers things right before the flu and years after. Usually these sort of books are centered on the disaster as it unfolds. It also digs deeper in character's lives than most disaster books. Most importantly, it's very well written and enjoyable read.

For me, the book was enhanced by the fact that that right now we are going through a worse than normal flu season. It gave the book a level of reality it might not have had otherwise. Then today I read this Wall Street Journal article that points out how we are not ready for the next flu pandemic. We are actually, in some ways, worse off than we were 100 years ago. International travel is a lot quicker and easier than it was then.

In the book, by the time people realized the flu was so fatal, it has already traveled all over the planet.

There are things one can do to reduce their chances of getting sick, and we hear about them every year: hand washing, covering sneezes, rest, diet, flu shots and all that. What really works isn't practical for most people: isolation. Some person living alone on an island miles from anyone else is pretty safe from the flu. He might be in danger of going stir crazy, but that's another article.

-Sixbears