The other day at work I was asked to join the Action Plan meeting for the Avian Flu Pandemic. AAH! During the meeting I was selected to head the Pandemic Taskforce for my office. Double AAH!
We were told that the World Health Organization (WHO) says there is a 100% chance that the Avian Flu will become a Plague. Once it jumps species and can spread from human to human, it will take just about 36 hours for it to spread worldwide.
Of course they do not know on how large a scale this will be and if it will even hit Los Angeles or Seattle, etc. If it does come to your town, 30% of your co-workers will become ill with the avian flu and half of those that do get it will die.
Those numbers actually reassured me.
I guess I am glad that my company is planning ahead, but it does make this more real. I am not totally sure what I will be doing on the taskforce, other than putting up multi-colored posters and telling you NOT to come in to work if you have the sniffles.