Obama’s [Real] Katrina Moment…

According to the USA Today - by way of the CDC - 22 million Americans have fallen ill and 3,900 people have died between April and October due to the swine flu outbreak, including 540 children:

The analysis represents the government’s latest effort to assess a viral outbreak that in just six months has flooded emergency rooms and intensive-care beds in at least 48 states that have reported widespread flu cases. With flu season just beginning, an estimated 98,000 people have been hospitalized, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

“We’ve been tracking influenza for decades,” says Anne Schuchat, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. “What we are seeing in 2009 is unprecedented.”

Unprecedented, she says.  That’s a strong word.  Here’s another interesting excerpt from an article at WTNH.com:

Meanwhile, federal health officials are having plenty of complications with the H1N1 vaccine. There’s not nearly enough of it, even for people in the high risk categories, and experts say without more vaccine, the death toll will continue to grow.

“Unfortunately, the consequences of not having enough vaccine soon enough is we’re going to have people who are going to necessarily get sick and some will die,” said Dr Michael Osterholm, Univ. of Minnesota.

In addition to a massive shortage of the H1N1 vaccine, there is also widespread concern about the vaccine’s safey, and its effectiveness, this from an article written by a physician for the New York Times:

There is a peculiar duality in the collective cultural mind just now, a kind of pandemic doublethink. Other doctors I know are all eagerly having their own children immunized. Many are answering frantic calls from people desperate for the vaccine. But at the same time, we are all coming up against parents who are determined to refuse that same vaccine.

On September 1st, President Obama made the following remarks regarding the swine flu:

“I don’t want anybody to be alarmed, but I do want everybody to be prepared,” Obama said. “We anticipate that there will be some issues coming up over the next several months; the way it’s moving is still somewhat unpredictable, but what I’m absolutely confident about is that our team that’s assembled here has done an extraordinary job in preparing for whatever may happen.”

In late October President Obama declared the swine flu a national emergency, however the administration has not taken definitive or wide reaching action to protect the American people pursuant to that declaration.   

Here is what he said in a recent speech:

 U.S. President Barack Obama said officials were closely monitoring cases of swine flu but he also tried to ease fears.

“This is obviously a cause for concern and requires a heightened state of alert. But it is not a cause for alarm,” Obama told a meeting of the National Academy of Sciences.

Not a cause for alarm?  The American people might beg to differ Mr. President.  The CDC is calling this an “unprecedented” flu outbreak, and 540 kids have died as a result of the swine flu - really, how is this not a cause for great concern?  It could certainly be argued that the Obama administration has failed to take drastic measures to curb the advancement of the flu, has failed to expedite vaccines when they were needed - over the last two months - and has failed to control the message on the efficacy and safety of the limited vaccines that have been distributed.   

And now, instead of staying home and taking the time to properly remedy this increasingly dangerous situation, President Obama has decided to go ahead with a trip to Japan in order to address the crucial issue of the location of a Marine base there.   

History has, so far as history is written in the years immediately following an event, judged President Bush harshly for his failure to appreciate the serious nature of the aftermath of Katrina in New Orleans, and his unwillingness to take quick and drastic measures to save lives: “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job,” is the line that he delivered during a briefing which cemented the public perception that he was out of touch with the gravity of Katrina.

Perhaps “not a cause for alarm” will be remembered as President Obama’s swine flu equivalent.