Hospitals’ handling of severe flu season doesn’t bode well for future pandemics
A worse-than-expected flu season has strained hospital resources. If facilities can struggle with something so foreseeable, then what happens when the next flu pandemic hits?
Experts were worried about that very scenario in comments to STAT, saying reducing funding for the emergency programs hospitals and public health departments use to deal with events like disease outbreaks has left them unprepared for the next crisis.
Those programs may have been a victim of their own success. When the swine flu, or H1N1, pandemic of 2009 claimed fewer lives than the typical seasonal flu, influenza lost its “big, bad boogeyman status.”
“It’s true to some degree that we’re even more vulnerable now than we were at the time when H1N1 hit,” said Jeffrey Duchin, MD, head of infectious diseases for the Seattle & King County public health department. “We did learn a lot during the H1N1 outbreak about how to do things better. But we haven’t invested in turning those learnings into action and better preparedness. … After H1N1, it’s pretty much fallen off the radar.”
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John joined TriMed in 2016, focusing on healthcare policy and regulation. After graduating from Columbia College Chicago, he worked at FM News Chicago and Rivet News Radio, and worked on the state government and politics beat for the Illinois Radio Network. Outside of work, you may find him adding to his never-ending graphic novel collection.