Is the U.S. health care system prepared to cope with a pandemic?
We have had limited contemporary experience with anything on the scale of a pandemic. But I would say, based on the experience with (Hurricane) Katrina, we recognize there are many health care facilities that would have a very difficult time scaling up and setting up the kinds of contingencies across the country that would be necessary to handle the large volumes of patients. It’s going to be a big challenge and we have to expect that if a pandemic is going to occur, it’s not something we’re going to just sail through. For information on avian flu: www.pandemicflu.gov Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: www.cdc.
