The Vital Systems Security collaboration examines how, today, security is being constituted as an object of knowledge, intervention, and political reflection. It proposes that the security of vital systems such as energy, transportation, communication and health is one norm in relationship to which security is being reproblematized. A central goal of the collaboration is to examine these issues through collective, conceptually driven inquiry that addresses rapidly developing contemporary problems.
A new study on the swine flu virus by Neil Ferguson and his colleagues, published in Science, has shown that transmissibility of the swine flu virus is substantially higher than seasonal flu and comparable with lower estimates of R0 obtained from previous pandemics. The reproduction number (Ro), defined as the number of cases one case generates on average, is a key measure of transmissibility.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1176062
A key claim from the study, reported by Donald McNeil in the NY Times, relates to our earlier discussion of which prior pandemic should serve as the exemplar in developing a response strategy: “Researchers estimated that the current flu would act more like the 1957 Asian flu than like the 1918 Spanish flu.” This is based on their estimate of clinical severity: a fatality rate of .3 percent to 1.5 percent. Aside from this very wide range, there would seem to be a few problems with this estimate, and with the comparison to earlier pandemics: (1) the fatality rate in 1918 is not known – though it is estimated at 2.0 – 2.5 percent; (2) the total number of cases (vs. fatalities) in Mexico – ie. the denominator in calculating the fatality rate – is not known; and (3) the fatality rate is likely to be much higher in places with poor basic health care and lack of access to antivirals. As the NYT article puts it: “Poor countries with young populations, disorganized public health measures and substandard hospital care appear much more vulnerable than wealthier ones.”