Word: flu
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That's not to say that very strict restrictions wouldn't have some effect on slowing the virus. In a 2006 study, Harvard epidemiologists John Brownstein and Kenneth Mandl examined the effect of the sharp reduction in air travel after the Sept. 11 attacks on that year's flu season. They found that the initial flight ban and general decline in air travel in the weeks after delayed the onset of the flu season but did little to reduce the overall number of infections and deaths that year...
...data matches computer models run by biostatisticians like Longini, who found that even the strictest limits on air travel would only slow the start of a flu pandemic, not stop its spread. But, again, while that strategy may benefit countries that have not yet been infected with swine flu, there's still no way to know when it would be safe to lift those restrictions. "There's no question that air travel spreads the flu," says Mandl, a physician and researcher at the informatics program at Children's Hospital Boston and an associate professor at Harvard Medical School...
...Mexico border is concerned, attempting to actually close it would be futile, since countless illegal migrants cross over to the U.S. daily. Trying to stop movement may just push travelers, and the spread of the swine flu, underground. It would create a diplomatic headache as well - the Mexican government has already expressed its concern over travel restrictions. (See pictures of the swine flu outbreak in Mexico...
What works better are social-distancing actions on a local level - closing schools, having employees work at home and limiting public gatherings, where the flu can spread easily. Such methods worked during the deadly 1918 Spanish flu - cities that acted quickly to close schools and theaters early in the pandemic had peak death rates 50% lower than cities that acted more slowly. Today doctors could also prophylactically administer antiviral drugs to the close contacts of any swine flu patients, a strategy that has been shown to help prevent the spread of the flu. "Until you start to see really massive...
Ultimately, however, in a world as truly interconnected as ours, we can no more cloister a single country than we could cut off a limb. The world has become increasingly one - as the rapid spread of the swine flu virus from country to country shows. "It is really all of humanity that is under threat during a pandemic," says the WHO's Chan. Whatever happens next with the swine flu - whether it burns out or sharpens - we're in this together...