Hi, We’re from the Government and You Are On Your Own

Somewhere in a Department of Homeland Security warehouse, thousands of doses of antiviral medications are about to expire.

Another warehouse stores thousands of expired respirators.

This is the equipment and medicine that was supposed to help protect government personnel in the event of a deadly pandemic.

And there is more

A federal investigation has found that the DHS is totally “ill-prepared” for something like the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic — or something worse, such as a global Ebola outbreak or the 1918 flu pandemic that killed an estimated 21.5 million people, according to a report released by the Office of the Inspector General on Monday.

In 2006, Congress gave DHS $47 million to prepare for such a national medical crisis. And the department did go shopping; it spent millions on this equipment that might now be completely worthless, missing or unnecessary.

For example, the audit found more than 4,000 bottles of expired hand sanitizer in storage with the DHS. Many of those bottles have been expired for up to four years.

Some 81% of the antiviral drugs the DHS has will expire by the end of next year. And 100% of the Tamiflu is set to expire in 2015.

Some 46% of the Relenza DHS has will expire then as well. It was unclear to investigators whether the antiviral medication had been stored at a proper temperature.

Oh yes, doesn’t that just fill you with confidence and comfort? So if a pandemic hits (and with Ebola spreading ‘exponentially’ that could be sooner than later) the government is ill prepared to do a darn thing well….if they can do anything at all.

“The Department of Defense has just declassified a copy of its 2009 Concept of Operations Plan for an Influenza Pandemic. Among the Plan’s scary yet reasonable assumptions are that in the United States, such a pandemic will kill 2 percent of the infected population, or about 2 million people. The plan also assumes that a vaccine won’t be available for at least 4 to 6 months after confirmation of sustained human transmission, and that the weekly vaccine manufacturing capability will only produce 1 percent of the total US vaccine required. State and local governments will be overwhelmed, and civilian mortuary operations will require military augmentation. Measures such as limiting public gatherings, closing schools, social distancing, protective sequestration and masking will be required to limit transmission and reduce illness and death. International and interstate transportation will be restricted to contain the spread of the virus. If a pandemic starts outside the US, it will enter the country at multiple locations and spread quickly to other parts of the country. A related document, CONPLAN 3591-09, was released by DoD in 2010.”

At least anything we would want them to do. Just started reading the information in the first link – (PDF alert) at least what isn’t redacted. Folks, it is pretty clear that the military will be deployed internally to quarantine the country. Stopping travel, limiting gatherings, probably even interfering with the flow of information; all in the name of public safety of course. I’m not a conspiracy theorist; this is their own plan. We need to be aware of what the government plans, what it is capable of doing and how much we will be forced to rely on ourselves for our health and medical issues.

None of this is really new information; people have been saying it a long time. Heck they even made movies showing us what they plan to do decades ago.

A couple of points just to think about

I. State, Local and Tribal jurisdictions will be overwhelmed and unable to
provide or ensure the provision of essential commodities and services.

m. DOD reliance on ”just-in-time” procurement will compete adversely with
US and foreign civilian businesses for availability of critical supplies.

bb. A surge in private demand for consumer goods (stockpiling) will cause
DOD shortfalls.

e. Forces  and assets that traditionally support response to critical disasters
will not be available.

Combine that with the information that Homeland Security has seriously screwed the pooch on basic inventory control measures and you can see how life will get interesting in a relatively quick and painful way.

Please join the discussion.