Merli Column: What looms ahead

It will be interesting to see how all we potential flu-bug carriers in Northern Virginia will react to the ebb and flow of the coming flu season. Let’s hope it’s not like one of those hokey disaster movies where
things get so bad that normally sane citizens become crazed with anxiety and panic, albeit only for a little while.

If you think trying to decipher the current state of health care reform is tough, try figuring out exactly what we may have in store when it comes to what could be a two-tier attack of the flu this winter —
both the typical old-fashioned flu (that nonetheless claims several thousand American lives a year), and this upstart H1N1 swine flu that is rarely fatal, but makes a real nuisance of itself for a few days
and then dies out.

For the H1N1 strain (having nothing to do with swine, but that’s an issue for pork industry lobbyists) we’re told it strikes younger people the hardest — which is in contrast to the “regular” flu that comes
every year and which affects the elderly the worst. For the younger-skewing H1N1, Prince William Hospital has already introduced age restrictions on its patients’ visitors to 18 and older. Probably not a
bad idea.

Virginia, for our part, this week received the first shipments of H1N1 vaccine in the form of nearly 84,000 doses of that nasal-mist variety. This early batch is being earmarked mostly for local heath-care
workers here in Prince William and throughout the Commonwealth. Medical experts are recommending the nasal mist inoculations for people up to about age 50 who are not pregnant (but not for kids
under 2).

The state Department of Health’s immunization office in Richmond is emphasizing that the nasal spray, like other vaccines, is a weakened form of the swine flu virus and only people in generally good
health should take it, regardless of age (and presumably most health care workers are in generally good health). So the odds of a lot of us getting this nasal mist version of H1N1 are pretty slim, at least
here in Prince William.

But an early dilemma could arise from the fact that the demand for the regular injection vaccine is far outstripping supply, according to the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention down in Atlanta. Some
of that injectable serum for the current swine flu pandemic (“pandemic” referring to a flu bug that affects much of the world geographically, but not the severity of a flu strain) was expected to arrive here in
the Commonwealth in the next few days.

Yet Virginia health officials acknowledge that only about one-quarter of all H1N1 flu vaccines destined for the state (about 1.3 million doses out of 4.7 million eventually) will arrive by the end of the month,
so let’s keep our fingers crossed that we stay clear of any widespread epidemic here for at least another month.

Fortunately, assuming unruly mobs with pitchforks and torches don’t overtake Prince William health centers with demands for vaccinations (an unlikely scenario, to be sure), statistically the swine flu is
not nearly as fatal as the “regular” flu that arrives here yearly — although those who have had H1N1 already say it does pack a potent wallop for a few days.

Federal officials and the news media are putting out subtle warnings this week that there likely will be a few “mini-crises” this fall and winter before the H1N1 strain, and whatever other strain, may be
eradicated. And perhaps it’s a bit too convenient to read between the lines on what these mini-crises might be; health officials tell us this pending “dual-flu season” does come with an element of the
unknown. So it could come down to various demographic groups within Prince William and the Commonwealth being, in effect, prioritized in a timeline by health officials for when we receive our vaccines.

How we all may respond as a region to such a possible (if not probable) unforeseen emergency — or series of flu crises in the months to come — will say a lot about all of us. And it’s also something
we’ll have to live with (literally and figuratively) well beyond the coming winter.

John Merli has been a Prince William County resident since 1984, and a Potomac News columnist since 1985. E-mail him at .