Branswell: Pandemic planning is "daunting"

Helen Branswell has a story on canada.com: Potential knock-on effects of flu pandemic make planning daunting task.

In fact, the process is so daunting as to seem impossible at times, admits Allison Stuart, who leads Ontario's pandemic planning effort.

"I could step back and say 'This can't be done. There's just too much to it. It's too overwhelming,' and become really immobilized by it," confesses Stuart, director of the emergency management unit of the ministry of health.

Instead, she and her colleagues soldier on, calculating how many surgical masks the province needs to stockpile or how to keep hospital laundries from collapsing under an avalanche of soiled linens.

Branswell points out that this is going to be a local response to a global crisis; we can't expect Washington or Ottawa or London to bail us out. She cites Dr. Michael Osterholm as saying we need to think like chess masters, six moves ahead.

Speaking as a lousy chess player, I feel as daunted as Allison Stuart. But like her, I realize we've got to soldier on.