Barack Obama Declares Swine Flu Emergency

President Barack Obama has declared the Swine Flu outbreak a national emergency. This declaration clears the way for his health chief, Kathleen Sebelius, the power to bypass certain Federal laws which would have restricted the way hospitals see Swine Flu patients and treat or inoculate them.

It is thought that the emergency was declared for two reasons:

• Swine Flu is more prevalent in the United States than originally projected
• There have been longer than anticipated delays in vaccine production

So far more than 1,000 United States citizens have died from Swine Flu (my estimates are over 2,800) with more than 10% of those fatalities children. To date forty-six states have widespread Swine Flu activity. Only eleven (11,000,000) of the one hundred fifty (150,000,000) million projected doses have actually gone out.

Though this may seem like a call to panic, it's not. The declaration of emergency is a preemptive move to allow the Secretary of Health and Human Services to modify certain Federal rules, as she sees fit, to allow hospitals more flexibility in opening alternative care sites. Federal rules state that it will not pay for services if those services are administered more than 250 feet from a main hospital entrance. However, it may make more sense to administer shots and screen patients in the middle of a parking lot, well away from patients currently undergoing treatment in hospital. The declaration basically gives Ms. Sebelius the ability to bypass federal rules allowing alternative care sites to open at schools, community centers, and hospitals that seek that permission.

Some hospitals have already opened drive-through services and drive-up tents to test and screen for Swine Flu. By providing off-site services hospitals can keep infectious people away from other sick patients. The problem is that if these centers are too far away from the main hospital building they can't be reimbursed by the government.

Since federal rules require hospitals to set up treatment centers within 250 yards of the front doors a suspension of these rules will ensure that hospitals can set up care centers where most practical and still be reimbursed for those expenses. The declaration of emergency gives Ms. Sebelius the power to suspend those rules.

Back in April 2009 Barack Obama authorized the release of twelve million (12,000,000) doses of flu fighting medication from a federal stockpile to all fifty (50) states. These medications are already in state hands. At the time of this order no vaccine yet existed for Swine Flu though plans were already in the works for developing one. At the time of this order there were only eight-one confirmed cases of Swine Flu in the United States.

There are already eighty-five (85,000,000) million doses of seasonal winter flu vaccine available across the country. But these will do nothing to combat the Swine Flu.  To date sixty (60,000,000) million people in the United States have been inoculated for winter flu.

The World Health Organization states that there have been four hundred fourteen (414,000) thousand confirmed cases of Swine Flu around the world. Five (5,000) thousand of those cases resulted in death.