Do you live in a city? I can't imagine how that's doable in a city such as mine (Washington, D.C.), where most residents live in rowhouses or condos. The detached homes in older close-in and newer outlying suburbs also tend to be crammed closely together on small lots.

What would people in London do?

The cities are simply going to have to keep the sewage and water systems functioning. Failure to do that would be cataclysmic.

There are 100 million people in the 400-mile stretch from DC to Boston.

West Virginia's country roads wouldn't be hospitable for long...

http://www.voanews.com/english/2008-05-03-voa11.cfm

Deadly virus in China

No, I live in a town of around 10,000 people in a rural area. So should be achievable.

It is only a matter of time before the planet experiences a human pandemic.

I worry more about the public panicking than the actual disease process of a pandemic.

Not to minimize the effects of what ever infectious agent is going to be the culprit in the least.

People just have a talent for making a bad situation worse.

When they get scared they will turn to any charismatic idiot that will make them feel safe, then the real long term damage begins.

I didn't say it would be pretty.

Ideally the goal would be to maintain a safety net that makes sure that nobody starves or lacks basic care. Food rationing and soup lines, a place to sleep if needed and the simplest of EMS and security services for all would be the targeted level of existence. In part provided to keep people alive and well but as important to keep people calm. To prevent panic, hording, mass migration and breakdown of civil order.

By keeping the standard low it makes it easier for smaller numbers of lesser trained and experienced people to keep it all working.

IMHO such an event, discounting the inevitable, but hopefully few, casualties, might have a beneficial effect. People would have the opportunity to see that fashion, the internet and the latest diet isn't all there is. That you can live off less than most seem to think and still have a decent time. That consumerism and keeping up with the Joneses can be done without. And,perhaps,that if we all give a little and work together we can get through the hard times without anyone suffering too much.

IMO we saw a similar sobering and uniting effect from the Great Depression.

Unless you can point to more recent studies that I haven't seen, Sue, researchers who have done community blood testing in Hong Kong, Thailand, and Vietnam during avian flu outbreaks have found no evidence of any significant proportion of people who were infected but never got sick or only had mild symptoms and never went to the hospital. Therefore, avian flu was, and still is, a serious and highly lethal disease any time it manages to infect people.

Good information in general on this site but here are some quotable numbers related to this thread:

http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/h5n1/index-eng.php

Continuing the discussion: Who should MDs let die in a pandemic?
My recommendation is to not get sick, injured, burned or lose your mind, particularly if you are up in years.

Since we're talking pandemics here, here's an AP article out today about the threat. Nothing new in it, really, except to remind us that the lack of visibility in the news doesn't mean the threat has gone away.

One tidbit I wasn't aware of already--the article says that the WHO has 5 million doses of antiviral meds. I'm assuming that these are under the WHO's direct control and can be sent to a hotspot quickly, rather than saying that these are 5 million pledged doses, but that the donor countries have to pony up the meds at WHO's request for the meds to be deployed. That could be a problem when speed is critical.

We've got some folks at my office working on pandemics on the modeling side.

General news article:
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN10446535

Scientific source article:
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/105/12/4639

The actual models are pretty cool. The image here is a representation of one Chicago resident's social interaction in one day.
https://www.vbi.vt.edu/public_relations/press_releases/chicago_pandemic_influenza_simulation
They are dynamic, meaning once you've set disease parameters you can play with it (close schools at first outset or one week later, etc.) and try to find the best course of action.