I'm a military medical professional and can comment on a couple of issues. For starters, we are getting almost NO briefings on the avian flu, which means that the folks upstairs are not considering it serious yet, or have not formulated/selected a plan. Even my infectious disease collegues are not panicking.

In comparison, I sat in innumerable briefings about biowarfare, anthrax, smallpox, even SARS a few years back. Those were considered very real threats. I don't think avian flu has graduated to that level. It is still confined to those with intimate contact with lots of animal vectors, something that just doesn't happen in the US. If we start getting breifings, I'll try to pass them on.

My personal plan is to bug in. A few weeks in self imposed isolation with my immediate family should ensure our safety. I would expect the usual shortages (water, perishables, batteries, gas) should it hit, but I don't expect any massive infrastructure failures. My hospital would be forced to use their mass casualty plans and I'm sure I would still be working daily (probably pressed into triage), but otherwise most essential services would continue.

We as a country survived the 1918 flu, polio, HIV, SARS, and every other "mass epidemic" to come by, and I suspect we will make it through the bird flu.