Michael Trick's OR Blog and Logistical Planning for a Bird Flu Pandemic

I am off to Rio very shortly, and I will be away for two weeks.

While I am on the road, I will complete up some long incubating posts, but, before I go, I want to post up a quick link to Michael Trick's OR Blog.

In one of his recent posts, Michael mentions the dreadful state of US Emergency rooms, and --- in essence --- he puts out the call for logistical help from the OR community.

I'd like to echo the sentiment from the "bird flu planning community."

Logistical nightmares are at the heart of every H5N1 pandemic senario anyone has ever concocted, yet it is hard to tell if anyone in the OR community is currently looking hard at this.

Isn't it clear that pandemic logistics is a research area that deserves encouragement at every level?

Let's at least catalog what is being done --- or not being done!