Pandemic conversation questions


 * Main article: Swine flu conversation questions

Pandemic precautions

 * What (if anything) do you think you can personally do to reduce your chance of being infected in a pandemic?
 * What do you think you should do if you get an infection? Should you go to work (or school) or not?
 * How would you react if a colleague came in to work who seemed to be infected?
 * What (if anything) do you think the government should or could do to reduce people's chance of infection?
 * What difference (if any) do you think that closing borders would make?
 * How many food scares/health scares can you think of over the last few years? Which ones turned out to be serious?
 * Are you buying any medicines in case a pandemic strikes?
 * Do you think that wearing a mask makes much difference to your contracting an infection or does it just give psychological support?
 * How much difference do you think that washing your hands would make?

Predictions

 * Do you think you will experience a deadly pandemic or do you think there is a lot of exaggeration?
 * Which of the following do you think is most likely to happen within the next fifteen years?
 * A major earthquake in a densely populated area
 * An asteroid strike
 * A deadly pandemic, e.g., airborne spread Ebola
 * A drop in global temperatures due to the sun cooling
 * A rise in global temperatures due to climate change

Consequences

 * How would you feel about travelling to a country with a significant outbreak?
 * In what ways do you think a pandemic would effect the world's financial systems?
 * Which business do you think would be helped by a pandemic and which business would be damaged?

Vaccination

 * Do you think that vaccinations are useful or dangerous?
 * Can you explain how vaccinations work?
 * Do you usually receive a vaccination for flu in the winter? How is the vaccination given to you?
 * How much would you be prepared to pay for a vaccination?
 * Often vaccines are developed by governments and not drugs companies. Why do you think this is?
 * Is it moral for companies to make big profits by selling life-saving drugs? Would they develop them if they couldn’t make big profits?

Vocabulary

 * Ebola fever /iːˈbəʊlə, ɪˈbəʊlə, əˈbəʊlə/: the disease
 * Ebola virus: the virus that causes the disease
 * Ebola river: a river in the Democratic Republic of the Congo that gave the name to the virus and the disease
 * Zika fever /ˈziːkə/: the disease
 * Zika virus: the virus that causes the disease
 * Zika Forest: a forest in Uganda that gave the name to the virus and the disease