Pandemic severity index

[1] Released by the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on February 1, 2007, the PSI was designed to resemble the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale classification scheme.

The goal of the index is to provide guidance as to what measures various organizations can enact that will slow down the progression of a pandemic, easing the burden of stress upon community resources while definite solutions, like drugs and vaccines, can be brought to bear on the situation.

[8] The main criterion used to measure pandemic severity will be case-fatality rate (CFR), the percentage of deaths out of the total reported cases of the disease.

[5][6][7] While unveiling the PSI, Dr. Martin Cetron, Director for the Division of Global Migration and Quarantine at the CDC, reported that early feedback to the idea of a pandemic classification scale has been "uniformly positive".

[8] The University of Minnesota's Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) reports that the PSI has been "drawing generally high marks from public health officials and others, but they say the plan spells a massive workload for local planners".