How do you prepare for a pandemic?

[Chainfire]

I am a person who has always tried plan ahead.

I live in a hurricane prone area. At the beginning of the hurricane season, I lay in a couple of weeks of food supplies. I keep one of my two vehicles full of gasoline all the time. I keep a couple of thousand bucks in cash in the safe. I make sure that there are no missiles laying around the yard. I tend to weak trees. I built my house, well inland, well above the flood plane, to stand up to hurricane force winds and I built a strong room in the center of the house for additional safety. I have experience with storms and know what to do to stay safe. When a storm starts forming I keep a close eye on the weather reports in order to make a decision as to whether to stay or go. Sometimes, regardless of how prepared you are, it is just time to go.....

Now the national rhetoric is rapidly changing about the coronavirus and the WHO and the NIH has made it fairly clear that the virus is indeed coming to a town or city near you. The wizards in the stock markets have bet on it.... If you see a pandemic coming, there is no where to evacuate to, there is no way to reinforce my home against it, and it is very liable to outlast food supplies. I live in a economically depressed area where health care is very thin, health insurance is not the norm and people only go to doctors when they are in crisis; meaning that if it comes here, it will likely explode in the local population.

If I were young and very healthy I may not be very concerned. My wife and I are definitely not young. How do you rationally prepare for a pandemic?

[MissB]

1. CDC has a brochure for that

https://www.cdc.gov/nonpharmaceutical-interventions/pdf/gr-pan-flu-ind-house.pdf

[SCantiGOP]

3. Thoughts and prayers?

Fear and loathing?

Or how about raise hell and vote.

[WhiteTara]

5. plastic and duct tape?

[Chainfire]

11. No help

Sex has sailed....

[WhiteTara]

12. I didn't think about that aspect

I was more thinking about how *co wanted us to protect ourselves from nuclear fallout? With plastic sheeting and duct tape. But yes, sex has sailed!

[lapislzi]

9. November's a long way off

Although I endorse your comment, we don't have that kind of time.

[Amishman]

2. Extra food and supplies in case quarantined. Get into good habits with hand washing

The sanitation habits is probably the biggest part. Minimize contact with frequently handled surfaces, wash hands properly and frequently. Avoid extra time in crowds.

Do all of this before it is in your area. With the long incubation period and slow ramp up of symptoms, it will have apread quite a bit before it is known to be active in your area.

[sinkingfeeling]

4. I've been washing my hands so frequently that my finger tips have split open.

[Coventina]

6. Then you are definitely defeating the purpose, and making yourself more vulnerable, not less.

Cut down, at least temporarily, until your hands heal.

Then, be sure to moisturize after washing.

[Sherman A1]

10. Buy some Aquaphor to use on the cuts

And slow down the hand washing.

[beachbumbob]

7. the problem is, at this point its unclear how this virus goes around AND

its killing people considered to be in "low risk categories" with what little data we have. How to prepare is really difficult with pandemics as the impact on how long the virus stays around vs what you can do to minimize exposure.

Look at the Spanish Flu pandemic on how that spread and stayed around for a year in a world where we did not have such rapid means of transportation and spread.

[Coventina]

8. How can that be? Both Rush Limbaugh and DUers keep telling me it's just a cold!

And that only the elderly with pre-existing conditions are at risk!?

[OhioChick]

13. Don't forget those with autoimmune diseases (of any age)

That have to take corticosteroids (or any medication) that suppress the immune system, not to mention those with cancer who already are immunocompromised.

This is not only a cold or flu. It's even taking the young and healthy.

[panader0]

14. The very first thing would be to admit the seriousness of the problem,

instead of denying that there is one. Assemble the best and brightest
minds to guide the efforts. Sink money into the effort like it was deadly
serious, which we know it is.
But our leader in chief has done the opposite of those things.
Many will suffer. Businesses will suffer from cruise ships to airlines
to restaurants to theaters--anywhere people gather in groups.
Dummy in charge is nuts, we all know that. Sometimes I feel like I may
lose heart, but I never will. He must go.

[Chainfire]

15. Trump did that

He appointed the best and brightest of his administration to lead the fight. Zombie Mike. (My DIL is an embalmer, she has handled hundreds of dead people, she as assured me that she is quite certain that Mike Pence is actually dead)

Now, I don't want to start any rumors, but.....

[Politicub]

16. So this happened...

I made a Costco run yesterday afternoon. I was thinking of getting some canned food and noodles and such as a preparatory measure for the possible pandemic. I'm really not sure what I should get, but canned things seemed apropos. We would be able to eat a case of peas eventually, and canned chicken can be made into a salad (although I hate canned chicken after the first can and usually the other two cans that come in the pack go unused until I throw them out).

But that was about it. I didn't plan on going hog wild. Here's what I found, though, and why I started to get concerned.

The first thing I noticed was that all of the bottled water, paper towels and toilet paper were sold out. I wanted to get a giant pack of toilet paper since it was on sale this month. No biggie, though. Then I went through the food aisles to look for some canned goods. And, those were sold out, too. Costco is never sold out of anything. The same thing was true for the giant bags of rice and packs of Clorox disinfectant wipes.

They did have canned chicken, but I didn't get it because I didn't see the point of subsisting only on canned chicken.

Then I became a little panicked about being out in such a large crowd. Germs. I watched people wait in line for samples, stuff their face, and then move onto the next sample table. There was no hand washing taking place. And, Costco was packed, as it always is on the weekend, of course.

All of this got me to thinking that maybe I should be taking preparatory measures more seriously.

I honestly don't know why to buy or stock up on. I'm going to go through some of the recommendations from the CDC and others, and use my intuition about what I will be able to use later on. I'm not a Spam snob, so that will be part of my quarry should I find it while I'm out and about. Don't judge. And I will get a pickle craving.

What are others doing? I live in Atlanta, so if panic sets in, stores will be picked over pretty quickly I would imagine.

I don't like to buy bottled water because of the waste. I doubt the municipal water supply will be shut off. Even if it gets contaminated, I can boil it on the stove to kill bacteria.

This is kind of a rambling post since I'm not sure what I should be doing and I wanted to share what I'm seeing locally.