Tag: pandemic

TACDA: Strategies for Coping with Isolation and Loneliness During the Pandemic

From The American Civil Defense Association, Strategies for Coping with Isolation and Loneliness During the Coronavirus Pandemic:

Contributors: Dr. Russell Fulmer, Dr. Michele Kerulis, Alexandria Widener, Lauren Brdecka, Ali Haji, Colbertson Kreger, Zemzem Amme, Sue Tao

“Loneliness is not a phase”

– Layne Staley, lead singer of Alice in Chains in the song Angry Chair

People respond to a world crisis in different ways. Some, including first responders, doctors, sanitation workers, and those in food preparation, must continue going to work to maintain essential functions in our communities. Others who are under stay-at-home orders have responded with stress, anxiety, and despair; they likely feel lonely and isolated. However, some people see a silver lining, have faith in humanity, and believe that, together, we can do our part to contain the COVID-19 pandemic.

The coronavirus pandemic has worried many people who already are anxious. We live in the Age of Anxiety. For those who experience the turbulence of anxiety, loneliness, panic, or existential angst in the best of times, a global pandemic may further trigger the underlying sense of existing uncertainty.

If you are lonely and anxious, we–members of the Counseling@Northwestern community https://counseling.northwestern.edu/–want to share how we are managing isolation and social distancing with the hope you may learn how to address the situation from different perspectives.

Our purpose is to:

  • Identify common types of isolation. Identification may be the first step toward lessening some of the pain. We draw from existential theory and philosophy, notably the work of Irvin Yalom.
  • Provide tips from students who deal with each type of pain, so that you might use their coping strategies. You will see that some students embrace isolation or otherwise identify positives from its onset.

Types of Isolation

There are three types of isolation: interpersonal, intrapersonal, and existential.

INTERPERSONAL ISOLATION is akin to loneliness. The often-repeated phrase that “it’s not the quantity of your relationships that matter, it’s the quality,” is relevant here. Certain personality styles may crave interactions with people more than other styles. Group identity is also relevant, including whether you belong to a group that society has traditionally shunned or oppressed.

INTRAPERSONAL ISOLATION is to disavow of part of the self. Have you ever said, “A part of me has died?” Do you recall a time you felt whole, but after a traumatic event, you felt fragmented? Maybe you have felt fragmented ever since. Or, did parts of you never have a chance to develop, maybe due to dysfunction in the home during your upbringing? If so, you know intrapersonal isolation.

EXISTENTIAL ISOLATION, as described by Yalom, is “a vale of loneliness which has many approaches. A confrontation with death and with freedom will inevitably lead the individual into that vale.” The existential form of isolation refers to the inherent gap that exists between people, no matter how close the bond. For example, your experience about an event—like the coronavirus scare—is unique to you, and your feelings about it, perceptions toward it, and exact encounters you have because of it will live only within you. Other people may have similar attitudes and experiences, but the unbridgeable gap remains.

Eight Tips for Managing and Thriving in Isolation During the COVID-19 Pandemic

1Accept the reality of the situation. Acknowledging an unpleasant reality may help to reduce stress and enable you to think through the best way to move forward.2Embrace your feelings. Acknowledging uncomfortable feelings can give you power over those emotions. Tend to feelings of danger and insecurity.3Don’t think about feelings as positive or negative. Feelings can represent how you connect to your environment and signal what actions you should take to make yourself comfortable.4Be mindful of how loneliness can manifest in physiological sensations like elevated heartbeat. Recognizing alarming sensations in the moment and allowing them to pass may help neutralize them.5Use isolation as an opportunity to better get to know and understand yourself outside of who you are when interacting with other people. Rediscover your uniqueness.6Focus on the opportunities isolation provides, rather than the things you have lost. Take advantage of extra time to make positive changes or pursue goals you may have put off.7Find ways to stay relaxed and connect to your social networks. Maintaining pre-pandemic routines as much as possible can help, but give yourself leeway to make adjustments.8Practice self-care. Receiving constant news updates can create more stress. Plan how you want to receive important information and take mental and physical breaks.

Learning to Accept Your Feelings While Experiencing Existential Isolation

Alexandria Widener

For me, experiencing existential isolation isn’t necessarily a bad thing, even though it does add another layer to my depression. Granted, I didn’t always view it in this manner. I used to fear the voice in my head that told me life was meaningless and nothing would change. I resorted to self-destructive measures in a desperate attempt to silence it. Nothing worked; I was always left alone with that voice in my head to keep me company. The only way to conquer it was to embrace it.

My main tip for anyone struggling with existential isolation or depression if it occurs as a result of isolation is to accept your feelings. Once you accept feelings of depression as a part of yourself, you gain autonomy over it.

However, there is a thin line between acceptance and concession. Acceptance places the power in your hands because it indicates you are acknowledging the discomfort and choosing to “sit with it” as opposed to running away. For me, accepting my depression means recognizing I interpret and feel things differently from others. I’m not always happy, and that’s OK. Embracing this knowledge frees me from pretending to be something I am not.Once you accept feelings of depression as a part of yourself, you gain autonomy over it.

Obviously, my experience will not be the same as yours. I can’t list coping skills to help you because what works for me might not work for you. People can accompany you on your journey to offer guidance and support, but ultimately, you arrive at the final destination alone. I’m genuinely enjoying the current social distancing and stay-at-home orders imposed by state leaders due to the coronavirus. Getting to choose when I interact with people has been refreshing. Once I accepted that whatever will be will be, it alleviated a lot of stress and anxiety. I’m not saying that I don’t think I can play a role in helping, nor am I saying that I have surrendered to complacency. I think we should come together and do what we can to flatten the curve. I just recognize that regardless of our efforts, what’s going to happen will happen. All we can do is our best. What that means for me is helping those who are most vulnerable, chilling with my dog, and binge watching The Good Doctor as I do my part to slow the spread by staying inside.

Tending to Yourself in Intrapersonal Isolation

Lauren Brdecka

Many of us, myself included, are familiar with intrapersonal isolation. At one time we felt whole and circumstances, events, and people took away that sense of wholeness. Circumstances such as the COVID-19 outbreak can trigger intrapersonal isolation. In a time like this, life is very limited, life-altering choices are being made for us, we have physical limitations, there is an acute sense of danger and caution, some of us may become hypervigilant, and the looming danger and fear may exist without the words to fully articulate the larger scope of your feelings and circumstances.

Intrapersonal isolation, very simply put, is isolation of parts of yourself. During this time of literal isolation, I have reflected on varying parts of myself and my once full life—my loving and rewarding relationships with my nieces and nephews (7 months old, 3, and 7 years old), my sober community, and serving and supporting my clients’ mental health—have become starkly narrowed. Being ordered to isolate has, if nothing else, ensured my physical safety and given me clarity on important aspects of my life and things I can live without.Intrapersonal isolation, very simply put, is isolation of parts of yourself.

I can live without fast food, but in the long run, I will struggle to live happily without seeing members of my family. Amid these unique times, I make sure to tend to the parts within myself that are longing for security. When I feel threatened or unsafe, I always lean into those parts of myself and hear what they have to say and make certain I am not dodging or shushing them. I “re-parent” the parts of myself that feel lost. Re-parenting allows people to give ourselves what we didn’t receive as children, such as positive reinforcement, someone who will listen to me, unconditional love, etc. I engage in re-parenting to heal the younger parts of myself that show up in adulthood.

For me, taking action to relax and stay grounded really helps. These things include yoga, stretching, cooking, taking a hot shower or bath, and meditation. Also, I ask myself, are there parts within me that believe being able to leave the house will make this easier? In fact, I am seeking more control in my life because the truth of it is, I am safer at home. On a daily basis, I FaceTime people I know, and I have reached out to friends to ask if we can go on walks together while standing far apart. The global pandemic requires me to be flexible in ways we have never had to be, and that is not inherently bad, although it may be uncomfortable.

Above all, I know that most of the literal world is having to face these uncertain and uncomfortable times and, although I am physically alone, I, by no means, am alone, which has actually helped me to feel even more united to people and parts of the world I will never meet or see. Stay well for the time being all, and this, too, shall pass.

Reframing Your Feelings Related to Interpersonal Isolation

Ali Haji

With social distancing becoming the buzz phrase of 2020, and for good reason, understanding the ramifications of interpersonal isolation on our mental health is important. All of us have likely felt the effects of interpersonal isolation and perhaps the one with which we are most familiar. Interpersonal isolation is defined as a person-person isolation. In other words, isolation from other beings. It is important to note that this does not always have to take a physical form. Interpersonal isolation can exist amid group gatherings whereby the way we relate to others is not ideal for what the group setting requires. Given the current state of society, I will focus most on the more literal, physical separation from others with which most of us are currently coping.Interpersonal isolation is defined as a person-person isolation. In other words, isolation from other beings.

As with most things in our life that render us out of control, knowing how to cope with the resulting feelings can make or break us. In my experience, interpersonal isolation and the subsequent loneliness that can result is a challenge. With any difficult feeling, I find it important to understand how the loneliness that I experience is unique to myself. I ask myself questions like “Where do I feel this feeling in my body?” and “What physiological sensations can I associate with it?” This process brings a mindful attention to our present moment, allowing us to observe the arrival and departure of uncomfortable feelings, thereby helping us to objectify them. The process of objectification and being mindful of our visceral sensations can allow us to reframe thought processes like, “I am lonely,” with “that’s loneliness.” In my experience, allowing the feeling to pass rather than holding on to it and using our thinking minds to “figure it out” proves most effective, albeit most difficult as it requires an attention to our present moment and felt experiences. Loneliness, like most other feelings, can often be paired with concrete physiological sensations like our hearts pounding, heavy breathing, or muscle tension. The onset of these feelings can be quite alarming and noticeable but in bringing a mindful attention to our state of being, we notice that the aforementioned sensations are not permanently lodged in our system but rather able to neutralize and dissipate as time passes. For example, maybe after a few minutes, we notice our breathing return to normal and our muscles beginning to relax.

We might also consider why we deem loneliness a negative feeling. Our feelings guide us and perhaps these feelings of loneliness are a gentle reminder that we need to reach out to those around us in the ways that we can. The energy that loneliness brings might be applied to poetry, music, writing, or creating in some capacity. At the end of the day, removing the duality of positive and negative is our best bet at seeing our feelings for what they are—our visceral and honest connection with the environments and surroundings in which we find ourselves. Perhaps they are not things that we need to avoid and push away and more so a highly personalized teacher that we have 24/7 access to, informing us of our limits and boundaries. We have a greater capacity to neutralize and feel our feelings than we give ourselves credit and sometimes reminding ourselves to have mastery of our feelings rather than be slave to them is the push we need. And hey, a Zoom-based social hour can always help.

Using Isolation to Encourage Acceptance of Your Authentic Self

Colbertson Kreger

In a society that promotes conformity while shunning originality, it is hard to find our place within the maelstrom of social self-acceptance. The person I am behind closed doors is my authentic self, whereas when the door opens, I become a performer. I am performing for the masses and myself a certain standard of human interaction, while at the same time wildly fantasizing about the feeling of authenticity. Taking the step toward an authentic experience with others, and most importantly, yourself, is to take a step into the unknown. We have performed since our birth, and now is a time to learn who we really are. Your uniqueness may be overshadowed by anxiety and internal critique, but that shadow can only be cast if you stand behind your angst instead of finally taking that fabled step toward the light of self-authenticity.

I have taken that step. I have shouldered the burden of being unique and all the notions that are attached, and I have felt the warm sun upon my face for the first time. Our purpose here has been constructed into spending our time to benefit a culture and society that does nothing more than break people down. Our time is for growth and taking the steps toward discomfort. Growth will only occur during a period of discomfort, and in a world of lies and fear mongering, we all owe it to ourselves to put down the mask, and to finally act as who we are.

Embracing Growth in the Face of Interpersonal Isolation

Zemzem Amme

With so many limitations now in place due to the ever-changing circumstances of the coronavirus, it is nearly impossible to still have your pre-pandemic routine. Sudden change commonly brings a period of mourning and anxiety that occurs when navigating through your new reality.

During these moments, I find Viktor Frankl’s words fitting: “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”Sudden change commonly brings a period of mourning and anxiety that occurs when navigating through your new reality.

This is the time where I challenge myself by finding new ways to still enjoy my time at home. It can be easier to focus on what we have lost, rather than seeing what we now can explore. Just like any growth, we are never truly ready. This is something new and it creates an opportunity—if you choose to seize it—for change. Whether you are reconnecting with individuals, better organizing your house, or doing the daunting task of confronting your internal conflicts, there is a chance of coming out of isolation changed for the better.

Even though we are bombarded with many new ways of communicating, it doesn’t replace what we are used to. As human beings, we are constantly communicating with people, whether verbally, through sign, or something as simple as eye contact. There is no right way to handle communication and connection disruptions during this situation, but there are ways to assuage the loneliness that we feel. For me, this is the time for reflection, when I can truly focus on what matters most. Though I may take this as a time for growth, the reality is that most of my growth happened around a community. Even though we all may experience this uncharted territory differently, one thing that doesn’t change is that we are experiencing this phenomenon together.

Generating Meaning from the Reality of Isolation

Sue Tao

Week two into social distancing, I have mastered a daily coping routine to keep myself active, both mind and body, and to keep from feeling isolated. I’ve taken advantage of this time that I call “a break from the world” to realign my personal agendas that have been pending due to the lack of time I had before the pandemic, such as studying for my national counselor exam. I recently integrated hosting a daily social hour with friends on Zoom, which has been a great hit with new friends dialing in, and group walks every other day for fresh air and live conversations with friends who are not exposed to COVID-19 and have complied with social distancing/isolation the past couple weeks. Lastly, I engage in daily mindfulness techniques, a skill set I am enhancing so I can teach my clients in the counseling arena about the benefits of mindfulness with competence and confidence.

I was determined at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic to not let the news and media affect my mental health well-being, because so often, stress and anxiety can be accumulated from consuming excessive news and media (which I have personally witnessed among my family and friends). No pun intended, but anxiety is a strand of virus that feeds the fear in us. All in all, I think that isolation is subjective, and it is my responsibility to generate a meaningful and productive day, one day at a time.

Living in Isolation as an Extrovert

Dr. Michele Kerulis

I am a social butterfly so having a mandated stay-at-home order feels very confining for me as an extrovert. I feel very fortunate that I am used to working from home. This experience allows me to feel 100% confident in my ability to work from home for prolonged periods.

What is difficult for me during this time is having my stress management tools taken away without advance notice. Part of my self-care routine is attending yoga classes, going to the gym, and participating in sporting events, many of which have been canceled. My gyms are closed so the routine of separating myself from work and going into a different environment to wind down from my day is no longer an option.

Each year, I look forward to seeing my colleagues at counseling conferences where we come together as a community and celebrate our amazing mental health field. Like falling dominos, we watched our community conferences canceled, one after another. I was devastated to learn I would not be able to see my fellow professors and counselors, as we frequently share ideas about how to continue providing for our students and clients. I was looking forward to providing a keynote address to my colleagues and helping to decrease the stigma related to seeking counseling services.

Like many helpers, I was shocked at the magnitude of the pandemic and I wanted to know what I could do to help. I know that I must care for myself if I want to be effective at caring for others. What I have done during the stay-at-home order is committed to a daily schedule to help create a sense of normalcy during these chaotic times. I suggest that people continue as if they were going on with their pre-pandemic routines as best they can. For me, this includes completing morning hygiene tasks, making a cup of coffee or tea, attending to work responsibilities online, and exercising. I take breaks throughout the day and connect with people. I call, text, and have Zoom video chats with friends, colleagues, and loved ones. I enjoy simple things like watching animal videos online, participating in home workouts from Pinterest, and looking at beautiful photos. I find that these simple, enjoyable things help decrease stress.I know that I must care for myself if I want to be effective at caring for others.

I have also turned off the TV and have asked specific people in my life to inform me of pandemic updates if/when my community status changes. I believe the oversaturation of media coverage is not healthy for society. Instead of overindulging in repetitive media posts and stories, I think it is more effective for people to come together as a community (while maintaining social distance) and to follow the recommendations of trusted health authorities like the World Health Organization and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Until the pandemic subsides, we must have faith in ourselves to keep living our day-to-day lives so we can be effective counselors and teachers.

Citation for this content: Counseling@Northwestern https://counseling.northwestern.edu/, the Online Master of Arts in Counseling Program from The Family Institute at Northwestern University

Reminder to Check on Vulnerable Neighbors

There have been some stories shared on social media of people being carefully approached by strangers who are in the high-risk categories for COVID-19 (older adults and people with heart disease, diabetes or lung disease) and asked for help with shopping or other resources, because the strangers are afraid to expose themselves by going into crowded stores themselves. Sometimes they are being given cash and a shopping list, which exposes these high-risk people to both theft and then not having supplies. If you have neighbors whom you know are in a high risk group, it is a good idea to contact them (ideally via a remote method that doesn’t expose them to anything you may be carrying) and ask if you can assist them with any preparations. You could also print them an OK/HELP sign so that they can notify neighbors if they need assistance, and the people for whom they have phone numbers aren’t able to respond to help.

Be mindful that you still need to practice good hygiene to prevent infection in either direction when passing off goods or payment.

Dr. Luks on Covid-19 Personal Risk vs Systemic Risk

The following is a post from orthopedic surgeon Dr. Howard Luks, MD, on Facebook about the difference between the personal risks of the novel coronavirus and the looming systemic risk. Most people have a pretty low personal risk to worry about the virus, but the systemic risk of an overwhelmed health care system is danger in itself.

COVID-19 Update: 3/8/20; 6AM

Confusion and messaging…. Personal v Systemic Risk:

Many people have had trouble grasping the issues we have covered as they try to make sense of it in the context of what they see on TV or read in print media.

Much of what the experts have been discussing is in fact accurate. Your “personal” risk remains very low. The risk to your children’s health is very low. So, their messaging is accurate… but incomplete. The message should be clear… your personal risk is low… period. No one is debating that. The issue that you’re not reading about is “systemic risk”.
The AHA or American Hospital Association is starting to discuss the systems side … see the second picture below for their estimates.

Personal risk aside, the issue that we need to confront, and soon, is the concept of systemic risk. I am referring to the healthcare system. Let’s dive into this again.
An example … Here are some numbers out of Italy:

10 % Lombardy doctors are infected.
At least 1060 patients are self-isolating at home
At least 2394 are hospitalized
At least 462 are in intensive care
197 have died.

The Italian Society of Intensive Therapy declared today: “It might be necessary to limit the age of people who can enter intensive therapy to preserve resources for those having more chances of surviving”. In other words, people who are more at risk will be left to die.

THIS IS WHAT SYSTEMIC RISK LOOKS LIKE.

~ Doctors/nurses getting sick: fewer to care for high numbers of patients.
~ 462 in an ICU…. and we are still very early in the spread of the infection stage. Italy will shut down large cities soon… but it will be too late. How many ICU beds do you think we have available in your community?
~ 2400 hospitalized. In the US, on average, hospitals run 65% full. In many regions of the country, mine included, that number is far higher.
~ Let’s conservatively assume that there are 2,000 current cases in the US today, March 8th. This is about 8x the number of confirmed (lab-diagnosed) cases. We just do not have the ability to test people. Period.
~ Given an R0 of 2( meaning that one person infects two people), and a doubling time of 6 days (one infection becomes two, two becomes 4, etc)
~ That means we’re looking at about 1 Million US cases by the end of April, 2 Million by ~May 5, 4 Million by ~May 11, and so on.
~ yes… math is wonky. and exponential math even more so.

Here are the current models from the AHA: Assumptions are actually conservative. Fatality rate assumption only 0.5%, etc. If that rate rises due to strained resources ….

96,000,000 infections
4,800,000 hospitalizations
1,900,000 ICU admits
480,000 deaths

Compare that to the numbers for the flu ..

35,500,000 infections
490,600 hospitalizations
49,000 ICU admissions
34,200 deaths

This is NOT the flu. Again… yes, your personal risk is low. However, the systemic risk to our healthcare system is huge. So we can change this trajectory… keep reading.

Assume there are~ 1 Million hospital beds in the US, therefore ~ 300,000 hospital beds (not ICU beds) are available in the US (assuming 65% of capacity)
~ It does not take long before our beds are full, and our resources are under strain.

To recap… your personal risk IS currently very low. If you are a young healthy adult your risk of dying from COVID-19 is lower than your risk of driving around today. That risk increases in people with diabetes and hypertension. Men are at slightly higher risk than women, and people over 80 have the greatest risk of dying (~15%).

So the messaging that you are viewing or reading is in fact accurate. Your personal risk is low. No need to panic.

Hospitals are not full right now… hospital resources are available to you. Only a few physicians, nurse, and health care workers are sick. So if you become infected now you will likely do fine.

What happens in a month when 2 Million people may be infected? Our healthcare system may not be able to offer the same level of care to those who need it. Therein lies the risk. This is systemic risk. This is why we need to stretch and bang down the “epidemic curve” or the rate of spread. The healthcare system CAN deal with many sick people arriving over a longer period of time. So we need to stretch the time course out. See the first picture below.

Why we should close schools and dramatically limit social contact via gatherings, events and conferences. It boils down to math… and the need to flatten the epidemic curve.

This is a great article that goes into the numbers and models with respect to lives saved by closing schools, working from home, cancelling gatherings, etc. It is well worth the 5 minutes it takes to read. The third picture below shows the detailed math of how closing schools etc will save lives.

https://www.linkedin.com/…/whats-your-risk-dying-covid-19…/…

So if your school district closes… don’t get on their case. It’s in the best interest of community as a whole. The risk to your child’s health in all of this is negligible. This is not a personal risk issue! I’m watching my own town’s facebook page explode with fear, personal attacks and political rants. It’s a shame. This is not a time for political wrangling. This is the time to act to keep our healthcare system running and our healthcare workforce well to be able to care for you when you or a family member becomes ill.

Yes, hand washing is critical … but it’s time to consider what else we can do to slow the spread. For your communities sake.
– we shouldn’t be going to indoor tournaments
– we shouldn’t be going to concerts
-conferences should be cancelled
– etc
Again… not because your individual risk is high… but because we need to slow the spread to minimize the risk of a systems failure.

For those interested in a deeper dive into the mathematical modeling of the spread of COVID and how it will affect our resources you can read this thread … https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1236095180459003909.html

Doom and Bloom: Home Care for COVID-19 Patients – WHO Guidance

The Altons at Doom and Bloom Medical have a video up on the WHO recommendations for home care of a coronavirus infected patient who has been asked to stay at home after medical evaluation.

Coronavirus

In situations when hospitals may be overwhelmed or understaffed the WHO has released guidance for Home Care of patients with mild symptoms. All concerned patients should be first be evaluated in a medical facility before home care is initiated. These measures are meant to decrease public contacts and the spread of disease, and decrease the patient load on hospitals during epidemics and pandemics .

Learn which patients may be asked to stay home during illness and when they should be hospitalized. A link to a medical facility should be established for the entire duration of any home home care until all symptoms have cleared and the facility releases the patient and resolved. This connection will allow family members and the patient to be reassured there is contact with a medical professional for questions and concerns.

Home care takes planning and education about personal hygiene, basic infection prevention and control protocols, and how to safely care for the sick person without spreading it to other household members. Recommendations (from the World Health Organization) are detailed in this video. Also see our How To Build A Sickroom video.

Wishing you the best of health in good times and bad,

Related:

Organic Prepper: How to Prepare for Quarantine

Virology Down Under: Past Time to Tell the Public It Will Go Pandemic

Virology Down Under is a website run by Ian Mackay, a PhD in virology. The following article was written for the site by Jody Lanard and Peter Sandman who are experts in risk communication and have written about risks involved with Ebola, Swine Flu and Zika in addition to Coronavirus. In Past Time to Tell the Public: “It Will Probably Go Pandemic, and We Should All Prepare Now the authors discuss the fact that governments should already be telling people to get prepared for a pandemic and banned public gatherings. The time for trying to contain the virus is past and pandemic preparedness is upon us. Don’t expect the government to keep the virus from your door.

In addition to the dangers of the virus itself, people should be prepared for product shortages off all types if the coronavirus goes pandemic. There have already been reports of things like face masks, and some auto manufacturers have warned that factories will need to close because of a lack of parts from China. But there are more common everyday items that are at risk of shortage, too. For example, Procter & Gamble has warned that it may have supply problems with over 17,000 of its products because they are supplied through over 380 companies in China. Procter & Gamble is a huge supplier of consumer products including such brands as Charmin, Crest, Tide, Vicks, Gillette, Pampers, Always, Tampax, Pepto-Bismol, Olay, Old Spice, Secret, and many, many other common household names.

We are starting to hear from experts and officials who now believe a COVID-19 pandemic is more and more likely.  They want to use the “P word,” and also start talking more about what communities and individuals can and should do to prepare.  On February 22, Australian virologist Ian Mackay asked us for our thoughts on this phase of COVID-19 risk communication.

Here is our response.

Yes, it is past time to say “pandemic” – and to stop saying “stop”

It’s a good time to think about how to use the “P word” (pandemic) in talking about COVID-19.  Or rather, it is past time.

It is important to help people understand that while you think – if you do think so – that this is going to be pandemic in terms of becoming very widespread,  no one knows yet how much severe disease there will be around the world over short periods of time.  “Will it be a mild, or moderate, or severe pandemic?  Too soon to say, but at the moment, there are some tentative signs that….”

The most crucial (and overdue) risk communication task for the next few days is to help people visualize their communities when “keeping it out” – containment – is no longer relevant.  The P word is a good way to launch this message.

But the P word alone won’t help the public understand what’s about to change: the end of most quarantines, travel restrictions, contact tracing, and other measures designed to keep “them” from infecting “us,” and the switch to measures like canceling mass events designed to keep us from infecting each other.

We are near-certain that the desperate-sounding last-ditch containment messaging of recent days is contributing to a massive global misperception about the near-term future.  The theme of WHO’s and many governments’ messages – that the “window of opportunity” to stop spread of the virus is closing – is like the famous cover page of Nevil Shute’s On the Beach: “There is still time … Brother.”

For weeks we have been trying to get officials to talk early about the main goal of containment: to slow the spread of the virus, not to stop it.  And to explain that containment efforts would eventually end.  And to help people learn about “after containment.”  This risk communication has not happened yet in most places.

So here is one more pitch for openness about containment.  Officials: Please read Containment as Signal, Swine Flu Risk Miscommunication, which we wrote in 2009.

One horrible effect of this continued “stop the pandemic” daydream masquerading as a policy goal: It is driving counter-productive and outrage-inducing measures by many countries against travelers from other countries, even their own citizens back from other countries.  But possibly more horrible: The messaging is driving resources toward “stopping,” and away from the main potential benefit of containment – slowing the spread of the pandemic and thereby buying a little more time to prepare for what’s coming.

We hope that governments and healthcare institutions are using this time wisely.  We know that ordinary citizens are not being asked to do so.  In most countries – including our United States and your Australia – ordinary citizens have not been asked to prepare.  Instead, they have been led to expect that their governments will keep the virus from their doors.

Take the risk of scaring people

Whenever we introduce the word “pandemic,” it’s important to validate that it’s a scary word – both to experts and to non-experts – because it justifiably contains the implication of something potentially really bad, and definitely really disruptive, for an unknown period of time.  This implication is true and unavoidable, even if the overall pattern of disease ends up being mild, like the 2009-10 “swine flu” pandemic.

Validate also that some people may accuse you of fear-mongering.  And respond that hiding your strong professional opinion about this pandemic-to-be would be immoral, or not in keeping with your commitment to transparency, or unforgivably unprofessional, or derelict in your duty to warn, or whatever feels truest in your heart.

It may help to consider the “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” fallacy.  Feel free to say that “Jody Lanard and Peter Sandman say” that officials or experts – in this case YOU – are “darned if you do anddamned if you don’t.”  You’re only darned if you warn about something that turns out minor.  But you’re damned, and rightly so, if you fail to warn about something that turns out serious.

It’s simply not true, in principle or in practice, that you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t!  Over-alarming risk messages are far more forgivable than over-reassuring ones.

Push people to prepare, and guide their prep 

This is the most culpable neglected messaging in many countries at this point.

The main readiness stuff we routinely see from official and expert sources is either “DON’T get ready!” (masks), or “Do what we’ve always told you to do!” (hand hygiene and non-mask respiratory etiquette).

The general public, and many categories of civil society, are not actively being recruited to do anything different in the face of COVID-19 approaching.

A fair number of health care workers and communication officers tell us their hospitals and healthcare systems are just barely communicating about COVID-19. They want to be involved in how to prepare for “business not as usual.”  We’re guessing that many hospital managements are in fact preparing for COVID-19, but we worry that they’re doing it too quietly, without enough effort to prepare their staff.

Lots of businesses, especially smaller ones, are doing off-the-cuff pre-pandemic planning.  Several trade journals have articles about how specific industries should prepare for a likely pandemic.  Around February 10, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention posted interim guidance for businesses.  But we have seen almost nothing in mainstream media citing this guidance, or recommending business continuity strategies like urgent cross-training so that core functions won’t be derailed because certain key employees are out sick, for instance.

Pandemic planning research suggests that employees are likeliest to say they will show up for work during a pandemic if three specs are met – if they think their family is reasonably safe; if they think their employer is being candid with them about the situation; and if they have a pandemic-specific job assignment in addition to or different from their routine “peacetime” assignment.

Hardly any officials are telling civil society and the general public how to get ready for this pandemic.

Even officials who say very alarming things about the prospects of a pandemic mostly focus on how their agencies are preparing, not on how the people they misperceive as “audience” should prepare.  “Audience” is the wrong frame.  We are all stakeholders, and we don’t just want to hear what officials are doing.  We want to hear what we can do too.

We want – and need – to hear advice like this:

  • Try to get a few extra months’ worth of prescription meds, if possible.
  • Think through now how we will take care of sick family members while trying not to get infected.
  • Cross-train key staff at work so one person’s absence won’t derail our organization’s ability to function.
  • Practice touching our faces less. So how about a face-counter app like the step-counters so many of us use?
  • Replace handshakes with elbow-bumps (the “Ebola handshake”).
  • Start building harm-reduction habits like pushing elevator buttons with a knuckle instead of a fingertip.

There is so much for people to do, and to practice doing in advance.

Preparedness is emotional too

Suggesting things people can do to prepare for a possible hard time to come doesn’t just get them better prepared logistically.  It also helps get them better prepared emotionally.  It helps get them through the Oh My God (OMG) moment everyone needs to have, and needs to get through, preferably without being accused of hysteria.

It is better to get through this OMG moment now rather than later.

Offering people a list of preparedness steps to choose among means that those who are worried and feeling helpless can better bear their worry, and those who are beyond worry and deep into denial can better face their worry.

Yet another benefit: The more people who are making preparedness efforts, the more connected to each other they feel.  Pandemic preparedness should be a communitarian experience.  When a colleague offers you an elbow bump instead of a handshake, your mind goes to those lists of preparedness recommendations you’ve been seeing, and you feel part of a community that’s getting ready together.

This OMG realization that we have termed the “adjustment reaction” (see http://www.psandman.com/col/teachable.htm) is a step that is hard to skip on the way to the new normal.  Going through it before a crisis is full-blown is more conducive to resilience, coping, and rational response than going through it mid-crisis.  Officials make a mistake when they sugarcoat alarming information, postponing the public’s adjustment reaction in the vain hope that they can avoid it altogether.

Specific pandemic preparedness messages

Below are links to specific preparedness messaging we drafted for a possible H5N1 pandemic.  The links are all from our 2007 website column What to Say When a Pandemic Looks Imminent: Messaging for WHO Phases Four and Five.  Each item is in two parts – a draft message (a summary sentence followed by a few paragraphs of elaboration), then a risk communication discussion of why we think it’s an appropriate pre-pandemic message.  Because these were written with H5N1 in mind, the pandemic they contemplate is more severe and less likely than the one we contemplate today.  So some changes may be called for – but frankly, in our judgment, not many.

One of the scariest messaging failures in the developed world is not telling people vividly about what the end of containment will look like, for instance the end of contact-tracing and most quarantines.

The FAQs on the Singapore Ministry of Health webpage (https://www.moh.gov.sg/covid-19/faqs) can serve as a model that other developed countries can adapt to start talking to their publics about this now, to reduce the shock and anger when governments stop trying to contain all identified cases.

What’s working for us

We’d like to share with you some of our recent everyday life experiences in talking about pandemic preparedness with people who perceive us as a bit knowledgeable about what may be on the horizon.  Some of this overlaps with the more generic comments above.

1.      We’ve found it useful to tell friends and family to try to get ahead on their medical prescriptions if they can, in case of very predictable supply chain disruptions, and so they won’t have to go out to the pharmacy at a time when there may be long lines of sick people.  This helps them in a practical sense, but it also makes them visualize – often for the first time – how a pandemic may impact them in their everyday lives, even if they don’t actually catch COVID-19.  It simultaneously gives them a small “Oh my God” moment (an emotional rehearsal about the future) – and something to do about it right away to help them get through the adjustment reaction.

2.      We also recommend that people might want to slowly (so no one will accuse them of panic-buying) start to stock up on enough non-perishable food to last their households through several weeks of social distancing at home during an intense wave of transmission in their community.  This too seems to get through emotionally, as well as being useful logistically.

3.      Three other recommendations that we feel have gone over well with our friends and acquaintances:

  • Suggesting practical organizational things they and their organizations can do to get ready, such as cross-training to mitigate absenteeism.
  • Suggesting that people make plans for childcare when they are sick, or when their child is sick.

4.      And the example we like the best, because it gives every single person an immediate action that they can take over and over: Right now, today, start practicing not touching your face when you are out and about!  You probably won’t be able to do it perfectly, but you can greatly reduce the frequency of potential self-inoculation.  You can even institute a buddy system, where friends and colleagues are asked to remind each other when someone scratches her eyelid or rubs his nose.  As we noted earlier, someone should develop a face-touching app – instead of a step-counting app to encourage you to walk more, how about an app to encourage you to auto-inoculate less!  And track your progress, and compete with your friends, even!

The last message on our list – to practice and try to form a new habit – has several immediate and longer-term benefits.

Having something genuinely useful to do can bind anxiety or reduce apathy.  You feel less helpless and less passive.

And you can see yourself improving.

And you can work on your new habit alone, and also in a pro-social communitarian way.  Others can help you do it, and you can help them.

And it yields real harm reduction!  It is arguably the endpoint of what washing your hands is for, and it helps when you can’t wash your hands out in the world.

Like all good pandemic preparedness recommendations, it helps you rehearse emotionally, as well as logistically.

The bottom line

Every single official we know is having multiple “Oh my God” moments, as new COVID-19 developments occur and new findings emerge.  OMG – there is a fair amount of transmission by infected people with mild or subclinical cases!  OMG – there is a high viral load early on in nasal and pharyngeal samples!  OMG – the Diamond Princess, how can that have been allowed to happen!  And on and on.

Officials help each other through those moments.  They go home and tell their families and friends, sharing the OMG sensation.  And then what do they tell the public?  That they understand that “people are concerned” (as if they themselves weren’t alarmed), but “the risk is low and there’s nothing you need to do now.”

Ian, it sounds like you want to argue on behalf of preparedness.  Encouraging all stakeholders to prepare logistically should start now, if not sooner.  And you are in a position not just to encourage logistical preparedness, but also to encourage government sources and other experts like yourself to do the same.  Perhaps even more important, in our judgment: You can try to encourage emotional preparedness, and try to encourage other official and expert sources to encourage emotional preparedness – guiding people’s OMG adjustment reactions instead of trying to stamp them out.

Related:

The Organic Prepper: The CDC Warns Businesses, Schools, Communities to Prepare NOW for Covid19: “THE DISRUPTION OF DAILY LIFE MIGHT BE SEVERE.”

Pandemic Preparedness for Businesses

This post attempts to gather some resources and information for businesses to make a pandemic preparedness plan. Every business will be a bit different – what applies to a city government will not be the same for a family run espresso bar. In the case of a pandemic, you will need to deal with the possibility of quarantined employees and customers, protecting the health of employees against the possibility of infectious customers, dealing with travel restrictions, possible death of key employees, communication difficulties, and much more. It’s best to at least have an idea of what sorts of problems your business may face before it actually faces them. While the current coronavirus is not epidemic in the US as of yet, you can learn a lot about business effects just by paying attention to what is happening in China and elsewhere.

As part of the planning process you need to:

  • identify core services, and what is needed to maintain the supply chain
  • identify staffing arrangements, such as telecommuting, succession planning and cross-skilling
  • protect the health of staff
  • develop a communications strategy for employees, customers and suppliers
  • consider financial implications, such as cash flow, cost increases and insurance
  • identify contingency plans for the unexpected
  • schedule how the plan will be tested and updated.

CDC Business Pandemic Influenza Checklist (pdf)

CDC Iterim Guidance for Businesses and Employers to Plan and Respond to COVID-19

Pandemic Preparedness for Faith Based Organization (pdf)

AlertFind: Pandemic Planning Templates – several templates linked at this website

OSHA: Preparing Workplaces for an Influenza Pandemic (pdf)

FEMA: Pandemic Continuity of Operations Template (pdf)

EDEN: A Guide to Preparing a Business Disaster Plan For Pandemic  (pdf) – a powerpoint overview

Example plan: Hotel Assoc of Canada Pandemic Plan (pdf)

BizChangers: Business Risks from Pandemics and Epidemics (pdf)

Some AIHA pandemic recommendations

Singapore Manpower Ministry COVID-19 guidelines for businesses and employers.

From NuWire:

Employers Need to Prepare Now

Prudent employers will assemble a pandemic team and plan if they have not done so already. The pandemic team should develop a coordinated and efficient pandemic response plan so that the needed public health information is gathered and transmitted; the communications to managers and employees about operations, cleaning protocols, leave and benefits is consistent and effective; and anticipated disruptions managed effectively while avoiding litigation risks and panic within the workplace.

The pandemic plan should provide pre-established means of communication and planning including:

  • Operational alternatives to shift production to unaffected areas and mitigate disruptions from quarantines and high absenteeism;
  • Education of employees on basic health precautions at work and at home, not reporting to work when sick or exposed, leaving work promptly when symptoms occur, and mechanisms for tracking who is ready to return to work or obtaining employee releases to return to work;
  • Implementing increased prevention and transmission precautions by increased cleaning protocols, disposal of employee tissues and cleaning up after sick employees;
  • Selection of safety equipment for key personnel possibly including masks, gloves and cleaning supplies and equipment, and the educational requirements for its application, use, removal, and disposal;
  • Redesign of procedures and operations to limit the face to face interactions of employees in group meetings, lines at time clock, cafeteria, elevators, etc.
  • Education of management concerning employee communications, transmitting self-disclosed infection information from employees, sending employees home who want to stay at work, and communicating with employees too scared to report.
  • Develop and communicate travel restrictions to any known infected areas.
  • Specific assignments for an emergency response team should include the following in the event that further response is necessary:
  • coordinating with federal, state and local authorities in control of public health and safety in case of quarantines and inoculation efforts;
  • developing and implementing evacuation procedures if they become necessary;
  • preparing facility shutdown check-lists;
  • identifying key personnel whose presence is important to continue vital company functions; and
  • determining methods for communicating effectively with employees.

Doom and Bloom: Epidemic Personal Protection Gear

The Altons at Doom and Bloom Medical have up an article discussing the various personal protection gear that a person would need to wear if caring for a highly contagious patient.

Having knowledge of infectious diseases and how to treat them is very important, but you’ll be more effective in preventing their spread by having some supplies. Which supplies? That all depends on the nature of the disease itself and the risk that the healthy population will be exposed to it.

Before you can be a successful caregiver and heal the sick in an epidemic, you must avoid becoming one of its victims. Viruses can be very contagious (like the airborne common cold) and have a low fatality rate. Alternatively, a disease may have a high fatality rate (like Ebola) and be less contagious (it’s not officially thought to be airborne). Rarely, a really infectious agent may be both very contagious and lethal (like The Pneumonic Plague in the Middle Ages).

In a truly virulent outbreak, healthcare providers are at serious risk. During the Ebola epidemic of 2014, being a medical worker was one of the principal ways to get (and die of) the disease. In 2020, the physician who first tried to warn the world of the coronavirus COVID-19 epidemic was, unfortunately, also one of its casualties.

Because of the risk to medical workers, strict protocols regarding what items a caregiver should wear are formulated and constantly modified based on new scientific evidence. A uniform way to to don (put on) and doff (take off) equipment is very important in safeguarding healthcare providers

PROTECTIVE GEAR TO WEAR

Here is what we think you should wear if you are taking care of a highly contagious patient. First, we’ll discuss which armor would give you the most protection. You should have…

•             Coveralls (with head and shoe covers; some come with hoods and booties built-in)

•             Masks (N95 or N100)

•             Goggles or face shields (to be used with, not instead of, masks)

•             Nitrile Gloves

•             Aprons

Shoe covers and built-in attached booties alone do not give you enough protection. Rubber boots should be worn and can be sanitized between patient encounters.

ABOUT FACE MASKS

N95 non-vented mask

Medical masks are evaluated based, partially, on their ability to serve as a barrier to very small particles that might contain bacteria or viruses.  Masks are tested at an air flow rate that approximates human breathing, coughing, and sneezing.  The quality of a mask is determined by its ability to tightly fit the average human face.  The most commonly available face masks use ear loops or ties to fix them in place, and are fabricated of “melt-blown” coated fabric (a significant upgrade over woven cotton or gauze)…

Click here to read the entire article at Doom and Bloom.

 

The Medic Shack: The N95 HEPA Mask

Peak Prosperity: Coronavirus Is Worse Than You’ve Been Told

Dr. Chris Martenson of Peak Prosperity has a PhD in pathogenic biology. He’s not a practicing doctor, but he does have an understanding of viruses. In this video he gives an overview of the dangers of the coronavirus and explains why the airport screening methods in use are only security theater.

Organic Prepper: Pandemic Preparedness

Daisy at The Organic Prepper has an article up about the Wuhan Coronavirus and what you can do now to prepare. From what is currently known, this coronavirus has approximately a 2% mortality rate. That is considerably lower than some other viruses that have made the news over the years, but while it is low it is about the same as the Spanish Flu pandemic that killed millions around 1918. Should you be worrying? It’s too early to tell right now. We don’t know if containment will be achieved or how easily it may spread. But if not this one, at some point another pandemic will sweep the world causing mass casualties, so it is good to have some preparation for the event.

…In Wuhan, supermarket shelves were empty and local markets sold out of produce as residents hoarded supplies and isolated themselves at home. Petrol stations were overwhelmed as drivers stocked up on fuel, exacerbated by rumours that reserves had run out. Local residents said pharmacies had sold out of face masks.

“When I saw the news when I woke up, I felt like I was going to go crazy. This is a little too late now. The government’s measures are not enough,” said Xiao, 26, a primary schoolteacher in Wuhan, who asked not to give her full name.

Few pedestrians were out and families cancelled plans to get together for the new year holiday. Special police forces were seen patrolling railway stations. Residents and all government workers are now required to wear face masks while in public spaces. Most outbound flights from the city’s Tianhe airport were cancelled. (source)

Those who wish to be prepared should note the speed at which quarantines were put in place in China. Don’t delay placing orders for supplies, fueling up your vehicle, and adding last-minute preps to your stockpile. You may already have many of the supplies you need, so be sure to do an inventory before panic-buying.

However, if you discover you do need supplies, get them now. If you wait until a quarantine is announced, you’ve waited too long and you’ll be out there fighting for resources with everyone else in your area.

Whatever your plan is, don’t delay taking action. Otherwise, you might find yourself in the same situation as 20 million Chinese people who were suddenly quarantined.

Click here to read the entire article at The Organic Prepper.

WSJ: New Coronavirus Spreading Person to Person

Antiseptic being sprayed at Incheon International Airport

A novel (new) coronavirus appeared in China in December, 2019. At that time, it appeared to be spreading from infected animals to humans who spent time around the infected animals. Now, the virus appears to be spreading with human to human contact. There has been a total of 310 confirmed cases of the infection with six deaths. This virus is believed to be much less deadly than SARS, another coronavirus strain.

Wall Street Journal: China Virus Kills Two More Patients as Authorities Step Up Control Measures

A newly identified virus originating in China killed two more people, infected dozens of others and jumped across the Taiwan Strait, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to more than 300 and prompting authorities across Asia to step up control measures.

The coronavirus, which causes pneumonia-like symptoms, has now killed six people in China, authorities said Tuesday, since it first appeared last month in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.

It has also spread beyond the country’s borders to Japan, Thailand and South Korea. On Tuesday, health authorities in Taipei confirmed the self-governing island’s first case of the new coronavirus, a 50-year-old Taiwanese woman who had been working in Wuhan.

Chinese health authorities acknowledged Monday that the coronavirus is being transmitted between humans, heightening concerns that it could spread quickly as tens of millions of Chinese people travel across the country and abroad for the Lunar New Year holiday later this week…

Medical workers have themselves been infected. Fourteen medical staff that authorities previously confirmed to have been infected came in contact with a single patient with the coronavirus in Wuhan, said Zhong Nanshan, who is one of China’s most highly regarded epidemiology experts and is leading an expert committee on the outbreak for the National Health Commission.

Wuhan will take more stringent measures to prevent transmission of the disease, including canceling what it considers unnecessary large gatherings, setting up a prevention and control center, and strengthening protection of medical staff, China’s state-run Xinhua News Agency said Tuesday.

Xinhua reported that officials in Wuhan, a sprawling city of 19 million people, would work to minimize public panic by informing citizens about the outbreak in a “timely, open and transparent manner…”

Click here to read the entire article at The Wall Street Journal.

WHO: World Facing ‘Acute Risk of Devastating Disease Pandemics’

Infectious disease doctors have for some time been worried about another Spanish Flu-style pandemic, fearing that the world is overdue for one. This article from The Independent seems a bit engineered to incite alarm, but it is still a good message. A pandemic could arise at any time, and people will probably be surprised when it does.

World facing ‘acute risk of devastating disease pandemics’ which would kill millions, WHO warns

An airborne pandemic could kill millions and wipe 5 per cent from the global economy, according to WHO scientists

An airborne pandemic could kill millions and wipe 5 per cent from the global economy, according to WHO scientists ( Getty )

The world is facing the growing risk of a disease pandemic which could kill millions, and critically destabilise the global economy, an international expert panel of scientists has warned.

The Global Preparedness Monitoring Board (GPMB), a new body assembled by the World Bank and the World Health Organisation formed after the west African Ebola outbreak, has said governments must make considerably larger efforts to prepare for and mitigate that risk.

In its first annual report, the GPMB said there is an “acute risk for devastating regional or global disease epidemics or pandemics that not only cause loss of life but upend economies and create social chaos”.

“The threat of a pandemic spreading around the globe is a real one,” the group said in a report released on Wednesday.

“A quick-moving pathogen has the potential to kill tens of millions of people, disrupt economies and destabilise national security.”

“While disease has always been part of the human experience, a combination of global trends, including insecurity and extreme weather, has heightened the risk. Disease thrives in disorder and has taken advantage–outbreaks have been on the rise for the past several decades and the spectre of a global health emergency looms large.

It added: “There is a very real threat of a rapidly moving, highly lethal pandemic of a respiratory pathogen killing 50 to 80 million people and wiping out nearly 5 per cent of the world’s economy.

“A global pandemic on that scale would be catastrophic, creating widespread havoc, instability and insecurity. The world is not prepared.”

 

Click here to read the entire article at The Independent.

Doom and Bloom: Dengue Fever – A Rising Pandemic

The Altons at Doom and Bloom Medical have an article up on Dengue Fever , its current pandemic status, symptoms, treatment and precautions.

 

  • aedes aegypti mosquito

    Singapore dengue outbreak: Nearly 9000 cases through July – Outbreak News Today

    Nicaragua declares alert over dengue fever – Washington Post

    Bangladesh grapples with country’s worst dengue outbreak – Miami Herald

    Three headlines about Dengue Fever this year? No, actually they’re all headlines just from one day: Aug 1st, 2019. Dengue fever is a true pandemic, with community wide outbreaks in various regions throughout the world. Indeed, rates of Dengue infection are thought to have increased greatly since 1960 due to encroaching civilization and population growth in warmer regions. As a resident of South Florida, I believe that the development of residential air conditioning around that time may have precipitated the explosion in potential victims.

    rash in dengue patient

    What is Dengue fever? It’s an infection caused by a virus that’s transmitted to humans by mosquitoes. If you live between latitude 35 degrees north and 35 degrees south, and lower than 3000 feet elevation, you’re in Dengue territory.

    And you’re not alone. An estimated 400 million people get infected with the Dengue virus every year. Luckily for the grand majority, they don’t even know they have it. 96 million cases, however, aren’t so fortunate and develop sickness.

    The mosquito in question is the Aedes Aegypti, but other species may possibly spread it. A mosquito bites a human with the Dengue virus and becomes infected. It doesn’t get sick, but the virus is now in its saliva for life. The mosquito passes Dengue onto the next human through its next bite.

    Just a few diseases transmitted by mosquitoes

    There are actually four different but related viruses that cause dengue fever, but the symptoms are similar. If you’re in the unlucky minority that gets sick, you can expect to see signs about four to seven days after the infectious bite…

     

Click here to read the entire article at Doom and Bloom.

Eaton Rapid Joe: Fourteen Cows – A Preparedness Story

At the Eaton Rapid Joe blog, Joe has written a series articles about a man in small town trying to get prepared and prepare his neighbors for what he believes is an imminent Ebola outbreak. The series started back in January and runs through this month, so it will take a bit of read to get through. The story is Fourteen Cows.

 And it came to pass at the end of two full years, that Pharaoh dreamed: and, behold, he stood by the river. And, behold, there came up out of the river seven well favoured kine and fatfleshed; and they fed in a meadow. And, behold, seven other kine came up after them out of the river, ill favoured and leanfleshed; and stood by the other kine upon the brink of the river. And the ill favoured and leanfleshed kine did eat up the seven well favoured and fat kine. So Pharaoh awoke.  Genesis Chapter 41

The bulletin boards and forums were on fire with rumors of Ebola having made land-fall in the continental US.

The original posts cited videos that had been quickly yanked off the internet. A typical video was of a middle school basketball game where one of the players  suddenly collapsed and started vomiting bloody fluid.

The CDC felt compelled to issue a statement that the seasonal flu sometimes exhibited those symptoms and to not panic. The CDC claimed to have everything under control.

Rick Salazar had plenty of time to track the progress of the phantom epidemic. He worked the gig economy and was currently in a lull. Also, the middle of January was a slow time on the farm. On nice days he might cut a little bit of firewood but other than that all he did was walk the dogs.

What was distressing to him was that the videos seemed to all originate in San Diego, California and St. Paul, Minnesota. If the CDC’s story was true then the videos should be originating in a semi-random fashion that was roughly proportional to population density.

It only took a few minutes of internet research to learn that San Diego and St. Paul were epicenters for refugees from Uganda and its neighboring countries. IF Ebola was going to show up in the US then it was more likely to show up in those two cities than just about anywhere else.

Rick logged off his computer and took a stroll around the property. He did not like what he saw.

There was nothing wrong with the forty acres. It was fifteen miles from “the city” of 200,000 and roughly five miles from two cities of five thousand each. Nope, the problem was not the property. It was the house and its proximity to the roads.

The house was a scant 150 feet from the road and another road pretty much “T”ed into the front yard. The house was indefensible.

Then Rick rode his mountain bike around the two square miles that contained his forty acres. After that he rode a couple of miles up the road that “T”ed into the road he lived on.

What he saw was that the landscape undulated and there was a high point about every quarter mile. He also saw the reason why the road department decided to end the one road at the T. The two square miles were bisected the long way by extensive muck bottomed marshes. Rick had heard one neighbor say that some of those muck deposits went down thirty feet. Not a desirable roadbed by any stretch of the imagination…

Click here to read at the Eaton Rapids Joe blog. At the end of each installment is a link to the next installment.

The Medic Shack: Pandemics

The Medic Shack has a short article up about preparing for pandemics, Pandemics. The Media, Food and YOU. It is not a comprehensive guide, as he admits in the article; rather, it is meant to assure the reader that the risk is real and how to get a start on thinking about preparation.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a bit on Typhus in the US. 3 years ago it was barely on the radar. The talk of the town was Ebola. It is making a guest appearance in Congo. Oh guess what. There is a bit of a civil war going on there. What happens when war and deadly communicable disease meet? People leaving to escape the war. And bringing the little friends with them. Cat Ellis The Herbal Prepper and I talked about the dangers of modern air travel and the rapid spread of violent viruses. What we didn’t talk about then was our family car.

Right now Typhus is having a resurgence in California and in Texas. And its coming on the winter travel season. OMG DO WE NEED TO SEAL OUR STATE BORDERS TO PREVENT THE SPREAD OF THE PURPLE CREEPING FUNGUS???????ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!

OK. A little melodramatic. But a valid concern.

NO we are not going to start bouncing about in a panic like a fork dropped into a garbage disposal.

Fact is is if a pandemic is going to start there is not much in the 21st century way of life that will stop it. Until we get “Star Trek level Bio Scanners” that will screen and kill pathogens, we need to be smart about protecting ourselves and family

Last year was the deadliest flu season in decades. @ 80,000 deaths were attributed to the flu. CDC Brief on Flu Deaths 2017-2018 (Also NO I am not going to get into the pros and cons of flu shots) I’m just using it as an example of how bad a virus spread can be.

Viruses are not the only “bugs” that can kill us. For people who do not live in the desert southwest or mountain west have not heard much about Bubonic Plague. Except out of history books. My son Jake’s boss at the local blood bank in Anchorage thought he was joking when he talked about how plague kills people every year. Until he showed them the stats.

So how do we prevent the spread of disease or the start of a pandemic when things go bad if the technology of the 21st century can not do it?

Do we isolate ourselves behind walls and barriers? Or do we learn how to stop or at least slow down the spread of disease.

Quarantine.

It is one of, and in all reality the best way to stop the spread of disease. In todays world it is a “dirty word” We say that we need to quarantine Fido for a few days before bringing him to the summer retreat in Hawaii its all good. But when we say we need to quarantine a group of people from Outer LithuUnitedia because the Purple People Eating Fungus is running rampant there. People get up in arms and the cries of discrimination and racism fly though out social media and the 24/7 news outlets…

…This article is one of those that was and is tough to write. In reality it needs to be broken into a host of smaller articles detailing different facets. This one is written to provoke. No promote discussion. Please take the time to converse with me or with anyone about the different scenarios. My email is medic@themedicshack.net Facebook is The Medic Shack or Mewe at The Medic Shack

Pandemics are real. Not the product of imagination. Time is way past to learn how to protect ourselves from them. The first link of the chain, and one that is ALWAYS broken, is. Communication. There is no real, concise, and most of all believable source. But wait! What about the CDC? Yes they send out warnings. But are dependent on the national and local media. Ok so what about the local or national media? Good question. What is the general media talking about. When there is something on the news about illness it is sandwiched between politics, hate crimes and the Hollywood Who’s Who. Do a news site search for the current Ebola outbreak in the Congo. See what you find in the news.

As I said earlier. I have no intention of doing the fork in the garbage disposal routine of panic. I am just wanting to pass on information. The most powerful weapon we have is not our weapons. Its our mind. We need to employ it. And to employ it we need to arm it. Knowledge is ammunition. And used correctly it is the most powerful weapon and more importantly, the best tool for survival.

Cat Ellis The Herbal Prepper has written a book on pandemics. Its called Prepping for a Pandemic and its on Amazon. Get a copy and read it.

Click here to read the entire article at The Medic Shack.