Prepping for pandemic...

[wheresmymojo]

I was quite blasé about the novel corona virus outbreak but things I've read today have changed my mind.

I'm not usually a prepper but best things to stock up on for a pandemic?

Surgical face masks?
Latex gloves?
Anti bac wipes and hand wash?

naturalbornwoman it’s not only 10 days in. It started in December in China

Yes Dodie it did, and until 21 Feb there were a couple of hundred cases and 6 reported deaths. Since 21 Feb it's exploded to 12k cases and moved to other countries. Look at the graph, it's too soon to know what will happen now.

Graph

The times newspaper today mentions in one of its articles that the first case in Wuhan was 8th December

Yes the WHO first reported it on 31st Dec, which is when it became clear that this was not a standard CoV virus but something new. There will have been cases prior to that to trigger the WHO response.

Having other health problems, if I get this I’m one of the dead ones. My issue is if a hospital is full, normally say today if I got this they could maybe keep me alive in ITU. But say in a month so when the hospital is full of people, they don’t have the same resources to throw at me. Also they then don’t have the resources to treat my underlying condition.

For me the possibilities are genuinely terrifying.

If everyone washed their hands after every contact, before eating, on getting home, it would make such a huge difference. Then you see people walk out of service station toilets and not wash their hands after touching a door handle 2000 other people have touched and you wonder how things spread?

For me it’s if things progress, having enough food/toiletries so we don’t have to leave the house for as long as it lasts.

But trying to work out how many months of food/toiletries I need is the issue.

Anyone know the official stats on how long the virus lasts on surfaces?

I would work on estimates for how long other similar viruses live.

I would also try to think through the 14 day incubation period. One would need more than one cycle of incubation and infection. Eg patient 0 infects patients 1-3 on days 10-14 when 0 shows symptoms and is quarantined. If 1-3 aren't traced, they become infectious, sometime before they show symptoms at day 25-28. The problem comes if we are underestimating spread. Say patient 0 infects patients 1-3 who show symptoms are quarantined, and patients 4-6-? with the virus but they only have minor sniffles and are still out and about.. ?

Hopefully the experts are working all this out and we will get more information.

However, if you are bugging in, at least a months worth of food if you are going to do it properly.

The advice about friends taking kids to school proves the bonkersness of school at all costs, kids are very likely to catch it from parents, what with close contact and all that, and the little germ factories will be spreading it rapidly amongst their peers.

Anyone know the official stats on how long the virus lasts on surfaces

BBC yesterday said not more than 24 hours...
A hell of a lot of people can touch a door knob in 24 hours.

Myhair, try to minimise chances with hand washing, carry soapy flannels, or gel that kills viruses, try not to touch faces, try not to touch as much as possible. Try to limit your contact with people, smaller shops, shop at quiet times, etc.

I think you have to assume everyone else is a mucky bugger and wash everything that comes into the home.

Do we need to wash the fruit and veg we bring in? People pick things up and put them down, sneeze/cough on them...

You can only control your actions.

I have to be honest I am concerned at the response from the Chinese government and other countries, this level was never reached during the Ebola crisis in Africa and that has a 70% death rate, why is this virus getting this reaction with a death rate of 2%?

Do we need to wash the fruit and veg we bring in? People pick things up and put them down, sneeze/cough on them...

I thought everybody did wash them.

Here in Italy the staff jump on you if you try and select fruit, veg or bakery stuff without plastic gloves.

Just in case it's of interest, my LA and many others have critical incident management guidance available for schools (can be read online) and schools have been encouraged to have a critical incident policy which includes health crises/ pandemic. Advice on when to close schools is in the guidance. When the swine flu epidemic was around my LA also had a planning document (also available to read online) for managing a pandemic in the county: medical care, supplies, when to close schools, etc. I'd think these documents are being pulled out and revised.

Most people give their veg a quick rinse under the tap before they use it, was thinking more of when you got it home before putting away. Or washing more thoroughly than normal.

Most people would not wash the apple bag for example. Just thinking about a previous posters post of how long the virus can last on surfaces. There is at least on MNers DH who wipes all the shopping before they put it away.

We usually prep for a couple of weeks for sickness, nothing extreme. Although, my larder wouldn't be able to make full meals, but we'd have plenty of calories to consume.

Looking forward to reading this thread later though!

We had this discussion in work on Friday and my colleague said she would go out and buy everything needs in an emergency situation where she couldn't leave her house for her 2 weeks and I said "Isn't that what everyone else would be doing? It's likely there'd be a panic and nothing left."
It definitely gave her something to think about without panicking her.

I’ve not read the whole thread, and disclaimer: I’m not a prepper 🙂. However I live in Hong Kong (British expat family) so I’m happy to answer any questions (to the best of my abilities) about what’s it like to live through a public health crisis of this type.

So far we’ve had:

• All schools shut down for at least a month
• large-scale theft of face masks
• run on supermarkets - shelves completely empty of veg, rice, noodles, bread
• planes turning away
• Health Secretary crying during a press conference
• riots/protests against the decision to use certain residential buildings as quarantine quarters, with protesters setting one building on fire
• and today, 9,000 medical workers (including 6000 nurses and 700 doctors) pledging to go on strike from Monday for a week.

And we “only” have 13 (officially) diagnosed cases yet...

What has prompted such a reaction do you think Revolution?

@RevolutionofourTime first off, hope you and yours are doing ok. Thank you very much for your insight. I spent a bit of time in HK before the handover- struck me as there being tbe majority of people living in flats/apartments. Which must make things more difficult.

When we had swine flu dds school went into complete denial about it. It was farcical - even to the point of trying to tell me dd didn't have it, despite her having been diagnosed by her gp.

Couldn't get any hand gel in sainsbury's. Simply couldn't find it.

How are you feeling about it ?

Superdrug has hand gel buy one get one free.

Standard hand gel wont kill viruses unless it contains over 60% alcohol. It just makes people complacent about not washing hands.