Pandemic Spreading Quickly
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On the pandemic front there are still many things happening. The World Health Organization issued a statement today stating that this is the fastest moving flu of any pandemic for which there are records. We may think in the US that things have calmed down but world wide they have not. Britain is expecting to see 100,000 new cases a day and as you know there are now over 1 million cases in the US. The WHO has stopped counting as it is impossible to keep up with the numbers and counting diverts the attention of medical personnel and researchers from the more important tasks such as documenting the serious and deadly cases. You can read the entire WHO statement here: http://www.who.int/csr/disease/swineflu/notes/h1n1_surveillance_20090710/en/index.html
Unfortunately in the US we don’t seem to take anything very seriously until it is too late. I found the following statement refreshing and encouraging as there seem to be some who understand the real risk.
“Superintendent Steve Anderson from West Midlands Police (UK) said officers could be forced to stop non-emergency work in a worse case scenario. He said the force rated swine flu along with terrorism, heatwave and flooding and concluded “a worse case scenario is that pandemic flu would be worse than any of those”.”
Since hospitals are sure to be overrun with patients during a pandemic all hospitals have been advised to establish alternative sites to be used for patient care. Recently 400 care facilities were asked if they are prepared to provide space and personnel during a pandemic and 23% said they are not.
Many communities are taking steps to prepare while others are not examining their options as aggressively. A case in point:
Friday morning,(June 12) Stanford Hospital tested a different triage model, one that could become the standard for how hospitals respond when thousands need care at the height of a pandemic. It’s a drive-through triage-and-care system that keeps sick people in their cars, preventing them from infecting anyone else, while allowing doctors, nurses and pharmacists to care for them as quickly and efficiently as possible through an open window.
“One of the biggest issues in a pandemic is cross-contamination,” said emergency medicine physician Milana Boukhman, as she waited for another volunteer “sick” person to arrive at her treatment station, one of several set up in a parking garage near the hospital. “Cars are self-contained contamination units. And this works if you have limited resources, too.”
The system tested Friday, with 40 patients and 50 health care providers, was simple. Each pretend patient, wearing a card with a list of symptoms on a neck string, drove to each step in the process to be questioned or examined by a physician, nurse or pharmacist through the window. Evaluators and observers, both health care and emergency preparedness officials, hovered near each stage, timing transactions and recording data. Each patient was registered, evaluated, treated and then discharged.
http://www.physorg.com/news164080368.html
A similar plan is in place in Irvine,CA where the parking lot of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints will be used as a triage center. This plan seems to be the answer so many questions concerning adequate space, social distancing and limiting the risk of infection to first responders.
While many would like to believe the danger has passed, it has not. Now is the time to ask what your community has done. Are they ready to care for the community when the hospital runs out of space? Is the a system in place to protect those who do not have the flu but have a medical emergency? Are there adequate protections in place for hospital personnel? All of these are legitimate questions to ask now… If you are uncomfortable with the answers, now is the time to prepare your home even more aggressively than you have been.
We seem to forget that the H5N1 (Avian flu) is still among us and is very deadly. As of May 20, 2009, 424 people world wide have contracted the H5N1 flu. That may not seem significant until you know that of those 261 have died. That is 61% ! We must continue to prepare as a deadly pandemic is sure to come, maybe not the H1N1, but one will come this year or in the future, but it will come.
I’m very excited to let you know that Prep Not Panic:Keys to Surviving the Next Pandemic is now available on Kindle! Yippee, please pass the word….
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I am so sorry to hear about your granddaughter. That is a terrible loss.
I heard on the news today that there are over 6000 cases of swine flu in Australia, with a number of deaths. One of the things that the health organizations are watching is what happens in the southern hemisphere where they are now having winter.
It is true that we don’t take things seriously until they are right upon us. Maybe we are too spoiled, too used to systems in place that seem to handle bad things for us much of the time. Just call 911 or wait for FEMA.
Plus, bad things happen to other countries, states, neighborhoods, but not to ours. Maybe we just don’t have enough experience with adversity in our young (less than 250 years old is very young), fun-loving, escapist, wealthy (by global and historical standards) country to respect the risk of bad times.
As schools are about to start up again and flu season is thus closer than we think, I decided that the best thing I can do about my worry for my unprepared family (I mean the other households of my extended family) is to send them each a prep pack to get them started.
I’ve been collecting masks, gloves and so forth since April when the scare first hit. (That’s when I first discovered your site, when I was trying to figure out what I needed to do.)
When I had more than enough masks, gloves and sanitizer for my family locally, I collected some more because it hit me that I wasn’t going to be able to live with myself if family members in other states were caught up in the shortages that will likely occur. It would be no comfort that they could be blamed for not preparing.
If someone in my or my husband’s family got very ill from the flu and they didn’t have any masks, etc., I would fear that they might have been spared if only I had spent a little more time and money to get them at least a little bit ready.
Now I’m assembling flu boxes for mailing and delivery. Some are getting a couple boxes each of masks and gloves, and a printed guide for flu home care and a note from me about the kinds of things (ORS ingredients, medicines, food, more masks and sanitizer) they should be getting now, and why.
A couple of boxes, for particularly vulnerable and less able households, have more supplies, including the various OTC medicines. I’ll also be making up a few packets of the ORS solution (sugar, salt) for those boxes, along with instructions for how to make more.
This project is taking time and extra money, but a little sacrifice now might save the life of a family member if it increases their awareness and motivates them to get more ready themselves. If I could only send a handful of masks and a printed flu guide (there are free ones on the net for those who can’t afford to pay for them) to each home and nothing else, at least I would know I had done what I could before it was too late.
I hope all this turns out to be unnecessary. But that’s not likely.
Its true! The media is too obsessed with celebrity deaths to remind people that the H1N1 flu is alive and kicking. There are confirmed cases of the flu in 1/3 of all the counties in my state. I live in Kansas, its not the largest populated state out there. I hear about people finding out Dad got the flu, then the whole family is quarantined and living on food storage and the good graces of neighbors and family that are able to go shopping for them.
I did really well boosting my 3 month food storage in May (when all the news was filled with woe), but I am getting to be more of a slacker since we are eating more from the garden and grocery shopping less often. Thanks for the reminder!
We had a grand daughter still born almost 2 years ago. It’s very difficult. I don’t know how those without the gospel knowledge deal with it. It’s even hard with that knowledge. Though, like you, it helps us to know that she is just waiting for us.
I want to thank you for keeping things real with this pandemic situation. It’s really bugging me that the media are being so lax about what and how they are reporting. Not to mention the “authority” figures they are choosing to use in their down playing of the pandemic realities.
Dee, Why not send a copy of Carolyn’s book (Prep Not Panic) to each one. It’s got great lists your family can put up in a cupboard to guide them now and when the flu comes.