Preparing For Spreading Coronavirus

[Alphabrew]

I'm glad to see Americans more interested in prepping.

100% agreed. I don’t think much will come of Coronavirus, but it was a great stress test to see how easily the food supply chain can easily be interrupted. I have always been casually interested in prepping but now wife and I are both 100% on board. I’m looking forward to building up my prep stash!

 

[Reptile]

Agree 100%!!! The media manufactures drama and crisis because if they didn't there would be very little news to report. No news to report, no money.

All the organizations preparing for Corona are mostly doing so for CYA purposes because it is in the news so much. If you look at the lethality of Corona, it's far less than the common flu. Last year, over 60,000 Americans alone died from the common flu. So far, Corona has killed a few thousand throughout the entire world.

If you want the media to go silent and pretend everything is fine, elect Biden or Sanders.

 

[willtill]

Scored some nice ribeyes today at Arundel Mills Costco. Am seeing that they are now limiting bulk rice, flour, sugar for two per person. Costco is still very well provisioned.

 

[govwontletmebuycoolguns]

Finally broke down and replaced the axle oil seals in the ol' death wagon.

 

[6-Pack]

I need to be much better organized. All of my “stuff” is on a shelf and I just found 4 huge bottles of hand sanitizer (sealed). Each bottle is 67 ounces. Wonder if I should sell one or two to replenish my stash after things calm down.

Anyways, organization is key. Don’t just throw stuff on a shelf.

 

[fidelity]

Without readin thru the whole thread cuz Im a lazyass, anybody else think this mess is bein way overblowed?



After all, good news dont sell but the apocalypse sure will

This virus just started spreading in China in December 2019 and in other locations in the world sometime thereafter. It's not as widespread as flu which is endemic to the world population. H1N1 flu that is hitting in the US since January got its start in 2008/2009. We can rapidly diagnose flu, have an antiviral drug to treat it, and can vaccinate for it. All these things help.

We're not as set-up to treat this new coronavirus. The current data indicates it transmits more easily than flu. Bummer. It also kills more than flu. Really bad flu kills 0.07-0.10% of people it infects in the US. This year, we're seeing 0.056%. Wherever there are a 1000+ people in the world infected with the new coronavirus, we currently see rates of death of 0.6% to 3.9%. Yeah, even bigger bummer. So this virus spreads better and kills more. If we give it more time to spread and catch up to flu in how well disseminated it is in the world, we will see more deaths total too. That's why it's a health emergency. The numbers are tracking awfully close to the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic (sometimes called a once in a century flu). It killed 1.1% in the US and 3-4% worldwide.

We have a few examples in the world of encouraging outcomes and scary outcomes. Encouraging is someplace like South Korea. They moved fast. Isolated pockets of infected people and screened screened screened to ensure they knew all who were infected. They have something like 7000 infected, but it's slowing down. Their fatality rate is 0.6%, only 10 times worse than flu in the US right now. The opposite are places like Italy and Iran (and Hubei province in China). The death rates in these places are 3% or higher. Italy is close to 6000 people known to be infected with many being added to the number infected and dead every day. They just decided to quarantine areas containing 14 million people.

What happens is if the infection starts to run away in an area where the death rate might otherwise be 0.6-1.0% is that it jumps to 3-4% because the hospitals can't do their thing. Beds are filled. There's no more capacity. Health care providers get infected and put out of action. Other health care providers get put under quarantine. Things break down.

We'll know how we did in the US by June. Whether we got in front of it in time. We might have advantages of having a population that's geographically spread out, slowing some transmission (I have no idea about the population density in Lombardy, Italy). Maybe the change in weather will also decrease transmission.

The really concerning thing about this virus is that it's in the Goldilocks zone. It's not like the first SARS or Ebola that kill all age groups and higher proportions. They have obvious symptoms and people die quickly. These kinds of viruses are very easily managed by quarantines. They burn out. This new coronavirus is more deadly than flu but less than the original SARS or Ebola. Many people 50 and under may just think they have a cold. But for 50-60, it kills more than flu, and progressively older, more and more. As teratos noted upthread, for those in the affected age groups, it puts many more in the hospital. ICUs will get filled and care will be degraded.

The media has so many partisan players that yes, when they reflexively blame Trump for this viral disease from China that the Chinese government kept under wraps until it was really out of control and let spread worldwide, it makes conservatives question what is accurate information and what is hype to blame Republicans. They want to pin any and every tragedy on Trump. But if we're able to make headway in the US and stop what we see in Italy, I think we can credit the WH effort as well (yes the media won't, but it becomes harder to attack it). I'm impressed with how the South Korean government has done in their crisis. It's reassuring. Hopefully we'll see the same here, even if there will be tragic losses informing us of infection pockets in the US.

(phone post so excuse the multiple typos and grammar faux pas)

 

[pbharvey]

For those who like science and history, this is pretty interesting. Who knew about the horse flu epidemic
of 1872?

 

[Blacksmith101]

For those who like science and history, this is pretty interesting. Who knew about the horse flu epidemic
of 1872?

I did, it crippled the fire service, they were horse drawn in those days. Imagine something today that caused an equivalent number of mechanical breakdowns in today's fire engines.

Fire horses were highly trained just any old dobbin was not a suitable substitute.

Video Fire Horses in Action
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5GWgDOgfYQ

 

[CrazySanMan]

100% agreed. I don’t think much will come of Coronavirus, but it was a great stress test to see how easily the food supply chain can easily be interrupted. I have always been casually interested in prepping but now wife and I are both 100% on board. I’m looking forward to building up my prep stash!

When I moved to Colorado 5 years ago I began slowly building up a stash. Now I have about six months of food and general supplies stored in a spare bedroom in the basement. I use it as my main pantry, and anytime I go down there to grab a can or a bottle of something I make a note of it and replace it with two more.

I really enjoy cooking and canning, which is a great way to I crease your food storage. Today I made 10 pint and two half pint jars of sweet pepper relish because the local hippy food store had a sale on the bags of colored sweet peppers. Buying in bulk and on sale is the way to go when building your long term food stores.

 

[Darkemp]

Every time some emergency comes along and people are faced with nothing but empty shelves new preppers are created.

It also helps the rest of us to improve our preparations and fill in the missing pieces we discover.

Filling in the missing or required updating here. Did find this though stashed in a retail store locally today, probably hidden by an employee to purchase later- added it to my cart instead.

 

[LeadSled1]

Confirmed case in Harford. 80 year old.

 

[adit]

When I moved to Colorado 5 years ago I began slowly building up a stash. Now I have about six months of food and general supplies stored in a spare bedroom in the basement. I use it as my main pantry, and anytime I go down there to grab a can or a bottle of something I make a note of it and replace it with two more.

I really enjoy cooking and canning, which is a great way to I crease your food storage. Today I made 10 pint and two half pint jars of sweet pepper relish because the local hippy food store had a sale on the bags of colored sweet peppers. Buying in bulk and on sale is the way to go when building your long term food stores.

Must be oversupply. Walmart had them on sale as well, $1.43 for a 6/7 count bag of the foot long (red/yellow/orange) ones.

 

[Alphabrew]

Wasn’t there a Maryland Preparation forum that a lot of MDS members were also on? I did a search but can’t locate it on the net.

 

[Darkemp]

Wasn’t there a Maryland Preparation forum that a lot of MDS members were also on? I did a search but can’t locate it on the net.

A lot of MDS’ers have prepped for a long time...look what state we live in. Who here really trusts MD to keep us all safe?

 

[engineerbrian]

Wasn’t there a Maryland Preparation forum that a lot of MDS members were also on? I did a search but can’t locate it on the net.

They went defunct a few years ago

 

[pbharvey]

They went defunct a few years ago

Lack of preparation?

 

[adit]

Lack of preparation?

Ran out of tinfoil.

 

[mac1_131]

Wasn’t there a Maryland Preparation forum that a lot of MDS members were also on? I did a search but can’t locate it on the net.

It’s a Facebook group now but not much activity

 

[willtill]

Ran out of tinfoil.

I actually bought two rolls of heavy duty Reynolds wrap today..

 

[Alphabrew]

Is there a good canned red meat? I see cans of beef stew and beef soups but I want just the meat without the other crap. Kind of like plain cans of tuna or chicken, but red meat. Does such a product exist?