The panic begins, but YOU are going to keep calm

Reports are that California has its first case of “unknown origin” of COVID-19 reported. Since the origin is unknown, there is apparently no known contact with an infected person, nor did the person travel extensively or to China. This particular person was sick for at least a few days prior to testing, and of course we know may have been carrying the virus for a couple weeks prior to onset of symptoms. So who else has the disease? We’ll know for sure in about two weeks or so. Maybe. Fun stuff.

As you can see in the headline photo from the Drudge Report, which is WIDELY viewed, the stocks are starting to take a hit, the “correction” we all should have been expecting after our markets had a years-long stratospheric climb. We should have expected it because our fiat-based “just increase the debt ceiling” economy was always going to “correct.” I just didn’t know it was going to be a virus, a biological kind rather than a computer-based one, would be the catalyst. Of course we understand that we might get lucky and the markets might stabilize and recover before they crash into the bedrock, but that’s not what we prepare for. It’s just what we hope for.

There are now over 81,000 cases (up from the last update I posted a few days ago), with most still being in China, but numbers are increasing worldwide. There are 83 people being quarantined (voluntarily) in Nassau County in New York, because they exhibited a cough and a fever. Now, what else produces a cough and fever? Almost every illness. So if this thing really breaks out in the US, everyone with a cough and fever is a potential COVID-19 threat. The CDC is now saying that we are “likely” to see a pandemic. Once again, you’re still probably never going to come into contact with the bug, but you will come into contact with a panicky public, a shaky economy and an incompetent, heavy-handed government.

So you’re going to keep your head on straight.

Youre going to get your updates from American Partisan and this CDC COVID-19 summary page.

The first thing I want to tell you, as a RN working in an emergency room, is that if someone in your home becomes sick with a fever and/or a cough, assess your situation. Have you been traveling? Did you go to China? Have you been around anyone who was sick with COVID-19 (that’s almost no one in the US for the moment)? It’s ok if you received mail from China, that doesn’t count. Is there a particular illness running through your town? Recently in my town, we had viral gastroenteritis wreaking havoc. A few months back, it was Flu type A. We were getting positive results on tests for type A. If you know that everyone in town is battling strep or the common cold, you’ve probably got that instead of COVID-19. Call your primary care doctor and get an appointment. Your cough and 100.6 temp is not an emergency. Go see your doctor. If you have prolonged or repeated shortness of breath, this might be something to come see us about. Probably still not COVID-19 if you haven’t been traveling to a hard hit area, or been in close contact with someone who has.

Hopefully you’ve already been looking for 3M brand N95 particulate masks, because that’s what you’ll use in a worst case scenario in public. If you haven’t found any, keep looking, they will be there eventually. Make sure to size it right. As far as I know, they come in small and regular.

If you’re so inclined, a more robust CBRN capability is available from MIRA Safety. This stuff looks great. It’ll be a force multiplier if you need it

Plastic sheeting, like 4 or 5 mil Visqueen, could be utilized in a scenario where you might want to quarantine someone in your group who is sick. This is also a worst case scenario, and might sound terrifying, but it’s not. Firstly, it’s not the aforementioned jackbooted “top men” forcing you into it and renditioning you off to some ET-movie-looking biohazard quarantine tent, and secondly, you’ve probably already done something like this a few times in your life. When a family member gets sick, you take care of them, but you try to keep your distance. Don’t get in their face. Don’t eat or drink after them. Keep the area clean and wash hands. In this case, due to the high communicability of the virus, you’re just going to add masks and use plastic sheeting to compartmentalize areas of your house, NOT JUST THEIR ROOM, because you don’t want them to be in a sealed, airtight space with no circulation. Just make sure you don’t suffocate them, please. If possible, we would ventilate the air in their space out of a window so the breeze can carry the virus away harmlessly to the woods. Please don’t vent contaminated air into your neighbor’s apartment.

Hand washing in town, of course. Just get a small bottle of hand sanitizer (because I see alcohol-based sanitizers are effective) and keep it handy. In a worst case national outbreak scenario, it’s going to be a body wash when you’ve been out and about. If you’re out all day in town, come home and scrub in the shower. No big deal. Many of you do that when you come home from work anyway.

As I mentioned in prior pieces, avoid crowds. Especially ones where it looks like a lot of them are… Ahem… Extensive travelers.

I’ve also mentioned before putting cash away. I know this sounds like a tall order for some readers, and I agree, you need put away an emergency fund of at least $1,000, and then put away money to cover monthly expenses for X number of months as you see fit. I don’t know how these market waves will impact you, but the market has the ability to impact all of us through prices of goods, most of which are brought in from overseas or manufactured in China. If a hurricane in Puerto Rico can short my ER on normal saline and Dilaudid, then a global viral outbreak that may or may not be that bad, but where the public is panicking like it’s the Black Death again can short you on things we import, like Chinese beef.

Yeah, the US is importing Chinese beef right now, which the farmers I live around are not pleased about. When do the Chinese decide to hold onto that for themselves and drive the price of beef up again? That may seem like small potatoes, but apply it to nearly everything, and you get the idea. If you’ve got money saved away, You won’t feel as much of that pain.

When you go shopping for food, buy twice as much, and go shopping half as often. I had mentioned that in centuries past, a trip “into town” was an ordeal, and depending on distance, could take a day or longer. They made up an exhaustive list that would last them a long time. If you adopt that same mindset, you’ll greatly limit your exposure to crowds.

If you’ve read this far, you get that I believe some simple preparation can buy you some peace of mind, which will allow you to keep your cool when everyone else is heating up. Go spend some time in the woods. The CDC is now saying that it is “likely” the virus will cause a pandemic. But they haven’t found COVID-19 in your local creek, and they aren’t going to.

Take a camping trip.

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12 Comments

  1. RFA February 27, 2020 at 19:37

    Sage advice…Was talking to mate of mine today about c19 vs normal flu and shazam, the flu has been a killer too, w/out the hysteria…

    Here are the cdc numbers from the 2019 season in the US, to keep things in perspective on those infected vs dead..

    https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/preliminary-in-season-estimates.htm

    29,000,000 – 41,000,000
    flu illnesses

    13,000,000 – 19,000,000
    flu medical visits

    280,000 – 500,000
    flu hospitalizations

    16,000 – 41,000
    flu deaths

    C19 has got nothing on the everyday flu..

    Common sense should rule the day, but that’s not what’s gonna get us here, it’s the unintended consequences of overseas (mainly China) shutting down all kinds of manufacturing/services/distribution/et al; things we in the west (US) rely on as a just in time delivery economy, and the ensuing psychological (aka PSYOP) mob mentality aspects of this, in my .0002 opinion.

    Truck Stoppages are my main concern and the consequences…

    https://www.trucking.org/ATA%20Docs/What%20We%20Do/Image%20and%20Outreach%20Programs/When%20Trucks%20Stop%20America%20Stops.pdf

    then Brackens most excellent article on When the Music Stops…

    the two are linked in my mind…

    https://westernrifleshooters.wordpress.com/2012/09/03/bracken-when-the-music-stops-how-americas-cities-may-explode-in-violence/

    so, i’m in normal mode, aware, laying in additional foods/meds/etc., but really looking at the unintended consequences and the Baltic Dry Goods Index too https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_Dry_Index#Importance

    • Gray Man February 27, 2020 at 20:10

      So if the regular flu is as serious as these numbers suggest, that would mean the flu is occupying a significant portion of the US medical capabilities. This would suggest we may be unable to deal with both of them, especially considering that COVID-19 is significantly more communicable. Also, consider the mortality rate of the CDC highest estimates from the 2017-2018 flu season: 61,000 deaths out of 45,000,000 illnesses. That’s 0.13% mortality rate. COVID-19 is at almost 3.5%, and way easier to pass around to your friends.

      It’s correct that this virus currently has nothing on the flu, but that’s because it’s only been out since about December. And it’s gotten how far already? Yeah.

  2. RFA February 27, 2020 at 20:56

    Golf Mike,

    Now i want to gouge my eyes out…Thanks bro… :-)

    Thanks for the additional clarification on the transmission rates and such…Did not factor that in…

    Is your advice to simply plan and prepare as if this were the flu and carry on or are other steps required in addition to more social isolation?

    Thank God the wife and I are self employed, and can work from home and limit our everyday exposure to potential super spreaders..

    Interrogatory: what is a red line in your opinion for someone living in a densely populated city, say Charlotte, for C19 cases?

    In other words, if its so highly contagious, and it appears to be vs flu, at what point, or how many cases once they “officially,” pop up on the cdc/local radar, would you suggest one self quarantine and employ PPE measures?

    Thanks in advance…

    • Gray Man February 28, 2020 at 10:27

      Honestly, it can’t hurt to start practicing on occasion as if this was already full blown. Things such as limiting trips into town or staying cleaner at the house, carrying hand sanitizer, avoiding touching anything if you don’t have to, avoiding touching your face, limiting trips to places where other people prepare your food, etc. are all things you can and should do during flu season anyway, and they will help prevent transmission of COVID-19 as well, and get you into the habit. When it hits your area, they’ll tell everyone to start doing things that you and your family have been used to doing already. And those things won’t attract attention to you, because obviously the guerrilla avoids doing that.

      As far as when to start donning PPE, that depends on what your plan is that day. Are you going to be working face to face with a lot of people? Hand in hand? Also, look at NYC right now. A headline from yesterday said that nearly 800 people are either quarantined there or are being advised to self-quarantine. In my area, that’s a huge number. In Charlotte, it might not be, but it’s getting there. If your area has hundreds or thousands of people quarantined, then any time you have to be right on top of other people for any significant amount of time, having a mask handy in your pack might be a good plan.

      Look at Wuhan right now. It’s a big place with a lot of people. The virus is spread out all over the place there. That’s an obvious location where everyone needs to be masked up. In my area, no one has it, so I’m not even carrying any PPE on me. In San Francisco, there is good reason to believe that any outbreak may start there, so I advise people to have a mask with them and some sanitizer. In NYC, if these quarantines turn out to be legitimate case, I’d start carrying a mask, but for now, maybe not this minute. Charlotte falls somewhere between those places (my area, SF and NYC).

      Keep in mind as well that I don’t think NC has the testing ability yet. I don’t think.

  3. Anonymous February 27, 2020 at 21:27

    5

  4. Anonymous February 28, 2020 at 01:34

    4.5

  5. Jim February 28, 2020 at 13:23

    Question to Gray Man and AP staff: I train BJJ and work out in a public gym multiple times per week. I am inclined to give up those memberships until this blows over. Am I overreacting? Super bummed because I was approaching some goals in both endeavors but it’s not like I’ll stop working out because of this. Just stop working out in these germ factories.

    Too soon? Appreciate anyone’s take.

    Thanks

    • Gray Man February 28, 2020 at 15:09

      I wouldn’t drop your membership right this moment unless you live in San Francisco or NYC, and even then I’d still wait a bit. Be ready to pull the trigger on it but don’t do it right now based on what’s happening in China and those cities. We all want to be prepared and cautious, but we still want to enjoy life as well, and like it says above, keep our cool. We here at AP (writers and the readers) don’t lose our minds like the masses. Keep training, but keep your eyes open.

      P.S. It also depends on how busy your gym is. For instance, if you’re training with the Gracies in Torrence, you’re rolling with people from all over the world who travel as a lifestyle. Keep that in mind.

  6. Nina9mm February 28, 2020 at 13:34

    Just a thought from another RN: if you have the common cold, please do NOT go see your doctor. There is nothing that can be done for a common cold. We don’t care that you have a fever and feel icky. The only reason we would want to see you is if you have an underlying health condition that puts you at risk of developing complications, your symptoms have worsened beyond the typical 1 week timeframe of the typical cold, you have difficulty breathing, or there is actual blood coming out of your eyeballs. Otherwise please just stay home, hydrate, take some ibuprofen, and rest. We don’t want the waiting rooms or the staff exposed to any more than we already are. You can always call your doctors nurses for advice if you aren’t sure whether or not you should get checked out. As an aside, that you have full on diarrhea running down your leg is a phenomenon many of us are experiencing as we look at the state of our 401Ks today. It’ll pass :)

  7. Gray Man February 28, 2020 at 15:46

    5

  8. James February 29, 2020 at 14:29

    Jim,while I understand your desire to keep working the martial arts feel perhaps time to for awhile go solo on training and try and keep up the skills obtained.I have not practiced for a few years(do want to start training again) but did think about it when you mentioned how you are in a very closed environment with many others and actually in contact regularly with others,your call but feel I would pass for the time being.I guess things continue to go down a bad path we all are going to start thinking about work or not ect.,tis one of many reasons why we prep.I am a huge reader and fan of the library and wonder perhaps that should be avoided for the time being,maybe being paranoid but is another thing I don’t have to do to survive,just makes life more enjoyable.

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