This is not meant to be a thesis style article, I will say right up front there will likely be some typos that I even miss in putting it together.  Honestly it is quick off the cuff post by a guy that has been a voice in the prepping world since 2008 and has always tried to teach pragmatic prepping over hype, fear and hysteria.

In the next week expect the following, more shut downs, curfews and restrictions on travel and movement.  While the anarchist in me wants to object to this, social distancing and limiting exposure is the most important thing we can do right now.  These restrictions exist mainly because they actually work.  They will in fact force many of the voluntary self limits I list below.  I ended up rushing this because more restrictions on movement are coming fast.

You know what else is coming?  A seeming explosion in cases.  I say seeming because it will be a direct result of testing getting more and more common.  Everyone knows this is coming, the perception it will create and hence the restrictions are being ramped up.  If you are well prepped as we teach here you should have no trouble getting though the peak over the next 2-3 weeks.  Note I am not saying we will be done in 2-3 weeks but we should be well into decline at that point, it won’t look that way but it never does.

So what can you do for yourself and others, here you go….

1.  Stay home when you can.  Look I am actually glad a lot of restrictions are coming because so many people won’t listen to this point.  You should listen to it for yourself and for others.  Limiting spread is about protecting others as much as yourself.  Nations like South Korea got on this hard as we are now, it worked and it worked fast.  We can be South Korea now or Italy in two weeks.  Either way though you control you, conference into work, telecommute, etc.  Stay away from people, many people are assholes anyway, there is enough stress right now that avoiding crowds is a great idea anyway.

2.  I know the TV keeps saying it but wash your fricken grubby hands, just keep doing it, no it isn’t too many times a day if  you do it hourly.  When you go out do it, if you shop sanitize before you go in, and when you come out.  Keep your hands off your face and don’t touch shit you don’t need to be touching.

3.  Clean surfaces especially at work, in any public space you have to be or work in etc.

4.  Live a healthy life.  Take a basic multi vitamin and you can up supplements like A, B, C and E along with some selenium and quercertin.  Honestly though I take a muli and some quecertin anyway all the time.  I up my C to an extra 500 mg a day during times like this and go on with life.  But improve your health, take a walk (alone or with family you live with anyway).

5.  Loose that extra weight it will reduce your risk of death in a dozen other ways but know this, when they say risk is increased for CoVid-19 for those with “underlying health conditions”, obesity is an underlying health condition.

6.  Stay the hell away from anyone who is high risk.  If you have elderly parents drop supplies off and wipe them down before you do.  Stay the hell out of elder care facilities, etc. You are not just risking your loved one’s health but every single other person in there, they are someone else’s loved one you know.  This sucks, I know, I can’t imagine how this would have been when my father-in-law was in memory care, but I sure would not want to be the guy who was responsible for dozens of deaths in one facility.  Sadly this will happen, it already has, it is the single category of greatest risk.  Don’t make it worse.

7.  When you do shop buy extra but do not horde.  I have taught “eat what you store and store what you eat” for 12 years now.  My regular audience should be good for 30-60 days minimum.  When this passes if you are not already there, get there as fast as you reasonably can but now is not the time to horde.  Stop buying bottled water unless you have a very specific need for it, your sink provides unlimited safe water.  If you want a back up (good idea) start saving and cleaning all suitable containers and fill them up.  As long as you clean them well you don’t need any preservatives just clean well and fill.

8.  Stop for the love of God feeding hysteria by posting pictures of empty shelves.  Half of the current problems are being caused by fermented hysteria.  Shop early and buy a little extra of the things you need and use.  Hording will result in greater rationing.  For what it is worth every store should be setting individual limits already.  I would prefer the private sector to act before government feels the need to.

9.  If you are sick, at all, stay the F home.

10.  If you want to support local restaurants order to go or delivery.  Hell order stuff that keeps well and order two meals at a go.  It reduces contact and supplements your need for food, taking more pressure off retail locations.  Don’t worry about the airlines order form small companies including direct mail order from small vendors.  Order coffee from one of our small supporting vendors here.  Whether take out, delivery or by mail the risk of exposure that way is pretty low and it keeps companies in business.  Screw the airlines, they will get a bail out, your local restaurants won’t your small business friends that can ship stuff to you won’t.  Thinking beyond yourself is good for your emotional and physical health.

11.  Turn off the news!  Okay don’t freak out, I don’t mean stop paying attention but you can check in on it once or twice a day.  They are running the same crap 24/7/365 right now with 5-10 minutes of new info a day.  Check in a few times a day but don’t let yourself be glued to wall to wall repeat coverage.  Social media is full of anything new as soon as it happens.  Freaking stress may kill more at risk people with high blood pressure in the next few weeks then Covid might.  Take a break, they will still be talking a few hours from now.

12.  Please stop believing scams, don’t share them and do discredit them.  CoVid is not a 5G bio weapon, eating Brazil nuts won’t make you immune and drinking water every 15 minutes won’t either.  Those are all real claims I have seen otherwise smart people believe.  People want an easy answer this makes them easy to scam, don’t be scammed and don’t help scammers.

13.  As testing becomes easy to get if you have any symptoms get freaking tested.  For now don’t go running to the doctor with a runny nose though.  If you test positive make sure someone knows how to help you if you need it and go into self quarantine unless directed otherwise.  For most people it is no big deal for others it is a crappy experience but you just get over it.  Again it is at risk groups we are trying to protect and it is a surge of ICU level patients that we are trying to keep from overwhelming our health care system.

14.  Expect and plan for the worst case scenario.  You may be in your home for 30-60 days, it could happen, just expect it. Honestly there are a lot worse places to be stuck for a month or so then your home.  The reason to think this way is so that anything less is a welcome surprise.  I expect in some locations the threat to be much higher and longer than others.  The US is a big nation, we can’t really be compared to most Asian or European nations.  Even in China the number of cases outside Hubei province was pretty moderate to low.  Expect the same here, some cities and areas will be hit a lot harder than others, that means it will last longer in said areas as well.

15.  Do not freak out, do not panic, your grandparents went though shit that makes this all look like a day at Disney land.  You have entertainment on demand, you can order food, you can get to the grocery store, the government will do massive bail outs.  This will end and relatively fast.  As preppers we have been expecting that some day we would have something far worse than a country partially shut down for 2 months.  We have expected eventually something a hell of a lot worse.  This too shall pass and warmer weather is on the way which I feel will further flatten the curve as well.  Here is one study that says just that.  Note it isn’t a post on Medium by some guy looking for 5 minutes of fame, but a real emperical data driven study with a respected lead author and 5 scientist/doctors as coauthors.  You can find it here http://bit.ly/covid-heat-pattern   That link has gone down a few times lately so I uploaded a copy of the study PDF here as well as a back up.  http://bit.ly/covid-temps-bu  In the end this will pass and rather quickly.  That doesn’t mean it won’t be a problem or cause a lot of grief and it won’t feel fast while it is going on, but it won’t be long and life will start returning to normal.  We know that because in many places it already is, including in China itself.

This may all seem overly simple but I focus on telling people what they can actually do about a problem.  All of these things are in your grasp.  There are a lot of things a lot of unprepared people should have done, but lecturing on them won’t help much now.  Once this passes I pray my countrymen will of learned a valuable lesson.

P.S. – One more thing you can do is subscribe to The Survival Podcast.  We talk about being prepared from a calm logical point of view every day and have been doing so for 12 years now.  We are on iTunes and most podcast platforms (just search for The Survival Podcast) and you can get on our daily email list here.  All we send is one email a day with new posts and episodes.  No Spam emails, ever.  And I will never share your information with anyone.