Episode-41- Thoughts on Flu Pandemic and Survival Planning for Disease Outbreaks
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I recently received a request to do a show on the potential risk of an influenza outbreak (global flu pandemic) and was able to quickly put a show together on it. What is interesting is that the governments official advice is remarkably similar to the fundamental preparations that survivalists discuss every day.
I encourage you to take this threat seriously because a pandemic is one of those risks that is not an “if” but simply a “when” and by what particular means. Tune into todays show to hear my thoughts on,
- The shocking death statistics from three pandemics in the last 100 years from flu outbreaks
- The high death rate of infected parties by the H5N1 Avian Flu
- Why world governments are truly alarmed by the potential out break of the bird flu
- Why we can’t create a vaccine for a flu strain until it is really to late
- Why we have not yet had a case of avian flu in the U.S.
- The real economic impact of a true flu or other pandemic
- The real need for a quarantine in such an outbreak even a government enforced one
- Why food storage is so important for this potential threat
- Why even the power grid and water system may be at risk
- The people most at risk to the economic threat that will come from the flu threat
- Why your job is at risk and how you have no protection from termination during a quarntine
- The importance of having the choice to self quarantine before one is ordered
- The fantasy land some people live in that denies the horrific reality of a true pandemic
- Why the aftermath will be something the government can’t “bail us out of”
Links and Resources for this Podcast
- PandemicFlu.gov
- Individual Planning Suggestions at PandemicFlu.gov – My primary source of info for this show
- World Health Organization Death and Infection Statistics for Human Contracted HN51
- The Most Recent Human Cases of Avian Flu from the WHO
- Possible Vaccine for the Current Strain of H5N1
- The Past Used for Future Flu Pandemic Planning
- More Outbreaks in India and Indonesia
Fantastic Show……………Thanks
Hi, there is plenty of good material around on this subject, but the basic advice is remarkably similar to dealing with fallout. Stay at home, so prep supplies!
As you said this is nothing new. The Roman empire was knocked back to its knees three or four times by pandemics. It was only when there was too few people left to continue transmission that it died out! Don’t travel, stay at home!!
@steve,
A guy from Zombiehunters by the name of Randy sent me some videos from the Charlie Rose Show about this yesterday. I listened to both, sad to say how accurate my take on this is! You are dead on the only thing one can really do is avoid exposure and stay put during a dangerous time.
Here are those two videos,
http://tinyurl.com/625eh2
and
http://tinyurl.com/5qg48j
This is one of the biggest threats we have because if it happens, not much can be done to fix it. All you can do is set yourself up to “survive” and wait it out.
Definitely a low flying issue for most people to plan surviving from; that said, H5N1 is extremely dangerous and though publicly only noted as avian to human transmissions have occurred (one in Indonesia at the end of 2007 is potentially considered to have been human to human; but no other cases showed up and not enough evidence was available to determine if it was human to human transmission), it’s worth being prepared. Add to Avian Flu as a major issue, SARS and the common nature of people flying all over the planet (potentially being sick) and there’s a potential for significant impact on sizable populations. The Spanish Influenza is estimated to have killed (globally) between 20million to 100 million people. We might be better prepared somewhat nowadays; but with the increased global population and such, if a severe pandemic were to start, tens if not hundreds of millions of people could become ill and die. It’s scary; but a reality and a potential.
Late last year the US Treasury Dept. ran an exercise simulating the impact of a H5N1 pandemic on the US financial industry.
http://www.fspanfluexercise.com/exercise-info.aspx
The format they used had an introduction, and then scheduled updates where they designated a percentage of employees designated as ‘absentee’ due to the flu (either sick, dead, or simply stayed home to protect their families) Read them in order — it’s interesting/scary reading.
The supply of anti-virals (Zovirax, Valtrex, etc) ran out (simulated) by the second update. It’s probably not a good idea to stockpile these due to the cost (Valtrex is $15 a pill!), their short shelf-life, and that they’re only available via prescription. And there’s no guarantee, as you said, that they would be effective against the prevalant strain. Isolation would be the best preventative.