It is strange to me, during a virus outbreak I am more in my element. Everyone around seems to be hitting the panic button but my “zero fucks” meter is just all tapped out.
Listen, I understand there is a spreading virus pandemic but when chaos ensues my brain immediately went into threat assessment mode. I looked up facts and known statistics and ignored speculation and some fanatical need to politicize everything about the Problem.
BAMCIS:
Begin the Planning
Arrange for Reconnaissance
Make Reconnaissance
Complete the Planning
Issue the Order
Supervise
(US DoD tactical decision-making)
B
Step one, identify the threat and begin the planning. A virus, specifically the Wuhan virus identified by Coronavirus/COVID-19. How to prepare and get through this until the initial wave is complete.
AM
Step two, information shortfalls or gather intelligence/information. New virus with zero historical information. Which meant wait and collect statistics from the effected areas. This was hampered as China covered-up and hid the outbreak for at least two months from reported information. Also China as any Socialist/Communist Country would do initially simply gathered all people presenting with a fever or cough/flue symptoms and shipped them off to camps for quarantine. China’s infected numbers where there for completely unreliable and the only other number we really had from them was their reported death toll which again was unreliable.
So I looked to 1st World Countries where the Wuhan virus spread two. Major ones which came to light where Italy and South Korea. Italy seemed to many Americans to be a good place to garner information. However the flaw in that became apparent when the demographics of Italy as compared to most other countries came to light. Italy has long been going through a reduction in population. Therefore they have an abnormally high number of advanced age population with fewer middle aged and youths. I believer this is why the mortality rate is shockingly high there. What we have realized now with credible statistics is the median/mean ages of people who die and have severe distress from the virus. Currently the ages are around late 70’s-80 for high fatality rates and mid-60’s for severe symptoms from what is currently being reported. For some reason what is believed to be linked to chronic or ongoing health conditions especially upper respiratory problems or a history of smoking seems to make those people particularly vulnerable. This is why it would seem Italy is having a higher mortality rate, as they have many more people in the at risk age groups.
South Korea doesn’t have the same population age deficit and more closely resembles more countries around the world including the United States. With the testing and verified numbers coming from South Korea it appears the impact there has little to no impact on the youth and minimal impact on younger individuals especially with no history of smoking and secondary conditions. I believe the current mortality rate in South Korea is approximately 0.6-0.7% not the ranges from China at around 3% and Italy which I believe is or was over 4-5%. So that was the intel in the virus mortality.
Next important information/intel to gather was how the transmission occurs. It appears based on current information it spreads similarly to a flu like virus. Person to person through contact be that physical or contamination of the object they touched or of air by cough or sneeze. The information which is helpful is most common use cleaners used or marketed for flu/cold germs seems to kill the virus. It is currently unknown if the virus will have a seasonal effect or remain throw out summer. The only know information this far is on other Coronavirus strains not this particular one. From what I have read it seems some of the other Coronaviruses appear to have a seasonal effect. https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/dr-marc-siegel-is-the-coronavirus-seasonal in time hopefully we will know if the virus is in fact seasonal.
CI
So, for planning and issuing our family plan. I understand this may vary widely by locality and what your local municipality is doing. For instance ours is no school until after Easter. So to complete my plan. Reduce large population or group contact therefore reducing exposure and possible cross contamination bringing unwanted “Bugs” home. After that look at supplies needed. The Beans, Bullets and Bandaids of Combat planning. Water, we have a unlimited purified and coordinated water system through the water authority and this isn’t a natural disaster like an earthquake, hurricane, landslide or fire so we will have a small reserve of bottle water but not a garage full. Food, instead of fresh shopping for a week, we are purchasing two weeks of fresh food. And a good reserve of canned food as well as camping meals is always on hand being in a fire/earthquake zone. Medical supplies, the primary effect of the virus is sever upper respiratory. It is reported the main distress is caused by an extremely viscous phlegm that costs the upper respiratory leading to difficulty breathing and susceptibility to phenomena. Ok, plain language. You get some serious snot that is difficult for your body to expel the way it does when you get the flu. For this I have children’s expectorants as well as the most powerful over the counter adult expectorants. As with anything what keeps us heathy, vitamins, so we have children’s vitamins as well as adult. So just like being on a 25-50 mile hike, stay hydrated fuel your system when you can and I always insure I have supplemental vitamins to help my body fight off anything and recover when it’s been damaged.
Beyond that,we will look after each other. I don’t want to unduly expose myself or family unless necessary by unnecessary doctors visits. So if anything arises we will have telephone appointments with our family physician. If they indicate an office visit is necessary then we will go. But I believe, and have been told, this not only helps limit exposure of yourself and family it also frees the brick and mortar hospital to accept sever patients and triage them faster.
S
All that we have to do know is pay attention to our plan. Replenish supplies when needed an most of all not panic. Reassuring the family due to age and health status we are in a very reduced risk group. And spring is here, with the hope there is a seasonal effect on the virus.
That concludes a simple BAMCIS family plan.
Now for an irritated rant.
I have seen the greatest failure in basic leadership principles of nearly every level of businesses, news corporations and politicians I believe in my lifetime. I understand their is an election in November, but these people are behind sleazy politics and reporting. Many of these people are actually creating a public panic and hysteria. There are people from all sides Left, Right and Center guilty of this.
Seeing a young girl who had to be around 12 years old hold her Father Crying while he was pushing the shopping cart and her mother was piling miscellaneous groceries in a hectic rush was disturbing. She was literally clinging to his arm, whimpering asking if everything was going to be ok because the TV scared her.
So the government has instituted travel restrictions, implemented minimal work and telework instructions and asked people to minimize exposure to large groups. Instead of putting on calm scientists with good detailed plans to get through the crisis, the media and politicians have instead widely pushed the morbid death tolls from areas they know are not representative of our population, medical abilities or demographics. What they have done is shouted fire in the movie theater. They are literally trying to panic the nation, then they turn around preaching lack of trust in the current administration simply because they don’t like the man.
This has caused a crashing market and frozen commerce which is hurting everyone in the country and impacting the world market as well. It would be quite interesting to see if all these people who are crashing the market are now buying more stocks as that is how the typical Robber Barron works. They will buy on the crash and sell when the market recovers. After all, they don’t live paycheck to paycheck and don’t have the fear of millions of Citizens who may miss paychecks or even loose their jobs due to the economic disaster they have created. But what’s worse, is they have actually said they only way their guy can win is if the Country has a big Recession. They have literally said the damages it would cause would be worth it to them.
And think about this for a minute, all legitimate virology experts have said shut down travel, minimize public exposure try to stay at home. These people have essentially triggered the worst possible situation. Through their hysteria a mass exposure event has occurred in all of the areas people needed to remain sterile and maintain normal operation. Now you have people crowded together, getting their food which they will take home after being exposed to the masses.
At what point will petty disgusting people with an agenda get over their desire for political or personal power and actually give a shit for the health of our Country, literally? Even if you don’t like the guy, the absolute worst case scenario would be a re-election then he would be gone.
Please look after yourselves. If you must, get information from legitimate sources. I have actually been looking at medical journal websites as well as national and international scientific websites within the medical and virology fields. The information from many standard news networks isn’t helpful and seems to be actively attempting to stir discourse and panic. For them, if it bleeds it leads.
Be safe, be positive and have faith this too shall pass.
Joy After Trauma 