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A guide to self reliant living |
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6. Kerosene heaters and cookers
12.
Electrical; generators
Miles Stair's SURVIVAL
Miles Stair's
SURVIVAL |
Influenza Prevention and Treatment
Death toll rises as flu epidemic grips the U. S.
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Medical Survival Info on CD: Info from the CDC, OZ, Canada, Switzerland, FEMA, Homeland Security, FDA, USDA, Extension Services, Red Cross, etc, for virtually all medical emergencies. Influenza information specifically related to prevention, treatment, preparations for both business and individuals, food, health care, quarantine, sanitation, water, etc. All of the real, vital, helpful info I could find. Adobe format. 296 MB's, prints to 6,289 pages plus the complete texts of "Where There is No Dentist," "Where There is No Doctor," and "Survival and Austere Medicine." $7.95, mailed First Class. |
In 2003 the CDC starting claiming that 36,000 people a year died
from regular flu. This number is constantly compared to the current
pandemic to persuade people not to panic or be concerned. Where
did this number come from?
According to twenty years worth of cause of death reporting data
from the National Center for Health Statistics of the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention, influenza is the official cause of
death for an average of 1,263 people in the United States each year.
Indeed, the CDC s most recent official tally of death by influenza
indicates that only 849 people died of influenza in 2006. These very
low numbers would seem to contradict the often cited figure of
36,000 flu-related deaths per year in the United States, which
appears on the CDC s own web site."
The 36,000 number comes from statistical modeling; comparing
pneumonia or other similar deaths in the winter and summer. It is
not derived from numbers of people known to have died from flu, or
people tested for flu, or even generalized lists of people dying
from flu. Additionally, 95% of flu deaths are of people above the
age of 65, and most are even older. They are people who are already
near death from others causes, seem to get sick with something and
die.
On the other hand, the people really dying from swine flu are mostly
younger people, many of who are perfectly healthy. It is true that
swine flu is easier to catch as no one has ever had it before and
therefore has no immunity to it.
Underlying Medical Conditions
The media and government authorities are quick to point out that so
far most people who have died from pandemic flu (deaths that are made
public) have underlying medical conditions. Often these conditions
are not mentioned. In fact, some people who die with pandemic flu
are not counted because the victim had other health problems. The
CDC has mentioned some of the underlying conditions that people who
have died have, and they include immune disorders, kidney disease,
lung impairment, chronic or congenital disabilities of various
kinds, and more. It is also very noteworthy that pregnant women are
in much more danger of getting seriously ill and dying.
What Are The Real Numbers?
Unfortunately the WHO and the CDC are not transparent with numbers
or a lot of information. They appear to have inflated the numbers of
cases in the US to help bring down the CFR (case fatality rate of
the total sick, how many die) since the more people who are sick,
the lower the death rate), and they do not count deaths quickly or
accurately for the same reason. Tests are not accurate, to varying
degrees, and often reports say something like so and so died, not of
swine flu, but of another medical cause, although they happened to
have swine flu so the person is not counted as a pandemic fatality.
Many nurses and doctors have stated that when a pandemic
becomes very dangerous they will not work but stay home rather than
risk working in unsafe hospitals and risk getting sick or dying.
Hospitals do not have enough PPE- personal protective equipment to
avoid contracting flu, and the US government is irresponsibly not
mandating the use of PPE such as N95 masks for health care workers.
What About Anti-Viral Medicines?
The only anti-virals that work for the pandemic flu are Tamiflu and
Relenza. There is another class of anti-virals but they may not work
for this flu.
What About Bird Flu Is that Still
a Danger?
H5N1, or bird flu, is still circulating and killing people primarily
in Indonesia and Egypt, as well as other Southeast Asian countries.
The numbers are very difficult to ascertain as the governments cover
up figures to protect their economies, just as is happening here
with swine flu. There is definitely a danger that H5N1 and swine flu
could mix by one person catching both at the same time. The
different flus could exchange genetic material and create a new
hybrid flu, which could possibly have the higher fatality rate of
H5N1 and the easy transmissibility of swine flu. This is something
many virologists are nervous about. Or H5N1 could develop by itself
and become more easily transmissible, as well as develop Tamiflu
resistance. So this is still a potential danger.
Don't Most People Get Well?
So far, most people who get flu get well, but even at this
point in the pandemic more people do die than with regular flu.
There are two reasons why pandemic flu is different and more
dangerous than regular seasonal flu. With seasonal flu, 5 to 15% of
the population get sick, very few are seriously ill, and fewer yet
die (and the vast majority of deaths are in the elderly). With
pandemic flu, because it is a newly developed strain of flu, no one
has any immunity to it, so it spreads very rapidly and widely. The
estimates are that 30 to 40% of the population will get it within
one year (roughly). (There is a possibility that people who were
alive in the 1918 pandemic may have some immunity as it is a similar
virus but those people are very old and few in number.) With huge
numbers of people sick all at once, there is much more potential for
infrastructure breakdown and supply disruptions (more on that
later), and hospitals being overwhelmed.
The other difference is that pandemic flu is more lethal and causes
more severe symptoms in many people than regular seasonal flu,
including much more severe lung damage. People are getting relapses
feeling better, then worse.
Similarities with the 1918 Pandemic
and Swine Flu Pandemic
The 1918 pandemic had an early spring wave of illness that started
in March, whereas the current 2013 flu pandemic is a typical winter
time for flu.. The first wave in 1918 did not hit all over the
world; some places had more respiratory illness, some less, and only
some people died; often those already sick with other ailments.
People at the time did not know that it was the first wave of a
deadly pandemic until later in the fall. More people died -
especially younger people and vigorous adults - than with regular
seasonal flu, just like this one.
In late August and early September of 1918, a more severe wave of
flu popped up in different places in the world at the same time, and
within a year had killed tens of millions of people around the world
(the estimated figures are 50 to 100 million). The case fatality
rate is not known precisely, it seems to have varied between 2 to
5%. Some areas had very high fatality rates entire villages were
wiped out and other places had milder levels of fatalities. There
was a third wave in the spring that was worse than the first wave
but not as bad as the second wave. The only country in the world
with no deaths was American Samoa, as they refused to let any ships
dock and bring the disease in.
During the 1918 flu, there were so many dead that in some areas the
corpses could not be buried, and so many children lost their parents
that orphan trains headed west, stopping at stations for people to
pick children to take home. Many doctors and nurses died and
hospitals could not contain the sick. At least 25% of pregnant women
who caught the flu died.
All authorities are currently warning that in the fall there will be
much more swine flu spreading. Whether there will be increasingly
severe illness and death is not known but at the very least, the
more cases, the more sickness, the more deaths. If the virus mutates
and becomes more deadly, then deaths and the possibility of
infrastructure disruptions is even more likely.
Why Would a Pandemic Affect Food,
Water or Electricity?
In the last ten or twenty years, the phrase Just In Time economy
has pretty much eliminated warehouses. Food, parts, supplies are all
trucked in as needed, from far away, to giant warehouses in the
middle of the country. A breakdown in personnel due to illness will
greatly disrupt this constant flow of parts, supplies and foods. All
government modeling has agreed that a breakdown of infrastructure is
a very real danger in a pandemic. Electric generating plants have
fuel coal, gas, or oil brought in by truck or rail weekly; few
plants have more than a week or two of fuel on site. No companies
have many extra workers who know how to run things, so with a
possible 30 to 40% absenteeism rate (this is expected at the height
of a pandemic, due to sickness, death, fear of sickness or death, or
workers staying home to take care of ill family members), many
companies would not be able to function.
If electricity supply is disrupted, this can affect entire grids, as
has happened before in the last few years. If many electric workers
are sick, making repairs and restoring electricity would take
longer. Without electricity, most stores cannot sell goods, and
water will not run, nor will water treatment plants work. Without
electricity, no one can sell or pump gasoline. Although some cities
have gravity fed water (with large water tanks on legs or on hills),
it takes electricity to purify the water, and to pump it up into the
tanks. Without water, toilets do not work. Internet would also be
affected by electricity disruptions. Food supplies can be affected
by electricity problems as well; for instance, lack of
refrigeration, and cash registers don t work. Supermarkets refill
their shelves every night and have about three days of food in them
at the most, no warehouses close by as food is trucked in from huge
depots hundreds of miles away. It has been determined that large
cities such as New York have two or three days of food. Everything
comes in from far away.
Additionally, since many parts and supplies are now manufactured in
other countries many in China and South East Asia the pandemic
there will affect factories and disrupt supplies here. Most
pharmaceutical drugs as well as medical supplies such as masks are
made in other countries, as well as tools and parts, and household
goods from shoes to toothbrushes. With any disruptions in
electricity and/or water, fire departments and police departments
will not function properly, causing numerous other problems easily
imagined; aside from problems due to absenteeism.
Why Isn't the Government Advising
People to Prepare Realistically?
Many people think that because they don't see the message to prepare
for a pandemic on the TV or in the regular media, and the local or
State Public Health departments say nothing, or their schools send
no memos home, and the State and Federal governments haven t made
any alerts, that there is nothing to worry about.
Actually, the WHO, the CDC and other official entities have clearly
stated that economic and political concerns are actually more
important when making pandemic preparation decisions, than
individual lives lost. That is the bottom line the fragile economy
must not be disturbed under any circumstances, and any lives lost as
a result are acceptable collateral damage. If people buy rice and
beans instead of racking up their credit cards buying useless junk
and eating out, if people change their habits and save money instead
of squandering it, or prepare to stay home, this will disrupt the
economic train (which is going off a cliff anyway). If people are
going to wait until an official government announcement, they may as
well wait until people they know are seriously sick and dying.
The US government (as well as the WHO and other nations) have been
planning for influenza pandemic for several years many millions
of dollars have been spent, meetings held, and plans made. Yet now,
the US government is acting as though they are just making plans
this minute. Their previous plans include (but even their plans are
not all in accord with each other) advising families to have weeks
of food, water and other necessities on hand, medicines to care for
the sick, cash on hand, and a full gas tank. Federal pandemic plans
have also mandated the use of the military for quarantining infected
cities, and the restriction of travel.
What s Happening Now? And What Will
Happen Next?
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Napolitano said it live in her press conference yesterday (5.5.09), about continuity of government now being key for what may likely follow this coming fall. And at the top of the stack is continuity of government :
III. STRATEGIC GOALS AND OPERATING OBJECTIVES THAT MERIT INCLUSION IN STATE-LEVEL PANDEMIC INFLUENZA OPERATING PLANS
An operating plan for combating pandemic influenza should address at least the three strategic goals listed below. The goals provide an overarching framework for the various functions of State government during an influenza pandemic. This framework acknowledges the fact that the State government is simultaneously striving to continue its basic operations, respond to the influenza pandemic, and facilitate the maintenance of critical infrastructure.
109BUThe Strategic Goals
Strategic Goal A, Ensure Continuity of Operations of State Agencies and Continuity of State Government focuses on the role of State government in as an employer (i.e., looking inward). State governments are large employers and as such need to consider how they will continue to function during the pandemic. Continuing critical services and lifelines that many State citizens rely on for survival (e.g., Medicaid, newborn screening, safe food and unemployment insurance) is paramount. If State governments fail to prepare themselves by developing, exercising, and improving comprehensive operating plans, then they will fail in their abilities to meet the other two strategic goals, which focus on external functions (i.e., responding to the event and helping to maintain critical infrastructure). http://www.pandemicflu.gov/news/guidance031108.pdf
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Steps to Lessen the Spread of Flu in the Home
CDC-Facemask and Respirator Use
Epidemic Influenza And Vitamin D
Do You Know Your States' Pandemic Plan?
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Influenza Survival_Info from the CDC, OZ, Canada, Switzerland, FEMA, Homeland Security, FDA, USDA, Extension Services, Red Cross, etc. All influenza information specifically related to prevention, treatment, preparations for both business and individuals, food, health care, quarantine, sanitation, water, etc. All of the real, vital, helpful info I could find. Adobe format. 296 MB's, prints to 6,289 pages plus the complete texts of "Where There is No Dentist," "Where There is No Doctor," and "Survival and Austere Medicine.". $5.95, mailed First Class. |
| 6. Kerosene heaters and cookers | 7. Lighting | 8. Wood cooking and heating |
| 9. Communications | 10. Essential Tools | 11. Home built items |
| 12. Electrical; generators and power | 13. War preparedness | 14. Gardening |
