Taking the Swine Flu situation as a drill, I learned a bit.

First of all, apparently a Pandemic plan for a township needs to be more than, "Buy enough beer and ammo" so I'll be working on that a little.

As far as supplies and such, we were fine, fine. In terms of emergency room panic visits - that was both expected and annoying. So much of system was bogged down with "I sneezed am I going to die" visits.

Finally, for me, the main thing that this little drill gave me was the impetus to start looking for a more local job. Almost 14 years of commuting 5 hours a day to Manhattan and I realized just how much of an incubator that bus really is.

It's a shame, I love my work, the company is great and we do good stuff...but I guess it's time to think about being out of that situation.

A co worker lived in the apartments that collapsed in the Northridge earthquake.
His east coast inlaws insisted they move back to NYC where it is safer.
He got a job in the WTC.

How did I do? I'll tell you next spring.

No, seriously. Although I never got into pandemic mode anyway, I think H1N1 is far from over, although you would think so considering how it has pretty much dropped off the cable news radar except for quick counts of new cases.

H1N1 probably isn't disappearing any time soon. The Southern Hemisphere could get hammered as it enters their normal flu season. And who knows what happens next fall when we enter the next flu season. I'm by no means mentioning these things to scare anyone but just to point out to our attention-deficit, 10-second sound bite culture that things are not necessarily over yet.

Actually, not even over in the Northern Hemisphere yet. We'll most likely go to Stage 6, which may just be a formality and not really mean anything if the flu stays mild. But oh, the flurry of news coverage for that milestone! It's official--pandemic is upon us! "Sanjay, what are the chances that human civillization can get through this? Will we go the way of the dinosaurs? Back after these words from our sponsors..."

Beer, ammo...and masks. More masks!

And don't watch so much cable news. 24/7 news coverage is terrible for new, rapidly evolving stories where there isn't much new info to report every 15 minutes. All that continuous coverage just freaks people out unnecessarily, and sometimes anchors do a Biden and just say something that they really shouldn't because they're just trying to fill up air time.

One thing that really hit home this time is the reality that the pandemic could be in our midst literally overnight. This H1N1 story happened so fast! With SARS and avian flu, it felt like we had warning because things started in Asia and we had time. But with H1N1, a quick road trip from Mexico and my own neighbor could be giving it to me! Cases just popping up in California, Texas, New York all at once. That's rather sobering.

Actually, the next pandemic could even start in the US. No reason why it couldn't, which is why putting too much focus on Asia is something to be careful of. It's like that adage about the military always getting ready to fire the last war.

I recieved the UK Governments information brochure about Swine Flu yesterday, which was sent out to every household throughout the land and have now organised a flu friend just as my Government has suggested.

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Swineflu/DG_177831?IdcService=GET_FILE&dID=194088&Rendition=Web

Remember to CATCH IT, BIN IT, KILL IT. as directed by the UK Governmental advice.

lets hope it doesn't get as bad as this though,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grbSQ6O6kbs

As it will probably cost more than ninepence, taking into account inflation since the middle ages.

I used it as an excuse to make sure my box of bug in stuff was up to date and fully stocked, and printed something I could tape to the lid that said "thou shalt not mooch".

Other than that, I had fun watching people twitch every time I sneezed- allergies.

My CERT had a drill with the city fire department a month or two ago where we pretended to hand out Cipro - we left door knob hangers of information on CERT - in a selected area of town. It was fairly realistic as such things go. The goal was to see how many doors we could hang hangers on in what amount of time. Not realistic if we were handing out Cipro, but still a way to judge coverage by volunteers.

Great fun and good training. We used ham radios to let net control and the fire guys know what all was going on. The FDA has a press release at
http:/www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/NEWS/2009/NEW02002.html
where it spells out how it will allow volunteers to distribute prescription medicine and allow off-label uses in certain circumstances; this press release is specific to Relenza and Tamiflu, by the way, but our training presumed an anthrax attack, and I presume the same procedures would apply.

Nobody in my area (San Francisco Bay) panicked; people complained about school closures; school closures stopped; life went on.

It was a great drill but my concerns weren't about the flu but with all levels of govt "over reaction", with the light number of confirmed cases. The borders with Mexico stayed wide open for legal & illegal traffic. Air traffic with "countries that had confirmed cases" were not curtailed, to & from this country.

The disease vectors have been reconfirmed (compared to a 1960's experiment) and the rate of transmission/spread has now been confirmed to be speedier than it was in the 60's experiment.

Yes, this has been a good time to check our prep levels, as I did.

Now I wonder, Was this a pre-planned event by design AND what flu mutations will now occur between now and the next upcoming Flu Season??????????????????

I definitely need to buy more beer.

Good exercise to check the gear and preps. Topped off all the rechargeable batteries. Got some last minute luxury stuff from the grocery store like fresh vegetables, fruit, and milk. I figured if we're gonna have to stay in for a while why not start off with some fresh goodies. Bought a couple of Nalgene flat 2L water containers for the car. They fit better and don't roll around like soda 2L bottles.

Philip,

That's a very interesting drill. I have never heard of a CERT team used in this way before. Actually, just to double-check your meaning, the door hangars were meant to simulate CERT members actually leaving Cipro on everyone's front door? Or did the door hangars just direct people to a central distribution point? I ask because one problem with centralized distribution is sometimes it creates more risk by having all these people (in this case, maybe contaminated with anthrax spores) coming together and waiting in line for things. In contrast, seems like you never hear about plans to widely distribute things, like medications, door-to-door like this, which is why I think it's an interesting drill.

> the door hangars were meant to simulate CERT members actually leaving
> Cipro on everyone's front door? Or did the door hangars just direct
> people to a central distribution point?

The hangers were meant to simulate CERT members actually handing a bottle of Cipro to the occupant of the premises and giving them written instructions on its use. No medicine would have been left for a home or apartment where no one answered the door, as I understand our briefing.

> widely distribute things, like medications, door-to-door like this

That was the intended simulation. The county or city has not decided on whether to have a central point for distribution or door-to-door distribution. This exercise was in part to see how door-to-door worked.