Oh the Irony!!!

I have been pleased with my foresight on getting prepared and topping off with a few additional items specific to the Corona virus.  I added some more gloves, N95 masks, a P100 mask with extra filters. More vitamins, minerals along with extra fresh garlic and turmeric to add to my cooking spices.  Extra pet supplies for litter box and food for the dog and kitties.

I have been watching the news both mainstream and alternative news sites.  Most people still follow the main stream media during a “crisis”.  I can guess how most people will react in the early days of a crisis becoming mainstream.  We see this now with some items getting hoarded and resold to make a quick buck!

I am so brilliant (lol) that I go out with Mom and my aunt to celebrate Mom’s birthday.  Heck this is Idaho and so far no known cases within 300+ miles so it should be safe, RIGHT?

So we are just finishing up a lovely meal at a local buffet with everything from sushi to Mongolian BBQ and some great Chinese food and I kid you not, a tour bus load of Asian people come into the restaurant. The people looked more like business people rather than tourists college students but it was a bit of a surprise.  My Aunt’s eyes got a bit wide because I had mentioned the Corona virus and the USA government’s response to the virus was less than optimal in my opinion.

I don’t think there will be a problem as there were no masks and all those folks looked happy and healthy and were in the 20’s to 40 years old range.  It does show how quickly things can change and all the preparations in the world can’t account for random events.

FYI update on masks: There is a massive shortage in the USA of masks and people are asking for ways to prolong the effectiveness of theN95 masks they have on hand.  Chris Martensen of Peak Prosperity. com who is a microbiologist by schooling as well as a money/investment guru recommends rotating masks every 9 days. (The time that Corona virus lives on surfaces)

The N95 masks are good for about 8 hours of continuous wear. So wear the the mask when around groups people and then set it aside for 9 days and let any virus go away.  You might add UV light or an anti-viral surface spray like Lysol to give the mask a spritz to get rid of any viral contaminants and let the mask sit for a few days.

 

Advertisement

I think I got what I need on hand

If you are in a panic and have few preps on hand it can be daunting to try and prep for the Wu Flu/corona virus.  Take a moment and look at what you will need if you have to quarantine.  Separate what would be nice to have and you have to have.

You need food and I bet you already buy food. So buy more food that can be stretch for a month.  Pasta, sauces add meat to your freezer.  Eggs are a great source of protein. Add cheeses and spices/herbs.  Most likely the power and water will keep flowing so buying dehydrated food or MRE’s is not required to stock up for a 2-4 week quarantine.  Buy the foods you like just try and buy enough for an extra week or two.

If you can’t find masks to buy, forget about buying them for now!  How many people in the USA do you see wearing masks daily?  Wear a scarf and keep your distance.  Get gloves and extra hand sanitizer. Wear glasses of some sort to protect your eyes from sneezes and coughs.  You are looking to limit your contact with groups of people.  So you don’t need a lot of masks. You need to be able to stay at home and avoid people.

Start thinking how you could stay at home via self-quarantine? Do the kids go to public school or could you set up an online course/school for the kids? Can you work from home and tel-commute?  Have you asked your supervisor about that as a possibility and what is needed to make it possible?  Never hurts to ask if your job does not require your physical presence.

I would love to tell people that everything will be fine and nothing will change in the USA.  I don’t think that is true. I think the economy will go lower and many people will be laid off for awhile because of lack of materials out of Asia.  I think four weeks of food should be good for any Quarantine, but paying the bills a month ahead or even the current month with out a paycheck will be tough for many people.

1. Pay to have food, water and electricity first!
2. Pay rent/mortgage as the second priority.  Talk with your bank or landlord and see if they will accept a partial payment or skip a month before the rent/payment is due.  Often your landlord also is trying to make payments on loans.  If you give him/her a heads up about a payment issue they will try and work with you.
3. Keep your bank account stocked up and pay bills via online banking.  I’m a big believer in paying with cash locally but having the option of paying bills online will limit your contact with the public.
4. Once you have your basics live cheap!  No delivery pizza or uber eats.  Live off your stockpiled food and stay at home.

Just a few ideas to get your “noggin joggin” on how to keep you and your family safe.  I’ll be starting my garden plants indoors.  A little garden of fresh lettuce, radishes, onions, and herbs will give you not only food but something to do when you get bored.

Added a little more to the preps.

I added a bit more bacon and couple more 5 gallon buckets for containing feed or tissues from sneezing.   I’m no expert virologist or microbiologist but I was the Field Sanitation for my Company/platoon.  I worked in food service and understand about cross contamination via you work surface.  I was a NBC/CBR NCO and learned about the possible use of a biological agent as a weapon.  What I think virus released may have happened or how it happened in China is irrelevant.  The virus is going global and you need to protect yourself.   The country (China) has literally placed a quarantine notice for half of China’s population, 10 % of the population on the earth.  Despite the platitudes of it is just the Flu or more people die from cancer.  China knows this virus is hard to contain.

My belief is the “Globalists” want to play down the extent of the virus spread.  I don’t think that is a good plan for most people.  I understand if you don’t work/ you don’t eat or pay the bills.  Few workers at the bottom of the economic chain are given paid “sick days”.  Nor do parents get paid time off for caring for sick family members.  Most people in the USA are still ignorant about this corona virus, how fast it spreads and how it will affect the supply chain/economy.

My recommendations:

• Get at 2-4 weeks worth of shelf stable food.
• Be prepared for interruptions of trash pick up.  Rather than once a week, perhaps every two-four weeks.
• Buy hand sanitizer, bleach, anti-viral cleaners you can afford/find.  A gallon of bleach and couple of bottles Hydrogen Peroxide should cost about $5.00.-10.00.
• Pay your bills, especially trash/water and electricity.
• Gas up your vehicles and any gas cans.  Fuel up generators.
• Pet food for at least a month.
• Get additional prescription meds for at least 30/60 days if possible.  Research herbal medications as an alternative to chronic illness.
• Few people in the USA are treating this virus as a BIG DEAL!  Now is the time to get stocked up on meds you need to live.  Nearly 85% of all prescription medications come from China or rely on raw materials from China.

You will be affected by this Corona virus.  The cheap china crap gee-gaws at your local dollar store or Walmart.  You want an Iphone/Ipad  or cheap PC parts.  NOPE, you ain’t getting it.

The tide is going out and we are going to see how many people are swimming nekid!

It looks like the Wu Flu is coming to the USA

There are several thousand people under observation/self quarantine here in the USA, 5400 in California and Spokane Washington now have 5 people in the hospital that are positive for the Corona virus.  The Diamond Princess Cruise ship released most of the passengers from a 14 day Quarantine and told them ” find your way home” via public transportation!  I think this virus will spread world wide now as “Preventing panic/keeping the import/export markets running is more important to the globalists than people’s lives.

I don’t recommend panic buying or maxing out your credit cards.  Getting masks and or filters are hit and miss right now but you can get some occasionally by checking several stores.  I recommend not buying any masks after Feb. 29th as most masks come from China and the Corona virus can live on surfaces around 9 days.  If you buy the  masks now they were probably in-route via the supply chain.  Hopefully you you have stored masks, gloves already and you can let any newly bought masks sit for a week or two before you need to use them.

On the N95 masks usage.  Follow the instructions on fitting the mask and remember the mask has a (filtration limit) for use and days used.  8 hours of use, that means you breathing into the mask regardless if you meet a sick person.  Five days of using the mask for protection even for short a amount of time and not exposed to to any flu.

Gloves: Wear 2 sets of gloves and use washing or hand sanitizer between changing out gloves, masks, goggles or clothing.   If in you are in doubt always use a bit of hand sanitizer and change gloves before you remove or change protective gear.  It is a pain in the ass, but it is  you and your families health on the line.

Super easy sanitation for all to use!  About table spoon of bleach in a 20-32 oz. spray bottle sprayed on all hard surfaces will sanitize that surface from bacteria/viruses and you don’t wipe that spray but let it dry naturally.  Now for cleaning fresh veggies you will want to use lemon juice or vinegar about a 1/2 mixture water to the juice and let the veggies soak for about 5 minutes then rinse with cool water.

This Corona Virus is scary because we are not getting any good information from the authorities.  I have very little trust in the US government to tell the truth.  But the government telling the truth is irrelevant to me because I have already taken steps to protect myself to the best of my ability.

Stay calm, and keep working on your preps.  I’ve heard many people think a 100 mile infection zone is when the will pull kids out of school and bunker up.  Personally I have no idea why people would send their children to a public school.

I apologize being late to post. I’m building my new PC  and the build has  been problematic.  I have saved almost all of my data but windows 10 and windows 7 doesn’t seem to work well together with hard drives and files.  I loved Windows XP and I will say Windows 7 did a great job of transferring files from XP to Windows 7.  Windows 10 sucks at transferring files between hard drives on this new PC.

 

 

 

A little snow today and a cold spell. Scored on some good FLU preps

We are having  “cold snap” at least in comparison to most of winter this year.  Got a little snow and Freezing temps with gusty winds to start off February.  I got out today and cut a box of kindling for Mom and a sweatshirt was all additional protection that was needed to stay warm.  25-30 degrees F. feels cold after a week of 50-55 degree F. temps last week.  It has been a long winter but it has not been a cold winter here in the Treasure valley.  I have used about 1/3-1/2 of my wood pile so far and that is with Mom buying a couple of pick up loads of wood from me.  I figure about 2-4 cords of wood will be the average wood use for winter heating.  Even the bad winter of 2016-17 wasn’t that bad except my wood was wet and did not have time to season/dry properly.   This will probably be the last month of winter weather, though March will have some damp chilly weather. I’ll be starting the fire just to take the chill off the house rather than starting a fire to warm the house.   Mom is having a problem keeping her wood dry so this summer we need to build a few wood racks and hopefully start stacking wood early to give it the maximal time to dry.  Rather than just buying buying wood to burn in the fall to burn that winter heating season.  It takes a bit of time to build up a  seasoned wood pile on a fixed income.

I’m splitting my Doug Fir for kindling and split a good size box of kindling for Mom but I’m now splitting and filling up a box of those split doug fir to go with the kindling as the in between size of chunks of firewood and kindling.  Of course it is logical how to make a good easy to start fire! It took me a couple of years to actually set aside and split wood to that in between size of kindling and normal firewood!  I think my idea of the kindling wood box was correct but I’ll be splitting most of the firewood and letting it dry for a bit and then split that wood into kindling.

I think both Mom and I are ready for the WUFLU.  I gave Mom some Tyvek suits, masks and a box of gloves that she was a little lacking on for her supplies.   I bought a few bottles of Hydrogen peroxide as most of bottles were older and probably not as effective.  I shopped Family Dollar and they had a store brand concentrated bleach in the 6% range.  Since unsealed bleach will lose effectiveness in 6-12 months I bought a couple of smaller bottles to make sanitizer.  Remember when using a hard surface sanitizer you want to spritz and don’t wipe it off the surface for at least a minute or two and give the sanitizer time to kill the virus/bacteria/bugs.  Let the sanitizer dry naturally if at all possible.   I’m a big fan of liquid soap pump bottles and washing your hands often.  I don’t care for anti-bacterial soaps or hand sanitizer as I think create super bugs.  I still carry and have started using hand sanitizer outside my home as a precaution.

You are the first aid/medical for a cold/flu or any illness.  You want to prevent infections if possible and if someone gets sick you want to support the patient’s immune system to get better.  I’ve made bone broth, I’ll be making Chicken soup.  You can add vitamins, essential oils, colloidal silver to help support a person’s immune system.  You can put yourself into a quarantine against the WUFLU if you see an outbreak within 100 miles of your home town.  You will have to decide the risk level you will accept,  While the number coming out of China is suspect I’m glad that the recovered now outnumber the dead.

FYI: I got the flu/cold and it developed into pneumonia and then it developed into my immune system attacking nervous system.  Guillaume Barre/CIDP.  I spent over 4 months in a VA Extended Care Unit. I was so weak I could not put on socks or lift cup of water.  You don’t want that to happen to you.  Don’t panic, just buy the basics of food cold medicine if you are low make some bone broth, real chicken soup and stay away from crowds.  Once the “Panic Buying” is over in 2-4 weeks, then start stocking up on masks and goggles and other Protective gear.  Protective gear does not spoil, so once you have the basics on hand you are good to go.

Don’t panic and don’t buy gear at the highest price.  Most likely you will “quarantine” yourself. So have your home self care maxed out with food, basic cold medicines. Stay safe and just wait for the Flu of any sort, burn itself out.  Already more people in China are being declared recovered than those that have died.  I know it is tough to wait and see what happens with this flu.  Heck I don’t trust the US government numbers little lone the Chi-coms info/numbers.  But look at what you can do with the info you have already on hand.

1. Treat the symptoms of the flu.
2. Stay away from crowds.
3. Wash your hands.
4. Sanitize work spaces or yourself.
5. Build up your immune system.

Nothing new with dealing with colds or the flu, except this flu seems to have a nasty pneumonia/bronchitis component as standard. It is a nasty flu bug but with good supportive health care in the home, it should not be as bad as what is happening in China.  Now if you are treating the flu and it gets worse as the patient is having problems breathing of can’t take fluids/food.  Call the hospital and let them know the symptoms before you self transport.  At that point it is best to be overly safe rather than sorry.

This post is getting into the TLDR territory but I don’t think anyone that has prepared should “freak out”.  It is just a cold, or just the flu until it is pneumonia and you need some additional health care.  300 people sick in a country of 330 million is not an epidemic.