CDC: Swine Flu Continues to Spread Around Globe

Weather Report: Swine Flu–The Basics of Where We Are Now, Preparation, & Situation Monitoring

Swine Flu–Where We Are:Things are moving quickly though  the virus seems to be stabilizing. USA Today article “Alert nears pandemic level” gives us a pretty good ‘thumbnail’ of what’s currently going on

• regarding swine flu and here are some of the key points:
• “The World Health Organization raised its global alert level from phase 5, just one level below 6, or “global pandemic,” because the virus appears to be spreading easily person-to-person and cases are appearing that have no link to Mexico. That’s where the virus first began to hit broadly just a few weeks ago.”
• “A pandemic is a geographically widespread epidemic of a newly evolved disease for which there humans have no natural immunity.”
• “Flu pandemic rating system: Since Sunday, the World Health organization has raised its pandemic [global epidemic] alert twice.

Pandemic alert scale:

1 -New virus, no human cases, low risk

2 – New virus, no human cases, higher risk

3 – Very limited human-to-human spread

4 - Increased human-to-human spread

5 - Significant human-to-human spread in multiple locations

6 - Pandemic: human-to-human spread is efficient and sustained

Preparation: For family preparation in a pandemic we look to Kathy Harrison’s excellent book “Just In Case – How To Be Self-Sufficient When The Unexpected Happens” (our book review on her preparedness text should be posted at the end of this week). Ms. Harrison has a succinct chapter on Pandemic (CH 14) and from it we can glean a core of essential preparations and recommendations. Here is some of what she offers:

• “The Red Cross advises that if a pandemic were to strike the United States, we should be prepared to spend ten days confined to our homes. It also warns that we may be without essential services such as power, water, and trash pickup and that the banks will likely close, hospitals will be overwhelmed, and even mail service could be spotty.
• I am afraid that the estimate of ten days of confinement is pretty optimistic. A more likely scenario would be that going out in the public would be risky for at least a month, and there would certainly be viral outbreaks in previously unaffected populations for weeks beyond that. I also think that recovery from a breakdown in services would take considerable time, probably on the order of six to eight weeks. To be really safe, stockpiling a three-month supply of essential goods is not an unreasonable goal.”
• “…some steps you should take. …stay home. … avoid large public places such as shopping malls and supermarkets. I would opt to keep my children home from school.” Except for essential services, “… it might be safer for your family for you to remain there (home from work) until the crisis is over rather than infecting your loved ones.”
• “Hands should be washed a full three minutes …”.
• “Get vaccines or medications as soon as they become available.”
• Keep your body in peak shape through diet and rest.

Situation Monitoring: Latest swine flu updates are available at CDC swine flu (online).

Until next time; keep your eyes on the horizon as the weathers changing fast.