# 492
Earlier today I ran a blog about Erie County Health Department in New York State, and their request for $300,000 to prepare for an avian flu pandemic. Included in their prepping plans is the purchase of 800,000 masks to be dispensed to the public.
This for a county of nearly 1 million people.
Obviously, if evenly distributed across the population, this works out to less than one mask per person for the duration of the crisis. Not enough by a long shot.
Of course, the county could hardly be expected to stockpile enough masks for everyone during a pandemic. An influenza crisis could last for months, and masks are only good for a few hours. Assuming you could get a full day’s wear out of one surgical mask, and that 25% of the population required them when out doing essential work during a pandemic, then they’d burn masks at a rate of a quarter of a million a day. Their county stockpile would last less than 3 days.
Obviously, if people want the protection afforded by surgical or N95 masks, they’d better plan on acquiring them on their own. The county will likely reserve their stockpile for public safety employees: LEOS, Firefighters, EMT’s, and Health department and EOC employees.
A box of 50 disposable surgical masks can be had for $3. Or a bag of 20 N95’s can be bought off the shelf at the local hardware store for about a dollar apiece. Disposable gloves, latex or vinyl, are about 15 cents for a pair. A family of 4 could, for about $60, purchase 300 surgical masks and 300 sets of gloves.
Pretty cheap insurance, if you ask me.
If a family member became ill from the virus, having these items on hand might mean the difference between containing the virus and having it spread throughout your entire family. They will provide some measure of safety (no guarantee’s of course) if you need to venture out during a pandemic wave to obtain food, medicine, or water, or if you need to work.
The Federal government says that every family should have at least 2-weeks worth of food, water, and medicine on hand. This is a minimum recommendation. They aren’t exactly discouraging having more. But they realize that most families haven’t even met this modest goal, so it’s very difficult to push for more.
Understand, if any member of your household falls ill due to the virus, your entire family could be quarantined for two weeks or longer. That’s the plan. If your pantry is bare, you won’t be able to run down to the grocery store to buy food to tide you over. And FEMA has made no bones about the fact that they won’t be there to drop a pallet of MRE’s on your doorstep. You will be dependant upon the largess of your local emergency response, and kindness of your neighbors, if you run out of food.
And in 1918, people literally starved to death in their homes because people were afraid to approach a quarantined home.
Could this really happen? Could people literally starve to death in their own homes during a pandemic today?
It isn’t beyond the realm of possibility. Stores may not be replenished with goods, your local emergency response teams may be overwhelmed, and you may simply fall through the cracks. If you fail to take the government’s advice, and have adequate food and water on hand, you do so at your own risk.
Many people say they can’t afford to buy enough food to tide them over for 2-weeks or longer. And for some, this may be true. Although you can buy a 20 lb sack of rice for $7, and a 20 lb sack of beans for about $10. Add some oil, some salt, a few cans of meat or vegetables and for under $100, you could keep a family of 4 alive for a month, if not exactly thrilled with the cuisine.
Water can be easily stored in 2 liter soda bottles; you don’t have to buy water. A gallon of unscented bleach is less than a buck.
For somewhere under $200 worth of provisions, you could provide for your family for a month or longer. Of course, most people would spend more. They would see other things they would want during an extended crisis. But for survival purposes, it can be done rather cheaply.
Of course, depending on your circumstances, there are other considerations besides food and water. Prescription medicines, heat and cooking fuel may become issues. You should visit www.pandemiflu.gov and go over their checklist to see what you might need.
Going back to Erie County for a second, if their local government needed to provide a month’s worth of food, water, and supplies for everyone in that one county, at $50 per person, it would cost them nearly $50 million dollars.
A budget buster, and it isn’t going to happen.
Multiply that across the entire United States, and you’d be looking at $15 Billion dollars, for one month’s supplies. And no, that isn’t going to happen, either.
Even if the government had the money, and the resources, they don’t have the logistics to deliver food to every household across the country. At best, they may set up some limited food dispensing locations, and that would require citizens going out during a pandemic, and standing in line for hours in line with hundreds of other people, some of who might be infectious.
Not a very good plan.
Those who can afford to prep today; simply should. I know it’s a hassle. It’s money out of your pocket. You might have to forgo a couple of fancy restaurant meals, or skip one double latte a week for a year to pay for it. But it could save your family’s life.
And make no mistake; prepping is ethical. It isn’t a case of the have’s being prepared while the have-not’s go without.
By providing for your family’s well being during a crisis, you will be one less burden the government will have to deal with, and that bag of rice you might have stood in line for could go to someone unable to prepare. You will free up scarce resources for someone less fortunate than yourself. And by doing it now, before there are shortages, you will place no extra burden on the supply chain.
By preparing your family, and your household, you are part of the solution. You free yourself from many risks, including unnecessarily exposing yourself, and your family, to the virus in order to obtain supplies. You make your community more resilient, and you increase your own chances of survival.
And you also may free yourself up to help others during a crisis. Those with extra may find they can spare something for a neighbor with nothing. Those who aren’t dependent upon standing all day in a bread line may find they can volunteer to help their community.
And if a pandemic doesn’t come? What then?
The food can be donated to a community food bank, or used up in the normal course of events (replaced of course, as the threat won’t have gone away). You will have probably saved money in the long run, buying in bulk.
And if something else happens in the meantime: an earthquake, a tornado, a hurricane, or some other disaster, you will be prepared.
And that has to be worth something.
In fact, it could be worth everything.
