[p2p-research] swine flu threat assessment

[Michel Bauwens]

Dear friends:

This is a serious and moderate assessment of the swine flu threat:

-
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-wellbeing/health-news/just-how-big-a-threat-will-this-flu-outbreak-be-1674472.html

I'll be updating not the news, but the main info sources, via
http://del.icio.us/mbauwens/Swine-Flu

My friend Vinay Gupta, experienced with disaster management, has a review
here at
http://www.globalswadeshi.net/forum/topics/pandemic-flu-swine-flu

In this text, he has 4 recommendations, please note that you only have to
start considering them when swine flu breaks out in your own country, i.e.
Thailand in my case, but I would recommend keeping it handy somewhere in
case.

 Right now, there are four things you should do.

A> Prepare to stay at home for a month while a wave of flu passes by.
This keeps you out of the way of the germs. Things to consider are
medications, food and toilet paper. You should get a three month
prescription for anything you need now in case of quarantine / supply
chain problems later. On short notice you can assume (hope) that water
supply and electricity supply will continue, although if the flu wave
is extremely severe that may not be the case.

Here is an absolutely minimalist food shopping plan.

http://files.howtolivewiki.com/how_to_buy_food_for_disasters.pdf

You should probably buy more different stuff, but I wanted to
illustrate just how little is required.

Here is a somewhat more comprehensive and gadget-oriented shopping list.

http://vinay.howtolivewiki.com/blog/hexayurt/disaster-shopping-with...<http://vinay.howtolivewiki.com/blog/hexayurt/disaster-shopping-with-gupta-1003>

Readymoms have considerably more sane and comprehensive resource
guides available. You should read their stuff.

http://readymoms.org

B> Prepare psychologically for an extremely difficult period. This
means doing things like visiting your parents, figuring out your
relationships if they are in ambiguous states, making sure that you
are not your job, your car, your house or any other such thing, but
are yourself. The key to resilience is wanting to survive, putting
yourself in the driver’s seat of the situation, and being clear about
your goals. The psychological shock of a hundred million people dying
of flu in the next year (a reasonable estimate: CAR20/CFR7) cannot be
over-estimated. But the immediate challenge is not going into
Ostrich-mode and putting your head in the sand: rather, remain alert
to threats and act appropriately.

C> Understand what pandemic flu is and is not. Do some reading, not
just the news, but the “flubie” sites - there are a number. You’ll see
opinions from “end of civilization” through to “keep calm and carry
on.” Prediction is difficult, especially of the future, but
understanding the range of options and contingencies is critical at
this time. You are an individual and community actor in a situation
which is as threatening to your life as a car crash or an aeroplan
crash in many ways. The fact that the threat is large and distant does
not change that it is real. Your brain is poorly evolved to act
rationally around large, remote threats but you can compensate by
reading, thinking and acting.

D> Go out, today, and buy four things. Surgical or N95 masks, hand
sanitizer, a gallon of bleach, and a week’s worth of groceries. You
need these things not just to protect you, but to protect the people
around you if you get sick. The surgical mask stops you breathing in
infectious particles, but it’s even more effective at stopping you
infecting other people. Hand sanitizer should be used immediately on
returning home or arriving at the office: if everybody does this is
really helps protect these spaces. Bleach is a contingency measure in
case of things like water supply problems or a need to disinfect an
area. The groceries trip is practice for social distancing by reducing
your number of trips out, and gives you a little buffer. Social
distancing is about avoiding unnecessary contact with crowds and
public places to reduce infection risks. If you are in an area at
risk, make one trip, not five. Pretty soon everywhere may be at risk
at least some of the time.

All of these measures have two effects. The first is that they protect
you. The second is that by protecting you, they protect the people
around you, and if enough of us do these things, we all protect each
other.

Right now, London has no reported cases. If you are reading this in
Mexico, however, you should implement immediately. And if cases show
up in London, we are on a war footing immediately: everybody does
these things to protect everybody else, period.


-- 
Working at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhurakij_Pundit_University -
http://www.dpu.ac.th/dpuic/info/Research.html -
http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI

Volunteering at the P2P Foundation:
http://p2pfoundation.net  - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net -
http://p2pfoundation.ning.com

Monitor updates at http://del.icio.us/mbauwens

The work of the P2P Foundation is supported by SHIFTN,
http://www.shiftn.com/
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