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OMG if we ever get down to zero cases anywhere, then I will gladly return to my old unmasked, non social distancing ways, because that means we finally have a vaccine that doesn’t allow spread and everyone has either been vaccinated or survived the last variant. It will have run it’s course. But I don’t think that will happen any time soon. With the exception of smallpox, a vaccine has never eradicated a disease. So let’s say it becomes one of those floating viruses out there, that everyone gets every 2 years or so. And the death toll is the same as the flu. As long as we have an effective vaccine that doesn’t allow spread, I will be happy to go back to being back to normal behavior as soon as I can trust that it works for all variants and the rate of infection seems normal. Long answer, but there it is. The last pandemic/plague we had was the AIDS crisis.  It changed human behavior and medicine permanently.  Safer sex and condoms are now the norm, with regular testing for those who engage in risky behavior (sex workers, addicts, etc). And doctors won’t touch body fluids and blood without gloves. And if they do they also get tested. And we developed medications that allow HIV patients to live a long life with the disease. There is no “back to normal,” and the world has moved on and hardly notices. (the first healthcare worker to get AIDS was a married nurse in Iowa who worked the ED. She put pressure on a severe wound with her ungloved hands ((Can you imagine??)).  She had been gardening the day before and was all scratched up by blackberry bushes. Since then we don’t touch body fluids without gloves.) Much of Asia wears a mask when they are sick as a matter of courtesy to those around them.  They’ve been doing it a long time. That (along with masking healthcare practitioners) is probably where we are headed, and one day it will be so normal we will forget where it started.  So that masking  + testing + reasonable treatment + regular vaccine is the future I see. 

I’m not in a hurricane prone area at all (west coast). With current preps, bug out inland sooner rather than later, to get ahead of traffic.  If the new NOLA levee is still intact after this I’ll be impressed. I always have more than one bug out direction I can go in and avoid the main highway. Not prepped to put valuables in waterproof place, so use all the garbage bags, etc that I have. Move furniture upstairs when possible. Travel Trailer(TT) is in our driveway and always prepped with enough to keep us comfortable for a while, a place to potty and waaaay more food than I ever have needed when camping. Truck full of gas. Added extra propane tank to the TT and have a spare always in the truck.  Pets have BOB in the TT already. Many folks on the camping forums will empty their water storage tanks before driving home due to weight, but NOPE that’s 35gallons stored and ready for an emergency. Family sized lifestraw water filter in the trailer, lifestraw individual water bottles and extra cheaper lifestraw for each person in BOB, and chlorine tabs for sanitizing any water we find when the stored water runs out. Would hook up, pull out of driveway and park on street at the first sign of storm, ready to go. Generator for recharging battery and running heat/AC can be grabbed from backyard, and extra propane can be added from backyard if time. Many parks and fairgrounds will allow evacuees to park trailers in a crisis, but there is limited electricity hookups. Second choice is the big truck with full fist aid kit well stocked BOB, kids and pets.  Would grab what the pets need and any extra supplies (like the tent, food, sleeping bags, warm clothes) that are kept in the TT.  This is if we had to leave the TT at home, or had to leave it behind on the road somewhere for some reason. Between the tent and the truck, we would have shelter if we couldn’t find a place to sleep. (2 adults, 2 teens, 3 small dogs, 2 cats).  It’s wildfire season here in the PNW, and this works for that as well.  We have a 3 stage evacuation process (get ready, get set. go) and I would get out at the “get ready” stage to beat traffic jams. This setup is because I was very close to the evacuated areas last year, and so my being ready “someday” got too real.

It will depend on where you live. We currently have indoor and outdoor mandates in my state, vaccinated or not. But since infection control in the states is tied to politics, that won’t be true everywhere.   Many doctors here are saying it’s no longer “vaccinated or unvaccinated” anymore: its vaccinated or sick. That everyone unvaccinated will get it eventually, unless they want to spend their time as extreme hermits, stay home, don’t work and don’t spend time with other people.  Very few will actually do that.   So being unvaccinated means you are nearly guaranteed to get COVID and get really sick. Probably more than once.  We have some early treatments that are very effective, but that’s no guarantee you will survive. AND right now in most places people are being treated for free, but that will stop at some point.  Regeneron (the best treatment) costs $1500, and you need to go to a hospital or clinic for an IV or injection, and you need to see a doctor for a prescription.  The treatment is free now, but the other two pieces are costing people a lot of money. If you don’t have good insurance you get a big bill. Many unvaccinated will get COVID as well, but are much less likely to need treatment. Honestly I’m at risk of exposure every day and it’s not dying that I’m most afraid of.  I’m much more afraid of becoming a long hauler.  There are healthcare workers who got COVID at the beginning of the pandemic who are now on disability for fatigue, permanant damage to lungs, brain fog, etc. They are still too sick to work. And a good estimate is if you get COVID you have a 30% chance of having symptoms mess with you for a long time.

I’ve been feeling like we are slow decline for a while now (or maybe just noticed it at that time).  Particularly with the climate changes I’ve been seeing. My strategy has been to diversify as much as possible to build resilience. Two years ago I sold my house in a heavily HOA active neighborhood where nobody ever came out of their house, and we were the only kids who played outside regularly.  I don’t think those neighbors would easily come toghether in a crisis, and after 7 years I literally only knew the family across the street. I moved 2 miles away into an older neighborhood that has one entrance to the triangle of 3 main streets and multiple cul-de-sacs.  I live in a cul-de-sac consisting of 7 houses of friendly neighbors who all know each other, and most of us gather for parties and the kids play in the street together and everyone keeps an eye out for cars entering and knows who belongs there.   I have solar panels on the roof and both gas powered and electric vehicles, and a wood stove in case the power goes out in the winter and a finished basement to weather heat waves. And a couple of generators and enough fuel to at least get us through until we eat everything in the refrigerator and freezer. I have enough chickens to provide more eggs than we need for protein, and a large yard to grow a seasonal garden and I’m working toward permiculture with fruit trees and perennial plants.   I don’t think I would be able to subsistence farm (but who knows?) but I push myself to learn how to grow a few new things every year. I probably have enough land to I work in healthcare, so have desired skills and a LOT of job security. And of course I have stored food and anything we can’t do without in a FIFO system.  It is amusing to me that toilet paper is becoming scarce again and so many people around me did’t think to stock up the first time.  I had a year or more worth of the stuff on hand the first time around.  And my favorite prep is the Travel Trailer I bought at the beginning of the pandemic.  We have a truck that always has enough fuel to get us to a bugout location (fire evac) or sleep in at home (earthquake) and it’s stocked with enough to get us by comfortably for a while. And as a bonus is has been a great source of COVID safe entertainment (camping!). In the past year or so we went from wildfires with local evacuation orders and smoke, then an ice storm, then a record heat wave.  And all during a pandemic.  It baffles me that it hasn’t occurred to more people around me that it may be time to start thinking ahead about these things.  My best friend has a BOB and freeze dried meals stored, but when she lost power during the ice storm she “didn’t have any way to cook/eat” because her oven is electric. She has a camp stove in her preps she doesn’t know how to use.


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OMG if we ever get down to zero cases anywhere, then I will gladly return to my old unmasked, non social distancing ways, because that means we finally have a vaccine that doesn’t allow spread and everyone has either been vaccinated or survived the last variant. It will have run it’s course. But I don’t think that will happen any time soon. With the exception of smallpox, a vaccine has never eradicated a disease. So let’s say it becomes one of those floating viruses out there, that everyone gets every 2 years or so. And the death toll is the same as the flu. As long as we have an effective vaccine that doesn’t allow spread, I will be happy to go back to being back to normal behavior as soon as I can trust that it works for all variants and the rate of infection seems normal. Long answer, but there it is. The last pandemic/plague we had was the AIDS crisis.  It changed human behavior and medicine permanently.  Safer sex and condoms are now the norm, with regular testing for those who engage in risky behavior (sex workers, addicts, etc). And doctors won’t touch body fluids and blood without gloves. And if they do they also get tested. And we developed medications that allow HIV patients to live a long life with the disease. There is no “back to normal,” and the world has moved on and hardly notices. (the first healthcare worker to get AIDS was a married nurse in Iowa who worked the ED. She put pressure on a severe wound with her ungloved hands ((Can you imagine??)).  She had been gardening the day before and was all scratched up by blackberry bushes. Since then we don’t touch body fluids without gloves.) Much of Asia wears a mask when they are sick as a matter of courtesy to those around them.  They’ve been doing it a long time. That (along with masking healthcare practitioners) is probably where we are headed, and one day it will be so normal we will forget where it started.  So that masking  + testing + reasonable treatment + regular vaccine is the future I see. 

I’m not in a hurricane prone area at all (west coast). With current preps, bug out inland sooner rather than later, to get ahead of traffic.  If the new NOLA levee is still intact after this I’ll be impressed. I always have more than one bug out direction I can go in and avoid the main highway. Not prepped to put valuables in waterproof place, so use all the garbage bags, etc that I have. Move furniture upstairs when possible. Travel Trailer(TT) is in our driveway and always prepped with enough to keep us comfortable for a while, a place to potty and waaaay more food than I ever have needed when camping. Truck full of gas. Added extra propane tank to the TT and have a spare always in the truck.  Pets have BOB in the TT already. Many folks on the camping forums will empty their water storage tanks before driving home due to weight, but NOPE that’s 35gallons stored and ready for an emergency. Family sized lifestraw water filter in the trailer, lifestraw individual water bottles and extra cheaper lifestraw for each person in BOB, and chlorine tabs for sanitizing any water we find when the stored water runs out. Would hook up, pull out of driveway and park on street at the first sign of storm, ready to go. Generator for recharging battery and running heat/AC can be grabbed from backyard, and extra propane can be added from backyard if time. Many parks and fairgrounds will allow evacuees to park trailers in a crisis, but there is limited electricity hookups. Second choice is the big truck with full fist aid kit well stocked BOB, kids and pets.  Would grab what the pets need and any extra supplies (like the tent, food, sleeping bags, warm clothes) that are kept in the TT.  This is if we had to leave the TT at home, or had to leave it behind on the road somewhere for some reason. Between the tent and the truck, we would have shelter if we couldn’t find a place to sleep. (2 adults, 2 teens, 3 small dogs, 2 cats).  It’s wildfire season here in the PNW, and this works for that as well.  We have a 3 stage evacuation process (get ready, get set. go) and I would get out at the “get ready” stage to beat traffic jams. This setup is because I was very close to the evacuated areas last year, and so my being ready “someday” got too real.

It will depend on where you live. We currently have indoor and outdoor mandates in my state, vaccinated or not. But since infection control in the states is tied to politics, that won’t be true everywhere.   Many doctors here are saying it’s no longer “vaccinated or unvaccinated” anymore: its vaccinated or sick. That everyone unvaccinated will get it eventually, unless they want to spend their time as extreme hermits, stay home, don’t work and don’t spend time with other people.  Very few will actually do that.   So being unvaccinated means you are nearly guaranteed to get COVID and get really sick. Probably more than once.  We have some early treatments that are very effective, but that’s no guarantee you will survive. AND right now in most places people are being treated for free, but that will stop at some point.  Regeneron (the best treatment) costs $1500, and you need to go to a hospital or clinic for an IV or injection, and you need to see a doctor for a prescription.  The treatment is free now, but the other two pieces are costing people a lot of money. If you don’t have good insurance you get a big bill. Many unvaccinated will get COVID as well, but are much less likely to need treatment. Honestly I’m at risk of exposure every day and it’s not dying that I’m most afraid of.  I’m much more afraid of becoming a long hauler.  There are healthcare workers who got COVID at the beginning of the pandemic who are now on disability for fatigue, permanant damage to lungs, brain fog, etc. They are still too sick to work. And a good estimate is if you get COVID you have a 30% chance of having symptoms mess with you for a long time.

I’ve been feeling like we are slow decline for a while now (or maybe just noticed it at that time).  Particularly with the climate changes I’ve been seeing. My strategy has been to diversify as much as possible to build resilience. Two years ago I sold my house in a heavily HOA active neighborhood where nobody ever came out of their house, and we were the only kids who played outside regularly.  I don’t think those neighbors would easily come toghether in a crisis, and after 7 years I literally only knew the family across the street. I moved 2 miles away into an older neighborhood that has one entrance to the triangle of 3 main streets and multiple cul-de-sacs.  I live in a cul-de-sac consisting of 7 houses of friendly neighbors who all know each other, and most of us gather for parties and the kids play in the street together and everyone keeps an eye out for cars entering and knows who belongs there.   I have solar panels on the roof and both gas powered and electric vehicles, and a wood stove in case the power goes out in the winter and a finished basement to weather heat waves. And a couple of generators and enough fuel to at least get us through until we eat everything in the refrigerator and freezer. I have enough chickens to provide more eggs than we need for protein, and a large yard to grow a seasonal garden and I’m working toward permiculture with fruit trees and perennial plants.   I don’t think I would be able to subsistence farm (but who knows?) but I push myself to learn how to grow a few new things every year. I probably have enough land to I work in healthcare, so have desired skills and a LOT of job security. And of course I have stored food and anything we can’t do without in a FIFO system.  It is amusing to me that toilet paper is becoming scarce again and so many people around me did’t think to stock up the first time.  I had a year or more worth of the stuff on hand the first time around.  And my favorite prep is the Travel Trailer I bought at the beginning of the pandemic.  We have a truck that always has enough fuel to get us to a bugout location (fire evac) or sleep in at home (earthquake) and it’s stocked with enough to get us by comfortably for a while. And as a bonus is has been a great source of COVID safe entertainment (camping!). In the past year or so we went from wildfires with local evacuation orders and smoke, then an ice storm, then a record heat wave.  And all during a pandemic.  It baffles me that it hasn’t occurred to more people around me that it may be time to start thinking ahead about these things.  My best friend has a BOB and freeze dried meals stored, but when she lost power during the ice storm she “didn’t have any way to cook/eat” because her oven is electric. She has a camp stove in her preps she doesn’t know how to use.

This is fascinating.  The original questions was asked during a time of dwindling COVID cases and some relaxing of restrictions.  I work in healthcare, and I was skeptical at first but started to be lulled into a sense of security (though I still haven’t eaten inside a restaurant yet). I was even starting to believe that the vaccine would be successful at eradicating COVID. Then came Delta, and everything is different.  People get sicker faster and vaccinated people can get and spread COVID and not know it.  And the other variants starting to develop are even more scary. So, my (educated) conclusion is that there is no way to reach herd immunity if the vaccine doesn’t actually stop the spread.  So, currently only the vaccinated are protected, and the unvaccinated are at high risk if they don’t quarantine.  They can’t hang out safely near anyone if anyone may be carrying it and not know it.  Epidemiologists smarter than me are saying that this is never going away, and we are going to have to adapt to it.  It will reach a point when you will get your annual COVID shot and go about your business and need masks in some places and some people get sick enough and die every year but most don’t. And it may take a couple years to get to that point yet. As an RN, the first time I put on a mask for this pandemic I knew for certain I was going to be wearing one at work every day until I retire. Much like the AIDS epidemic brought forth universal precautions.


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