Why Don't People Prep? New Survey

I think this survey is valuable and we should read it carefully, applying everything we've learned in, erm, our practical experience in the field: many of us here have bumped our heads against hard walls, so we could say we are "wall experts". :-)

All of this will be a problem until the end of time, but we have to keep trying IMO.  Wisely.

I'm not sure "simple" is needed.  The message can be complex.  But you need to know the other person.  I once saw a model of communication in which "the message" was really only a trigger that activated previously stored content in the other person's brain.  So we need to know what we'll be triggering, or at least be able to see how the other person has understood, and then keep the conversation on.

It's harder to communicate when we didn't know what to say, really.  Now we know it's mostly NPI and home care, both of which need both stocking up and communities working together.

Once a person has understood, can they be better messengers than ourselves?

Could we youtube (that's a verb) a conversation between an oldtimer and a newbie?  Maybe a real long conversation and cut some gold nuggets?

You arm yourself to the teeth just in case.  You don't leave the gun near the baby's hand.

Maybe we can come up with some better language for a future study.

The conference where these results were unveiled and preparedness issues discussed--"Re-taking the First Step Toward Preparedness: Lessons Learned From Local Health Emergencies"--may be of interest to some. (April 7, 2007)

The video and transcript links can be found at
http://www.kaisernet...

The problem is the "44% who do not believe in worrying about things that may or may not happen in the future."

They cork the information flow simply because they don't recognize that there is a threat.


Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world, indeed it is the only thing that ever has. -- Margaret Mead

If they do understand what panflu could do as a disease,
I find some of those have not heard that there are more than "a few" people "in Asia"; they don't know ages, outcomes, food and pet and pest mammal species, cfr, nations who tell and who don't/can't tell, nor that the US has "low-path" H5N1. They have not heard/seen the pandemicflu.gov site checklists for themselves, their schools, their businesses, they never heard about our state panflu summit two years ago, nor the new OSHA pandemic guidelines, the US State Dept warnings (get stranded and no embassy aid) how much the top-level is getting told that they aren't; factors that would move pandemic out of the "asteroid strike" realm of probability in their minds.

They also may have absorbed and parroted info soundbites they got from officials/"experts"/media: "isn't there a new vaccine; why do we need to do anything?", "I heard it couldn't go pandemic because all this time has gone by and it hasn't", "there's nothing we could do about that anyway; can't live as if pandemic could start next week", "this is all just hype so politicians make money off their pharma contracts", "it's nothing to worry about, if it happens they'll tell us what to do", "Town will request aid from the SNS", (you've heard a few others).

44% believe in worrying about things that may or may not happen in the future, more than they admit on surveys; do they have enough money to live on next week? They may get killed by a truck next week; they may or may not live to retirement age; are they acting as if they worry they will have a long life, plan as if they will? Do they have fire/home/health/life insurance? Did they do anything in their professional capacity to prepare in case of "terrorism"? That may or may not happen in future, yet there is much taxpayer money being spent everywhere on it. Do they participate in plans or drills in case of fires, shooters, tornadoes, hurricanes, do they buckle their seat belts, use family planning, make sure their car is in shape before a long road trip, buy things right before storms, "in case the power goes out or they are stuck at home"?
Perhaps admitting to "worrying about things" on surveys sounds uncool?

What actions do they already take in case of, or to prepare for, things that "may or may not happen in the future"?

Wouldn't simple reporting of past increases in cases, and ages outcomes, as well as weekly reporting of outbreaks in animals or people,
as well as requirements to form local open real Pandemic Preparedness Coordinating Committes; to revise current closed-door plans and prepare for local contingencies and get organizations/groups problem-solving together (wait until they read "the plans" and see what responsibilities were going to get dumped on them without warning- churches will provide miraculously provide food and find the sick, librarians will answer 911 calls for help, unprepped mental health professionals will aid traumatized responders and familiy members of triaged! The SNS will send all our requirements!-not!) wouldn't having genuine (not token, municipal employee, "all hazards treated equal" don't tell the public anything about panflu year except, "don't worry" and "do what you're told if it happens", let's keep revising plans every six months over the next few years) actual
"all"-stakeholder Pandemic committees, and weekly reports in the press, help all the public with the need to prep?

Here are the local problems; for pandemic there won't be a top-down aid solution; how can we have own own solutions in place, on county, municipal, neighborhood, building, household levels?

Put the presentations HHS put together about "Spanish Flu" for the states on primetime tv a few times, (and run the "disruptions may be widespread" individual checklists after) so people see what happened to their area last time a pandemic was targeting the young and healthy.

Surveys are like contingency plans - garbage in = garbage out.  Like TPTB they were afraid to instill panic by using better verbage.

Anyway, in a nutshell it simply confirms that most don't have a clue and aren't at all preparred. 

I know at least 10 people who are healthcare professionals who have gone through SARS, understand all the risks (cos I talk to them) and have done zero on preps.

My conclusion?  They don't really get it.  They think they do, but they don't.  Here's why


All 'safety concerns' are hypothetical.  If not, they'd be called side effects...

Part 1

How many of us have tried to talk to people, friends who trust you, and tried to convince them of the necessity to pay attention to this pandemic issue, and failed?

I just had dinner with a couple who have been our friends for more than 20 years, the kind of friendship where we could appoint each other as guardians of our kids in our wills if we die. Wonderful intelligent people. Medics, both of them. They understand everything that I say, they have lived through SARS (as HCWs, remember), they have the money to prep, they are responsible parents, they make sure their kids got a good education, took their vitamins, teeth straightened out by expensive orthodontics, got told the facts of life, everything, the works.

But I've been telling them about this for at least 6 months, and they have done nothing.

Why is that?

This is by no means a unique experience. I can say most of my friends, mostly medical folks, are not doing anything about it. They don't need me to explain ARDS, they see it in hospitals. They know the CFR for those in their kids' age range. But they do nothing.

They would make sure everybody wear seatbelts, they buy insurance for everything you can think of. But they don't buy preps as insurance against a pandemic.

I have thought long and hard about this, and I have a theory.

Imagine you are a man from Mars, and you've never seen or tasted a lemon before. What is it that I can say or how is it that I can describe the experience of sucking on a lemon for you to really get it? Some of you may have just experienced some actual sensations in your mouth when you read about `sucking on a lemon'. Even if you didn't, you can imagine what the sensation would be like. In fact, you can make youself feel it. It is possible to turn on that special sensation, to `light it up', so to speak.

But if you've never ever experienced anything like it, whatever I say, it is going to be very hard to get that sensation.

This `lighting up', is the key. It is a biological, a neurological phenomenon. It is not anything abstract or ethereal.

If something is close enough to someone's experience, even if they have never experienced it, like losing a loved one in a car crash, they are still able to imagine what it might be like for that to happen. But if it is something so extraordinary, something that is so far removed from their experience, then no matter how much they understand it rationally, it can get very hard for them to get `lit up' about it. This ability to imagine, to try on, the unimaginable, does not come easily to everyone. Some of us have it, most people don't.

This ability to get `lit up', is also a biological, neurological event. The advent of functional MRI scans have in recent years revealed that our thoughts, aspirations, phobias, motivations, are not just abstract psychological phenomena. They are also measurable biological events!

What's more, our biology is not static. It is affected by our history and our life experiences. For example, patients of depression may show specific changes on the scans. People who have normal scans, then experience traumatic life events that cause them to go into (secondary) depression, may then develop the same abnormal patterns that they didn't have before, and these patterns may disappear over time as the person gets better. But if they experience repeated trauma, the depression can persist beyond the trauma and become permanent . When this happens, scans may correspondingly show persistent abnormality. (best reference: `Shadow syndromes' by John Ratey) Our life experiences are literally imprinted in our neurology.

People get worried about losing someone in a car crash because they have experienced enough of life to know what it might be like to lose someone, and they've got the neurological `experience' imprinted, even if it is second hand, sufficiently so that if they think about it, they will get `lit up' sufficiently which kicks them into taking action, eg buying a safer car.

But if they've never ever had that imprinting, of the scenarios that we are talking about, it gets very hard for the lighting up to happen sufficiently for them to take action.


All 'safety concerns' are hypothetical.  If not, they'd be called side effects...

And on that same note, I probably wouldn't be nearly as concerned about pan-flu if I myself had not cared for my MIL with ALS at home, plus elderly great-grandparents, one of home was on oxygen, the other needed a wheelchair.  I KNOW what its like to suction somebodies lungs out and to put them on the ventilator and panic (a little) when a thunderstorm threatened a power outage, and I KNOW what its like to sit beside someone and watch them die and theres nothing you can do.  As awful as that was, in a way,I'm glad I had that experience, because I now have some small clue as to the horrors we are facing when the pandemic breaks out.

  I've also been through a couple of pretty major natural disasters fortunately, we were prepped for those and it wasn't so bad.  But it makes me so frustrated that people don't prep, because,ok, I know only a handful of people who have cared for dying relatives at home,(and I met most of those folks through Hospice) but practically EVERYBODY I know has been through some sort of natural disaster even if its just as minor as oh, say a three day power outage.

The problem for me is, I can imagine a lot worse things.  Even for me, there are things that I don't want to think about.  So I can quite understand where people are coming from.

For those who didn't know, I lost my eldest daughter to leukemia at the age of 16.  When I was first bereaved, some friends would offer to come and talk to me, trying bravely to support me in whatever it was that I needed to get off my chest.  Well, I found very quickly that, bless their sweet and gentle souls, most people cannot deal with even a small fraction of what I really wanted to talk about. 

It's like they push open a door with their foot, and stick maybe the tips of their toes in there, and already the experience is too overpowering and they have to back out.  Some are honest enough to admit it; the guys just want to get a drink....

After a couple of episodes of me having to play the counselor instead, I kinda put a stop to that process.  Didn't work...

So now I know that you can only motivate people from THEIR reality, not yours, and certainly not what the actual reality might be.

The problem, of course, is come a pandemic a lot of people will have to deal with a lot worse things.  The difficulties of mitigating things like massive parental grief is one reason why I think we need to do, as lugon said, everything that comes BEFORE that.

Like prepping, and NPI's....


All 'safety concerns' are hypothetical.  If not, they'd be called side effects...

You are so right about people and their own reality and it might or might not have anything to do what really is.  You can talk until your blue in the face but if thats not a part of there experience, they are not going to hear you.

But if I was to look at it from the POV of outlook on life, I would say that what changed for me was the knowledge that all this is going to end, and sooner than you think.  Now I don;t know how to say this without making it sound morbid, but the fact is, there is no certainty in life except the certainty of death.  Ironically, that is the one certainty that the vast majority of humanity strive to ignore.

But the liberation for me is to know that and draw from it the urge to make things that I do count.  It doesn't have to be about saving lives, necessarily, nor material accomplishments.

Take learning, for example.  I can be learning something for a tangible or practical purpose.  Right now it's about writing in a form that's not my favorite so it's a bit of a pain.  But the other kinds of learning, where you get the joy of suddenly understanding something that was closed to you before.  Well, to be too caught up in 'life' sometimes causes one to lose these joys that are precious to no one else but yourself.  Knowing the finiteness of one's existence, at least for me, puts things in perspective so I can savor these moments.

Like 'Richard' said in the movie 'The Hours', "But I have to live with the hours.." or something like that.

Making the hours count, for yourself, that to me is precious...

But that, of course, is completely off topic here ;-)


All 'safety concerns' are hypothetical.  If not, they'd be called side effects...

lol


All 'safety concerns' are hypothetical.  If not, they'd be called side effects...

My hypothesis is that we might need to make it just horrible enough (ie within the range of their life experiences so that their neurology can get lit up) for them to take action, but not so horrible that there is nothing in their life experiences to give that prior imprinting necessary for the lighting up to occur.

So if I were to say, it's going to be dead bodies everywhere, they won't know how to fill in the blanks, to create the kind of representation in their heads that lead to rational action. So they just blank out and do nothing.

But if I were to say, there's going to be a pandemic. A lot of people might die. But scientists are telling us that if we all co-operate and keep away from people as much as possible, then there is a chance of reducing the deathrate and the impact. To do that, the government might decide to tell everyone to stay home for a while, at least until they get things under control, and shops might close. So you need to have enough food and essentials at home so you can stay in if necessary. It's just the same as preparing for a hurricane, except maybe for a little bit longer.

Now you might say, why not then tell them to prep for 3 months? Why 2 weeks? Surely that's not enough.

Yes, 2 weeks is not enough. But, again going back to the neurology, 2 weeks is just about the limit of what most people's shopping experiences go. How many of us have found it really hard to figure out what 3 months' of food mean?

Plus 2 weeks is do-able. If you give a large group of people a task that is too difficult, you will lose a large percentage right off the bat. Any book on goal setting will tell you that a goal that is too difficult to achieve is a goal that is too big. You need to break it down into smaller ones. That's what most people need.

But, and here's another key, the act of going out to shop for 2 weeks' worth of food etc, will be a new neurological experience. It will start another process of imprinting. The mind starts getting used to the idea. Then getting people to do more preps becomes easier.

And getting them to ask the right questions also becomes easier. This is another important point, when someone is asking the question, they are lit up. They are on the right page. That is when your message is most likely to be effective.

The best time to sell someone an idea is when they are asking, NOT when you are pushing.


All 'safety concerns' are hypothetical.  If not, they'd be called side effects...

They haven't gotten beyond that, unfortunately.  But it was better than not doing anything.


All 'safety concerns' are hypothetical.  If not, they'd be called side effects...

Two questions seem to rouse them out of that complacency.

First, I ask how "comfortable" they would like to be during any such period when the flu is raging outside.  I ask them if it would make things easier if their kids were "comfortable," and had sufficient quantities of the things they were used to having.

Second, I tell them that the peak weeks for flu infection will likely extend out around 4 weeks, and mention that that's the period in which they'll likely not want to go out shopping.  I also mention that the peak flu period is that which is most likely to see store closures and supply shortages. 

After they work through the ideas of "comfort," "peak weeks for infection," and "scarcity" on their own, usually a lightbulb goes off. 

 

ITW(Joel J)
Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear.
- Mark Twain
 

Another acronym for our collection.


All 'safety concerns' are hypothetical.  If not, they'd be called side effects...

  Hi. Comfort. I know what SusanC is saying but keep on comfort.

  Two years ago we got a tropical storm and the power was out for a week. Not thant big a deal.

  One friend was into Dutch oven cooking. She ended up feeding her neighborhood quite well. Food was better than the microwave stuff they ate befor the storm.

  That changed my approach. Not a PSA, not a book, not a poster, not any real life experiance but a story. To live comfertably.

Kobie

I am friends with a family from India. They still have lots of family in India. The mom is a doc. They should know better.

When I told him about my home-canned foods, he asked me what was the point. I told him that I want to eat my favorites during pandemic and that my distaste for being uncomfortable was the whole point of my preps. That's not really true. But it seemed to be reaching him.

Vanity and comfort could go a ways to motivating people.

1) table of # dead in our town and others nearby if you assume best/medium/worst case secenarios.  I just ran population stats against infection and CFR rates.  Easy.  Even a "medium" cfr means a lot of dead in my little town.  It makes it real to them in black and white numbers. 

2) Tales from 1918 survivors: there are many stories from 1918 and most people don't know anything about it.  One woman told me that when she read about children starving because the parents had died and there was no one to take care of them, that kicked her butt into high gear.  People can relate to human experiences.

Why don't they prep?  The reasons are too numerous and have been discussed.  Figure out your target and present info that would catch their attention.  It doesn't happen overnight.  Heck, there was no "ah-ha" moment for me.  It took reading, getting info, etc. and some data points to convince me to prep.  I keep working on people.  Some will clearly never do it.  Others you see a crack in the doorway and you hope at some point they'll open it some more.  Then be ready to pounce in!

They may think that's why, but I would submit that they DO do that all the time, worrying about things that may or may not happen in the future.  They just don't think of those things that they do worry about in the same way.  ie there is an unconscious belief that whatever they do worry about is legitimate, whereas this is not.

In fact, isn't that (almost) the definition of 'worrying'?  Do we ever worry about anything that is not in the future?  And, isn't it true that all future events 'may or may not happen'?

Even when people worry about the past, it is mostly because of what that past might mean for their future, ie they are worrying about consequences of the past for their future, even if such consequences may or may not happen!


All 'safety concerns' are hypothetical.  If not, they'd be called side effects...

Do other people feel immune to catastrophe?  Do they treat the idea like a disaster or horror movie, paying attention for a bit, then pushing it out of their minds?  Or denying it could happen to them? 

The "lighting up" concept makes sense;  I wonder if it's self-sustaining.  When I heard about bird flu in 2005, I was concerned for a while, then I completely forgot about it.  I have no idea why.  When Oprah brought it to my attention in 2006, BINGO.  I've been on it every since.  Is repetition necessary for other people too?  Some religious sectors mandate prayers throughout the day, every day.  That keeps their adherents focused.  Sec. Leavitt came to the states once, and the message was supposed to be passed on.  If TPTB don't seem to be taking action, it must not be important.  If it is important there needs to be a continual drumbeat of "It's coming, so this is what we're doing this week."

"The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it."  Flannery O'Connor

I'm actually feeling kind of edgy now because my freezer isn't full-I emptied it for cleaning a couple of weeks ago and haven't been able to restock completely, and my home canned goods are low because its spring. and of course I haven't done the summer canning yet.

  "But it does skew the odds of our survival tremendously in our favor"

  And there is peace of mind.

  Fun? Stocking shelves is not as fun as making fires and cooking food. Learning to make a flahslight out of spare things. Making a motor out of battery, two paper clips, wire and shower curtian magnet!

  Some parts are more fun than others :O)

For instance, every year it is estimated that only 1/3 of all Floridians prep for hurricane season.  Of that 1/3 on a small percentage are prepped for more than a day or two of interruption in their lives.

I mean, how many times does mother nature have to take a baseball bat to our state before someone is going to "get it?"  They may get it for a year, maybe two ... but if you don't have a major hurricane every year people just go back to the lax way of doing things ... or not doing things as the case may be.

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world, indeed it is the only thing that ever has. -- Margaret Mead

I think that's why Osterholm and others use the 'storm day' analogy.  At least up here, the concept is drilled into you from the time you are a child - the blizzard comes, you get a day off from school.  While the positive aspects of that for kids (and geographic limitations) make that analogy a mixed blessing, the internal impact on parents achieves the 'all lit up' status pretty easy.

Also, to the extent that someone has been threatened or suffered loss during an emergency, the emotional grooves of that event are burned pretty deep.  Unfortunately this sometimes motivates people to intentionally not pay attention to that kind of event - it 'lights them up' in a way they would just as soon forget.  (The Great Forgetting of 1918 may be a global example of that.)

The "lighting up" concept makes sense;  I wonder if it's self-sustaining.

People forget, adjust and prioritze. While the first is a real problem, the last two can actually be positive.

If they forget, they need to be reminded or they will not prepare.  But if they are adjusting to the new reality that includes that risk, our messages need to take that into account.  Many people will be in different stages of ajusting to this new risk and speaking to them in the same way will not be effective.

The stages of adjusting to a new and serious risk are well-known. The first stage - before the adjustment reaction - is some mix of apathy and denial. That is, we legitimately don't know much about the new risk, but we also don't want to know; we resist adding something new to our worry agenda. When that defense is finally breached, next comes the full-fledged adjustment reaction. Instead of under-reacting, we over-react for a bit. We imagine the possible future risk is a here-and-now risk; we may start taking precautions we ought to be only preparing to take. Then we get through the adjustment reaction. We adjust. Our New Normal includes a sensible coping strategy: increased vigilance so we'll know if things get worse; improved preparedness so we'll be ready to act if we must.

There is also a natural ebb and flow of attention and willingness to act that occurs between 'teaching moments'(such as occurred last May in Indonesia).

During those low ebb intervals (like now) some people will relax their vigilence and slack off on their efforts to prepare.  As you correctly point out, we need repetition of the message (pandemic threat continues - here's what you can do) to remind them and help them to minimize backsliding (and catch a few new fish as well).

As to our public officials and the media, it may be that between the 'fear of fear' and the 'fear of fatigue' some may believe it is better to only speak up during the outbreak events that can be seen as 'teachable moments'.  But to use someone else's analogy, that would be like only running fire drills when a fire has broken out that gets people's attention.  It might indeed get better attention to your 'lesson', but is a pretty risky way to teach something so fundamental to our safety.

ITW(Joel J)
Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear.
- Mark Twain
 

- Stay awake when children are ill.
- Go buy some tobacco even if it's raining.
- Stop smoking.
- Buy insurance and a new set of tyres.
- Etc.

We do what we must, when we must:
- http://blogs.salon.c...
- http://blogs.salon.c...

How can we facilitate a "must" on a grand scale, that I don't know.

You arm yourself to the teeth just in case.  You don't leave the gun near the baby's hand.

Very hard to create a compulsion with pandemic prep, unless people get it... lol

My best but still very feeble suggestion is to make more docu-dramas, with lots of examples of what could happen.

Most people think of dying as a single clean one-step process.  Well, it isn't. 

And there are other things...

As anon.yyz once said, try describing to them graphically having to scrounge in garbage cans for left-overs to take home to their kids.  Or at least buy food of dubious quality cos you have no choice.


All 'safety concerns' are hypothetical.  If not, they'd be called side effects...

  The Docudrama's sound good.

  Why don't people prep - because no one else is. If eveyone was doing it they would not want to be left out. One cruel trick is to look up. As people walk by and wonder what you are looking at they will look up. Soon it starts to grow. Got this from a 1940's show.

  Have to make the message real.

  Yea. In the movie "Broad Cast News" looks trumps brains.

  Hey can we get Geena Davis or Dolly Parton.

  Mrs Parton started a reading program for kids that others replicated. Instead of throwing money or fame at a problem she created a working model others could fund and emulate
Source: http://wcco.com/loca...

  Geena is just smart and pretty.

  I still believe in grass roots approach. Its is a long term effort

Kobie

  I'm embarrassed I did not see that. Funny though. Way too logical and no my blood is not copper based green like Spock :) ha ha ha LoL

  Good point. Dolly is definitely an attention getter. Yes, she has a big heart in there too.

  I picked Dolly because she created a plan that others followed.

  There are lots of stars. American Idol is a good point - so is Farm Aide. I just worry about another Dixi Chicks or "One sheet per visit" moment. We are all human regardless of social position.

  There are enough celebrities out there that some of them must have caught on to AI and want to help.

  Yes we may need several. Hank Williams Jr. ("A country boy can survive, country folk can get by"), Toby Keith, Pat Benatar, Dolly Parton, Shania Twain, Ice T, Gene Simmons, Enya, Jeff Wayne (Musical version of the War of the Wolds), KLF, Depeche Mode, Geena Davis, Bill Nye the science guy, Hugh Hefner's daughter, Ellen D., Tom Baker, Les Stroud (Survivor Man),  etc to reach multiple groups.

  In the entertainment age (where celebrities make more money and hold sway) I am not a big fan of throwing money or fame at a problem. Heart counts more.

Kobie

  I think people would pay just to see them on stage together regardless of the message.

  Should have added John Clease. I have trouble with Snoop Dog and Emenem and hope Ice T (who I do respect) can reach them.

  Jeff Foxworthy, George Carlin, Gene Hackman and Dan Aykroyd?

  Enjoy the coffee :O)

Kobie

Wouldn't it be cool if we could get Stephen King to do something like an op/ed piece in a major paper?  Just reading "the Stand" was enough to get me to prep.  What if they re-ran the miniseries on Prime time tv  with Red Cross/CDC/WHO doing CSA's during the commercial breaks?  That would get some folks attention, I'm thinking.

I could just imagine a George Carlin routine "Why is it that...."  And he could do his Mr. Conductor bit- "Kids- Thomas the Tank Engine is prepping for the flu, go tell your folks to do the same."  Maybe get some company to do TTE n95's for little kids.

  Good Idea! Stephen King - now he writes a story worth the hering!

  "Cujo" re-written as a Pandemic. "Night Shift" re-done as a "how not to" book.

  Alot of King's stories actually have moral lines in them. I've only seen him once. He likes the publicity as long as no one asks "when is the book comming out" or "the sequel to the dark castle shoud go like ....blah...blah...balhh"

  I feel this will happen anyway.

  After 9-11, there where songs. Gordon Lightfoot did a good song for "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald"

  I'm kinda couting on them not only to do a few PSA's but quite a few songs during and after the pandemic.

  "Sad songs say so much" - Sir Elton John.
  "I get by with a little help from my friends" - Beatles

Kobie

Now...Jeff Foxworthy?!? He's smarter than a fifth grader...

Dolly Parton could very well motivate a lot of people to prep. Other celebs could too. But I don't think we'll get there. Too close to home. Too ugly. As long as we can keep our politically correct difficult causes overseas (i.e., at arms length), we're OK. Bring 'em home to roost? Not so much.

To be honest, Kobie, Sept. 11 did not get me prepping. Watching Katrina unfold and then learning about pandemic about a month after Katrina is what got me moving. Only now that I am prepping for pandemic do I see the applicability to other disasters.

Am I prepping just for pandemic? No. Am I prepping for other natural disasters? Somewhat, but not so much. My area is relatively insulated from natural disasters by its geography.

I am prepping for "all hazards" but not necessarily of the natural disaster ilk. I'm really prepping for the man-made disasters that are already affecting modern economies and societies.

As I've researched things such as bulk grain purchases and solar energy alternatives, my pandemic prep activities have opened my eyes to many issues related to food sourcing and supply, energy and water conservation issues, global warming, peak oil, and the unintended consequences of modern medicine.

Air pollution, a contaminated, Franken-food chain that is moving further and further away from anything we would recognize as real food, sea level rise, global warming, and peak oil are bigger threats, IMO, than other disasters that traditionally beset the area in which I'm located. YMMV.

  Hi. Thank you for your honesty and openess. I am glad you are looking at some real long term issues and seeing how they could unfold.

  Yes I have heard, "Life gives you the test before the lesson"  but there are things we can see comming. Where we can read the writing on the wall before it is in the news paper.

  I live near a large Navel base so the outcome of wars and civial denfense has been around me. I miss the civil defense. As a child I knew what time it was Saturday morning by the air raide siren test before I could read a clock.

  Hence all this flu wiki prepping is good even if AI does not happen. There will unforseen problems like 9-11, 3-11 (Spain's train bombing) tornados, power outages.

  Hope it goes well for you. That you have the disposable ponchoes not becuase you knew it would rain but because you where preppared.

  With all the cameras, computers, world trade and technology may you have more privacy, security, joy and freedom than our founding fathers could have imagined.

Kobie
"Take hold to prepare the future well - for it is where you will spend tomorrow and the rest of you life"

  Hi. Thank you for your honesty and openess. I am glad you are looking at some real long term issues and seeing how they could unfold.

  Yes I have heard, "Life gives you the test before the lesson"  but there are things we can see comming. Where we can read the writing on the wall before it is in the news paper.

  I live near a large Navel base so the outcome of wars and civial denfense has been around me. I miss the civil defense. As a child I knew what time it was Saturday morning by the air raide siren test before I could read a clock.

  Hence all this flu wiki prepping is good even if AI does not happen. There will unforseen problems like 9-11, 3-11 (Spain's train bombing) tornados, power outages.

  Hope it goes well for you. That you have the disposable ponchoes not becuase you knew it would rain but because you where preppared.

  With all the cameras, computers, world trade and technology may you have more privacy, security, joy and freedom than our founding fathers could have imagined.

Kobie
"Take hold to prepare the future well - for it is where you will spend tomorrow and the rest of you life"

  Hi. Thank you for your honesty and openess. I am glad you are looking at some real long term issues and seeing how they could unfold.

  Yes I have heard, "Life gives you the test before the lesson"  but there are things we can see comming. Where we can read the writing on the wall before it is in the news paper.

  I live near a large Navel base so the outcome of wars and civial denfense has been around me. I miss the civil defense. As a child I knew what time it was Saturday morning by the air raide siren test before I could read a clock.

  Hence all this flu wiki prepping is good even if AI does not happen. There will unforseen problems like 9-11, 3-11 (Spain's train bombing) tornados, power outages.

  Hope it goes well for you. That you have the disposable ponchoes not becuase you knew it would rain but because you where preppared.

  With all the cameras, computers, world trade and technology may you have more privacy, security, joy and freedom than our founding fathers could have imagined.

Kobie
"Take hold to prepare the future well - for it is where you will spend tomorrow and the rest of you life"

Then pandemic awareness and research/Katrina one-two punch and I was seriously on my way. 

I am prepping for multiple-risk (specifically including pandemic - which adds some things otherwise not on the list.) Given the nature of a pandemic, if you can make it there, you'll make it anywhere. (More or less.) There are things on my long-list for other specific threats that I won't get to for quite awhile, but genearlly we are fairly well set.

I think our situations illustrate the potential of the pandemic threat to be used as a 'teachable' moment.

I have tried and failed to convince the local emergency management folks to highlight pandemic threat as a way to reach people and get them to start preparing for both pandemic and multiple-risk.

Because it is relatively new to most folk, I think it is an effective way to convince people to prepare for not only that threat, but a wide variety of threats. 

The EM folk continue to look at it the other way around (which also includes the 3-day bug out bag focus), but if they have not reached the public with their generic 'get ready' message yet, I wonder how they will punch through to them now without acknowledging a new 'threat'. 

ITW(Joel J)
Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear.
- Mark Twain
 

Thanks!


All 'safety concerns' are hypothetical.  If not, they'd be called side effects...

One of the difficulties here is that when confronted with a new disease threat, people inevitably seek to understand it by drawing connections or analogies with a disease they know.  When that happens here, it is likely that this connection is with its name-sake: the seasonal 'flu'.  I believe this operates on a subconscious level to short-circuit the internal acceptance or importance of the need to prepare.

So we must define this need not in terms of public health crisis but in very tangible terms of pandemic (what it is, will it come, when could it come, what will it do and what can we do to prepare.)

Given what the survey particpants identified as barriers to preparing, I believe that the public understands that they have a role to play, but not what that role is.

They will be more likely to prepare if they understand how a crisis would (might) affect them personally and if they know what they can do to protect themselves.  (This would be especially true if that 'understanding' and 'knowing' reduced the expected cost and time needed to prepare.)

This is where I believe the government (and business community) have both failed miserably.  Starting from scratch takes a lot of time.  Once you have done it, you could do it again for someone else in much less time and for much less money.  Both government and business could be helping on this score, but so far that help has been slim.

Flu Wiki is a great example of private initiative attempting to fill that void - to present in a clear manner what individuals and communities need to know and what they need to do.  Summaries, shortcuts, instructions and checklists.  (You need them to put together a bike, but not a pandemic preparedness plan?)

But as successful as this venture is, it is still limited in its reach and scope.

Without spending billions, the government could make sure that both individuals and companies had easy access information and instructions to guide them through the preparation process.  (Think of it as the equivalent of the  Cooperative Extension Services http://www.ces.purdu...). 

This kind of program could apply the same educational mission to pandemic preparedness.

Maybe the national and state Chambers of Commerce or other business associations could take this up as a cause. 

Some of the additional related findings of the survey (go to original for exact wording):

I realize I am not as prepared as I should be: 87%

Average person has a role in preparing for public health crisis:  75%

Place a very or somewhat high priority on preparedness for public health emergency: 38%

Consider themselves:
Well prepared: 3%
Fairly well prepared: 24%
Somewhat well prepared: 37%
Not very well prepared: 25%
Not prepared at all: 8%

Have spent 2 hours or less on emergency planning: 65%

Barriers to becoming prepared: (major or minor reason)

Do not think a public health crisis is likely: 
58% of the public, 48% of employers, and 30% of school administrators

Believe they are already prepared:
27% of the public views themselves as very well prepared of fairly well prepared, but just half (13%) meet the three-day standard.

Do not know what to do to prepare:
44% of the public, 41% of employers, and 25% of school administrators
Do not have the time: 37% of the public, 42% of employers, and 32% of school administrators

Do not have the money to prepare:
62% of the public

ITW(Joel J)
Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear.
- Mark Twain
 

If 47% know about panflu and 44% don't want to know, that leaves only 9% to reach. The rest have the info "bounce off".

The 47% is higher than I thought it would be.

The "bounce off" is not entirely the fault of TPTB (but a clear message is better than an incomprehensible one).

What Sandman and Lanard call 'the teachable moment' is a useful concept. Catch someone when they aren't interested in learning and it's tough to make them interested.

Knowing about flu is not the same as prepping for flu. Different messaging, there.

I don't know if we can say 47% "know about the flu", if we mean 'know enough to care' or 'know enough to prepare'.

47% percent think a serious health crisis from an outbreak of infectious disease such as the flu is likely.

But do they have any real idea what that means? 

Do they know it would affect them as opposed to some others?

The survey tells us that 66% of the public believe that it is very or somewhat unlikely that their family will be affected by a major public health crisis. This is a fairly typical reaction to a new disease threat - defining it in your own mind in a way that excludes yourself from the threat.  This 'only the other' syndrome is not helped by depictions of victims as very, very different from you or I.

Do they know how it would affect them? 

How signficant, how fast, how long, how bad?  I am thinking not.

Do they know there are things they could fairly easily and fairly cheaply do to make their situation better?

Again, my sense is that many fall into one of two equally erroneous camps.  First is the 'They'll take care of me' Camp and on the other side is the 'We're all doomed anyway so why bother' Camp. (Sandman suggests some others here: http://www.psandman....)

Do they know now what to do now?

The survey tells us that many don't have a clue and many more have the idea that it is both too time consuming and too expensive for them to prepare at home or at work, indicating again that they may be confused as to what they can and should do.  Even for us FWians, there is always more to learn and digest.

As you say, for the general public 'teachable moments' are key, with 40% saying that in the recent past they were more prepared, but have fallen off the wagon. They can and do pay attention (and act on that information), but you have to be there with the right message when that time comes and they go looking for answers and guidance.  You also lay ground work between those moments to sustain the momentum.

In a different context (terrorism and the DHS Duct Tape and Plastic advice) Peter Sandman has some interesting perspectives on making this kind of diligence more routine:

The essence of the government's advice is to be vigilant; to take those precautions that are prudent (not too expensive or too disruptive); and to go about our business. This "routinization of terror" is almost undoubtedly the right long-term response to the new reality in which we find ourselves: neither pretending that the terrorist threat isn't there nor allowing the terrorist threat to dominate our lives.

Making emergency preparedness routine should be one of our goals.  This message of making yourself safer through prudent, commonsense preparations is familar to some, but not others and it is equally applicable in a pandemic preparedness discussion.

I am also not sure the 44% does not "want to know". 

44% say they don't believe in worrying about things that may or may not happen in the future.

Is this the same as not wanting to know?  For some, who never want to let even a whiff of bad news into their sanitized bubble, it may be.  They are beyond our reach.  (I wish them good luck with that.)

But for others, might the key be moving the pandemic threat from the category of "may or may not happen" to "not if, but how soon"?

If they knew a pandemic was virtually certain to come (as it is) and recent developments (2003-2007) indicate that it could be very soon (as it could be) and when it comes it could be very severe (like 1918 or even worse), would they worry enough to prepare?  Tough to know, but there is still so much carefully crafted weasel-language being used that most folks are still underestimating the chances of a pandemic (especially a severe one) even occuring.  Until we get past that with these folks, the rest of our message will continue to just bounce off and fall useless to the floor.

As an aside, this discussion has made me decide to stop using the "Pandemics Happen" phrase.  It seems way too close to "Sh*t Happens" and seems to convey the same helpless/futile/wasted attitude.  I also think that "not a question of if, but when" may not be a great substitute. 

I heard that phrase used recently by someone on TV describing the chances of a half-mile wide asteroid hitting the earth and I pretty much discounted it.  From what I have read, that kind of event is estimated to occur once in every 100,000 years.  When pandemics have occurred on average every 30-40 years or so, and the last one was over 30 years ago, maybe it is better to say not a question of if, but how soon and how bad.

 

ITW(Joel J)
Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear.
- Mark Twain
 

I like 'not if but when' and I like "pandemics happen". Nothing fatalistic about that. Just realistic. And for the analogy of a similar constriction you gave, useful for those that say it doesn't.  ;-)

Again - we all know people aren't prepped.  What can we do to get them there?

I don't FEEL well prepared at all.  I have three water sources(though one would have to be treated) I have four non-electric cooking sources.  I don't know how many LED lights I have, but I know I have  five wind-up lights, three hurricane lanterns, two coleman rechargeable lanterns, two NOAH wind-up radios, a rechargeable tv, and a solar recharger.  I have three months of shelf stable dry/canned food, a genny and a (full) propane tank, and live in a passive solar house

But I don't feel prepared because-big chunks of my garden is not even planted yet, Ive had pneumonia and a couple of bad colds this spring and I feel really out of shape-my immune system feels lousy right now.  I have NO tamiflu in stock and only one course of antibiotics (though considerable OTC meds) My goal is at least a full year of food stocked.

I consider myself part of the 89% who says they are not as prepared as well as they should be -yet my friend with her solo flashlight and gallon of bleach would considered herself "well-prepared."

But I have a big O vacation coming up next week.  I'm gonna lay on that beach (with sunscreen of course) and soak up lots of sun/quiet/vitamin d.

Bloody pandemic better not break out while I'm gone.

  No one else came down with this so I suspect stress.  I went ahead and ended our homeschool for this year.  I didn't cover everything I wanted, but no point in getting stressed any more, and we'll just start back earlier-like the first of August when its really hot and steamy and no one wants to be outside.

Thanks so much for your concern and your excellent advice about vitamin D.

The unique challenges of pandemic flu and the potential for widespread illness require us to build response capacity in the healthcare system that is unprecedented. A flu pandemic will stress the healthcare sector well beyond its existing potential to provide care to the sick.

Therefore, all Massachusetts acute care hospitals have been directed by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health to evaluate potential sites in their area where they could, with the assistance of the state and local preparedness partners, provide inpatient care to flu patients.

These Influenza Specialty Care Units (ISCUs) will be licensed as satellite facilities of the hospital, and will be utilized for approximately 2-4 weeks, if needed, to provide screening of outpatients, and for the care of flu patients that do not meet the criteria for hospital admission, but who are too sick to be cared for at home. In the event of activation, staff and equipment will be provided.

Because school buildings meet many of the criteria for such a facility (eg food preparation and dining facilities, adequate restrooms, and large open rooms that can hold a number of patients in a single space), you may be contacted by your local hospital to discuss the feasibility of identifying buildings in your district, in an emergency, as an ISCU

Kobie

"Community Containment Strategies"
"Pandemic Influenza: Impact and Challenges, Massachusetts Department of Public Health, February, 2007 (given March 2007?) it comes in ppt http://www.wpi.edu/P.... and here's the html link http://tinyurl.com/2...

More discussion on this PFI thread http://www.singtomeo...
Reminds me I meant to bring it to the MA preppers thread here, or is there a Schools thread?

not so much about alternative use of schools. The MA prep thread is a good place.

The after action report is here:
School Closing Table Top Excercise - After Action Report
http://www.newfluwik...

The orgininal diary refernced in that post includes links to the publically available and downloadable materials, including both forms and instructions for particpants and leaders.

http://www.newfluwik...

ITW(Joel J)
Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear.
- Mark Twain
 

2-4 WEEKS?!?

THAT'S IT?!? Out of a possible 26-30 TOTAL weeks (3 waves of 8 or 9 weeks), they can only manage 2-4 weeks?!? I suppose that's better than nothing...certainly much more than my state is doing... BB says with tongue in cheek