Captain Dave's Survival Center

Bird Flu

Bird Flu Survival Primer

Introduction

If you do not have the time or inclination to read Captain Dave's Survival Guide, then this primer should provide a broad understanding of Avian Influenza, why it differs from traditional emergencies, and what you need to do to prepare.

If you have read our Survival Guide, then you will recognize some of the following, but we hope you will still find value in the portions specific to Bird Flu.

Bird Flu: A Disaster Waiting in the Wings

Bird flu is an unusual disaster scenario because it will be the exact opposite of typical disaster scenarios. Hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, tornadoes and similar disasters cause huge amounts of structural damage but relatively minimal human casualties. Bird flu has the potential to kill millions, with little or no infrastructure damage.

Unless there are riots or civil unrest accompanied by arson, Bird flu or a similar highly contagious disease with a high death toll would be the equivalent of the neutron bomb: It would leave massive amounts of dead, but houses, stores, schools, factories and office buildings would still stand; our roads and bridges would be unharmed, and our power plants and other utilities and institutions would be unaffected – at least as long as there are people left to operate them.

Natural disasters and even terrorist attacks usually last a very limited duration -- from minutes to hours or a few days in the worst case. This allows an immediate aid response and clean up effort. Granted, rebuilding can take months or years, but tornadoes and earthquakes last a few minutes, hurricanes blow over in a few hours, and floods usually retreat in weeks. A serious outbreak of Avian Influenza, however, could last more than a year and might even have several waves. The 1918 flue outbreak, for example, actually took placed in two successive years, with the second being far worse.

Most emergencies are localized, allowing aid from outside of the region to flow into it. By its very definition, a pandemic is a global problem. There will be no safe, un-affected region to send aid to those affected by Bird Flu.

A Bird Flu Disaster Scenario

Here are Captain Dave’s predictions of what you can expect if Avian Influenza starts being transmitted from human-to-human:

First, people will panic. This will result in immediate shortages of over-the-counter medications, surgical masks, food and basic supplies. Instead of runs on banks, we’ll see runs on the grocery and drug stores. Just as news of a coming hurricane causes outages of bottled water, batteries and plywood, most people will wait to the last minute to prepare, and supplies will sell out quickly. Media coverage of empty shelves will send those who never considered stocking up running to Super Wal-Mart and grocery stores for canned goods, and the crisis will worsen. This will be the first test of our government’s response, both at the local level as police will be required to quell fights and potential unrest, and at the Federal level as they try to reassure the populace that all is well.

After panic, people will withdraw. They will stop showing up at work and social events. Malls will empty and kids will be pulled from school. People will stop answering their doors. Some people will withdraw even further -- leaving their homes to move in with relatives in more isolated locations where newcomers will be greeted with suspicion, as people will worry that they could be vectors for the disease. Initially, this will be a minority of people, and it will not significantly affect services or the economy, but it will spread and the economy will suffer before the disease even gets a foothold.

We recommend preparing ahead of time and practicing self-quarantine. Instead of counting on the ill to quarantine themselves to avoid spreading disease, Captain Dave recommends withdrawing from public to keep from being exposed to the Avian Influenza virus.

Here's a fictional scenario that explains self-quarantine:

As she filled out the form to excuse her son from school indefinitely, Sarah asked the secretary how many kids had been withdrawn in the past few days.
"You’re the ninth," she told her, "more than we had the entire first semester. But lots more are just not showing up for school," she confided in a lower tone. "Our absences were up to 10 percent this week, but the kids aren't sick. Their parents are just playing it safe."
"Bird Flu?" asked Sarah, looking up at the woman.
"It's gotta be" she nodded. "We aren't seeing too many kids in surgical masks yet, but people are so scared, they're pulling their kids out of class."
"It's called self-imposed quarantine," Sarah told her. "Instead of expecting sick or contaminated people to lock themselves up to protect you, you lock yourself away from them. It's safer and more foolproof."
"But can that really work?"
"Sure, if you don't go shopping, or to church, or let the UPS man in. And you have to make sure your kids don't visit the neighbor's kids or see a friend from school. So before you start it, go to Sam's Club or Costco, buy six or eight weeks of food, toilet paper, and other things you will need. Pick up some games, books and videos to keep occupied. Then lock yourself in with only the TV and phone for outside contact. If this is a false alarm, you can come back to work when it blows over, but if the flu is as deadly here as fast as it appears to be in Asia, you'll be glad you did it."
"Three weeks? I only have six days of leave left," said Mrs. DeWitt. "I could never take off weeks, or a month or more." The secretary dismissed the idea with a wave of her hand.
Sarah shrugged. "I know what I would do if I worked in a place with hundreds of children who don't know how to cover their mouth when they sneeze and rarely wash their hands after visiting the bathroom. I'd rather quit my job than watch my child die and think I was the cause of it. But it's your choice, of course."
She smiled behind her mask at the stunned woman as she handed her the paper. "That should take care of everything. Good luck."
As she marched out of the office to her son's classroom, Sarah figured there was about a 10 percent chance the secretary would do as she suggested. She hoped the woman didn't have kids.
The first case of a child with Bird Flu in town was diagnosed 13 days later. School was canceled the following week. Of the 728 children originally enrolled, almost 550 were still in class at the time, a public health oversight that would prove to be costly. Although school was canceled, the damage had been done. More than 300 of the students contracted Bird Flu and, as hospitals grew more crowded, more than a third of them died. It was later estimated that 60 percent of the surviving children at the public school lost at least one parent or a sibling in the epidemic, a higher concentration than the population at large.
Sarah and her family survived, but lost many friends to the illness.
Mrs. Dewitt, the school secretary, did go into self imposed quarantine with her two children the day they closed the school. Her husband, however, refused to cooperate and went to work every day until his office closed a week later. He recovered from the flu and was on bed rest for weeks. He complained for the rest of his life that he never felt the same again. Their daughter Chelsea, who at age 10 was a promising soccer player and a budding violinist, died after fighting the flu for six grueling days. Mrs. Dewitt never forgave her husband for bringing the Bird Flu into their home and left him the following year.

Second, our medical system will quickly be over-run once human cases of bird flu start spreading in the U.S. In the best of times, our emergency care system runs just a hair below capacity. Even in mid-sized cities with several hospitals, a bus load of injured people can swamp the local resources. Imagine how they will handle just 100 people per day who need ventilators and who must be quarantined. And we’re talking far more than 100 potential patients.

The first patients will be the lucky ones, because they will get the best care and have access to the stockpiled drugs. As the stockpile dwindles and hospital resources become swamped, care will deteriorate. Once doctors, nurses and other hospital staff members start to get sick, the situation will worsen. As the disease spreads, we’ll see tent hospitals springing up in city parks, high school parking lots and stadiums and arenas. These will be followed by refrigerator trucks to house the dead and mass graves.

Our recommendation is to avoid hospitals as soon as bird flu stars to spread, especially if you are healthy. If you are the first in your area to get it, then a hospital may help. If you come down with flu-like symptoms two weeks into an outbreak, the hospital is unlikely to be any help at all. Have medical supplies on hand to treat the symptoms and consider going to the hospital only as a last resort.

Third, the government will initiate its quarantine or “containment” protocol. First, they will quarantine anyone who was in contact with a suspected bird flu victim, but this will not be enough. Next, they will quarantine entire communities, counties and states. Public buildings will be closed, events will be canceled, and martial law will be declared to ensure only “essential personnel” leave their homes. At some point, air travel will be stopped, followed by closure of the interstate system. Travel of any kind will be discouraged.

This will lead to additional shortages. What food remains available will be stranded in depots, warehouses and in tractor trailers. Gasoline will not be able to be trucked to gas stations. Medical supplies will not reach people in need. Coal will not be brought to power plants. Chlorine will not reach water purification facilities.

If you are traveling when large-scale human-to-human transmission of bird flu is reported, head home as soon as possible – you may not get another chance. If you plan to go somewhere else to weather the pandemic away from crowds, leave as soon as news breaks and do not stop until you arrive. If you get stranded in a place you do not live and have no friends or family, you will be a refugee with little or no resources.

Fourth, as disease spreads, even essential personnel will stop reporting to work and there will be a resulting deterioration in services. Some of this absenteeism will be due to illness, but others will decide they are better off at home with there families than going to work and getting sick. Just as some New Orleans police officers stopped showing up for work in the wake of Katrina, emergency personnel will have other priorities. So will government and law enforcement authorities, and people who run our power plants, water purification facilities and other utilities. Even talking heads on the media will drop out of circulation.

Do not count on getting any kind of services. If you have power and water during the height of the pandemic, be happy. But plan for the worst – have alternatives on hand to light, heat and cook with. Be prepared to live through outages.

Fifth, we will be given special instructions on how to dispose of the dead. Your best bet to not need these instructions is to follow our recommendations and practice self quarantine.

Sixth, the first wave of illness will ebb, the death toll will begin to drop. People will breathe a sigh of relief. The government will encourage people to be vigilant, but many people will not listen. Emergency supplies will be trucked in to the places that were hardest hit and the hungry will leave their homes in search of food. This will expose a new wave of people to the virus, and a second wave of illness will strike. It may be immediate, or it may strike a season later, but we do expect a resurgence of avian influenza after it appears to be in remission or to have left an area. In fact, it may take two years or more for the disease to run its course through the world’s human population. Each wave may be a slightly different virus with different characteristics.

Our recommendation is to not trust the initial wave of success, but to wait it out to ensure it is not a momentary pause. If it looks promising after three or four weeks, then use the periods of calm to restock and re-supply. Replenish your supplies, learning from your previous experience. Stay cautious, avoid public areas, continue to protect yourself from possible vectors of disease and be very wary, especially the first fall and winter after the pandemic

Seventh, at some point, probably a year to 18 months after the initial human deaths, a vaccine will be developed and made available in large enough doses that it can be provided to a large portion of society. Soldiers, medical and other essential personnel will be the first to get it. Try to avoid being the first to get the vaccination, and watch for side effects in the treated population because a new vaccination will probably not be tested as thoroughly as the FDA would test it if there were not a pandemic. The first vaccine may not prove to be as effective as hoped, but it will be a good first step, and subsequent generations will be better and probably safer.

Our recommendation would be to avoid taking the initial does of the vaccine. In the best of times, drugs are tested on healthy volunteers and then on the best candidates. It is very unlikely that the vaccine will have been tested on large groups of elderly, children or different ethnic groups, each of whom could react differently to the vaccine. Wait as long as possible to see if the vaccine causes deaths or adverse side effects.

Eighth, deaths and illnesses will decline as a vaccine proves effective and a portion of the populace will have developed immunity. People will take a sigh of relief and then start to grieve what they lost. Many will start to experience post-traumatic stress disorder. Everyone will have friends, family members or loved ones who died. The final deal toll in the U.S. alone will be in the tens of millions.

Finally, there will also be massive economic losses which will result in legal nightmares and new legislation. Your personal financial picture will probably be quite different after a pandemic than it was before. The world will be forever changed, and it will take several years for the bird flu wounds to heal and for things to get back to near normal.

Think of the economic damage that would be caused by such as outbreak. Companies will be bankrupted and people will be unemployed. Think of the transfer of wealth as the estates of the dead pass on to their heirs, probably tying up the probate court system for years. Think of how supply and demand will change if we lose millions of people. For example, if there is a surplus of unoccupied homes, the price of homes will drop. Expect Congress to pass laws trying to legislate the country out of its economic problems. Expect them to have unintended consequences.