The other thread on quarntine got me thinking about this.
Would you SIP for SARS? How would you have known early in the game that SARS did not have a high infection and CFR?
Will you wait until it hits the US to SIP.
How will we know it is not just a bad flu or another SARS?
When will you SIP and take off work? When we have confirmation of an infection rate of 30% and/or CFR of 1% or 50%? Wait unitl they are dying in the US. It may be too late by then. It will be up to each of us to decide, I just don’t want to SIP for the normal flu. Guess the fluwikie will have to keep us informed so we can each decide when / if it is time.
It’s hard to give one definitive answer. I think, for us anyway, it will be fluid and decided as things progress. I didn’t know much about the actual infection rate of SARS initially, but it didn’t seem to be spreading as quickly. From what I know of the science of flu now, I know that AF will be totally different.
NJ Jeeper – at 08:20 Will you wait until it hits the US to SIP?
Yes.
As to the rest of the issues in your post, I agree with LauraB. I think that each person’s line of work, as well as the geography and demographics of their home town, will determine what triggers SIP for them.
NJ; I think it will be unmistakable. The clusters will just explode, and people will be dying within the week in significant percentages as in the Karo cluster. The diagnosis will be done within a couple of days of infrection, and hopefully that news will not be suppressed. There will be enough people plugged into the knowledge loop that word will get out somehow, even in China. Although China would have to be the biggest risk of news suppression.
How quickly it arrives in your town will depend on who is on what flight to where.
And just hope that you are not at “ground zero”. Then you are #&%*ed!@!!
A big part of me wishes I COULD SIP. Family will sip when clusters start popping up frequently in diverse areas .
Mine is clear, first H2H in my city, kids get pulled from school and office gets transfered home.
Everyone is different, so there are no hard fast rules
I agree with the other Dennis and LauraB- it is an individual thing.
Since I don’t live in town and don’t go to town often (except perhaps once a week for mail and supplies)- I will wait until it its somewhere in the US or if there are Lots of large clusters elsewhere. Comments out “reaching your town” are not relevent to people not living in towns. In most cases the flu season here is about the time when the snow hits and we very seldom get out among others in the winter- just too much trouble to plow the drive. It is quite common to have weeks with no one in or out. We often have power outages and such anyway, so we are in effect SIP’ing every now and then anyway. I just plan on checking fluwiki each time before we head to town to see if TSHTF. If it has, I will just stay home. The problem, of course, is that I relie on the net for a lot of business type items. If it goes down, I might have to make some trips to the bank and post office - the “drive bys”.
Sad to say but I doubt I will get to really SIP until it is too late. I am a school teacher on a military base. Lots of parents coming and going, flying here and there. Highly mobile community. The decision to close schools will be reactionary rather than preventative (my opinion). My meager preps are geared for grocery store closures, not flu avoidance. If I get sick, I hope to recover quickly so as to be of assistance where I can and take care of my family. Don’t mean to sound defeatist but the reality of my situation vs. the nature of a pandemic dictates that is only so much I can do.
I think the decision to SIP is a reactionary decision in almost any scenario. Either you pull in right now because it might be coming soon, or else, you wait to hear some definitive clue to the fact that H5N1 is out and running and heading to a town near you.
The first instance cited above is probably way too soon and is a waste of your time and resources. The second scenario is probably pushing it too late, and may in fact prove in some cases to be too late. But I don’t see any happy middle ground.
On the fence – at 11:52 I am a school teacher on a military base. Lots of parents coming and going, flying here and there…
Truly, you are in a difficult situation. I wish you the best.
It seems like there are too many pertinent streams of information to make a concrete “at this point we will SIP” — for instance a lot of deaths in Shanghai would get my antenna up, but so would 2 cases in New York City.
It’s kinda like trying to figure out when the cake is “done” when cooking with an oven with a wacky thermostat. You are doomed to keep checking every five minutes to see what the situation is now. Irritating and a bit exhausting.
There is also an economic aspect to consider — I’m sort of like On The Fence in that my preps are more geared to catfood & kitty litter shortages & many many cans of Dinty Moore Beef Stew!!
But I know my husband will put on that ‘I’ll be OK’ face & stroll off to work in an national business with visiters coming from all points on a daily basis. I’ll think through the how to go through cleansing steps for prevention every day that he comes home (have already moved a pedistal to our narrow foyer to hold GERM-X for hand cleaning when this Fall comes just because he ALWAYS brings home a cold germ for me to enjoy) but I won’t be able to just seal us off from the rest of the world until it’s probably too late to stay well.
There’s also that issue of ‘last one standing’ to deal with. One type person will tough it out, just to show they can last longer than someone else and so on. And so all of those tough guys could eventually end up sick as pups.
It’s just impossible to tell how or when we all will actually SIP, because there are just too many variables & too many idiots out there who will take risks!
And there is also the issue of how, if any municipal/state/federal agencies to step in and issue quarantine rules, those rules are going to be enforced and to what extent.
Quarantine rules cut both ways … they can help keep you “safer” but they can also dessimate you economically. Both might wind up being the same thing in the end.
Unfortunately all we can do is prep as best we are able and leave our plans flexible enough to accomodate the unknowns.
Not only is there no way to predict when a pandemic might start (if one does), there is no way to predict how we will hear about it, or how accurate that emerging infomation might be. Nor will we really know how far around the world it will have silently spread before the definitive tests verifyiing a pandemic have been done and verified, and then announced. Look how difficult it was to figure out what was going on in Turkey, Azer, Indo, and now in Thailand.
We are planning on SIP, and fortunately have agreed that we will begin as soon as there is any substantive H2H spread anywhere in the world. The Karo cluster was not it, not widespread enough at the time, but it did get our attention. I do not think that the final signal to SIP will be very clear-cut. Nor will it be an easy decision. I do not anticipate a last run if Efficient H2H is seen anywhere. Too dangerous in my opinion. We are retired and hence have the luxury to begin SIP at any moment. We accept we may have a few false starts when we go inside, than realize we have done it too soon, and come out again. So be it. Better to SIP too soon and be safer, than too late….
That’s easy to say now of course.
Dang it, we’re just doomed aren’t we?! :-)
Nope..
I’m not going to SIP- shall be at work…my kids will SIP if they chose-they are all adults..I’ve prepped so my mother in law, daughter and her 2 grandsons can SIP as I feel they’ll be the most vunerable..my son in law is a cop, so I know he won’t quit his post..
I’ve tried to broach this subject with DH. Because I know him. He runs a commercial roofing company, and he will go to work every day. He reassured me last weekend, (when I gently brought it up again…..) that he would SIP when it hit our State. hmmmmmm……..I’ll need to collect my son from college, and he’s in denial. hmmmmmmm……..Don’t know about adult daugher, who is also in college. Husband is retiring December 31st. It’s going to be a something that I guess can’t really be planned until it happens. I’m a homemaker, and I intend to lay low this winter, use my preps up and next Spring, I’ll restock. So I guess I will be SIP all by myself :-) !!!
Our plans for SIP have changed. Originally, we were going to completely isolate ourselves at the first news of H2H in the U.S. I wish we could stick with that plan but we can’t afford to sacrifice our jobs. We’ve been considering alternatives such as SIP at work or wearing more personal protective gear (like suits, instead of just disposable masks). We wanted to be ahead of the curve when we SIP, but now its not looking like a realistic option.
I doubt this is going to happen according to any pre-determined scenario. It might even be masked by the regular flu happening right along with it. We’ll know when large numbers of healthy young people are dying like flies. That will be the “real” signal that it’s here.
Olymom – at 13:01 It’s kinda like trying to figure out when the cake is “done” when cooking with an oven with a wacky thermostat.
I can tell my cakes are done when they smell done, and I think the people on this wiki are using their noses much the same way I do when cooking. If something stinks, the folks here and on CurEvents are more likely to know about it well before any honest, coherent information is released by any government (IMHO).
For what it’s worth, and I know not everyone has this flexibility, I think waiting until H2H hits the US is way, way too late to begin SIP. By the time TPTB declare H2H is here, it will have already spread to all corners.
The trick, as Eccles so aptly defined, is finding the middle ground between too early and too late. For our family, SIP will begin when there are ongoing multiple H2H clusters anywhere. I’m just hoping that “anywhere” ain’t in my own back yard.
I think for a lot of us here, one spouse would prefer one thing, and the other would prefer something else. I envy those who have both spouses on the same page. But I agree with you Edna Mode. Who knows? Maybe my spouse will change his tune if it goes H2H in other country first.
bump
I don’t expect to do a hard and fast shelter in place unless an emergency order is declared that requires it - or I have sick family members to care for - or am sick myself. The truth is I am prepped to shelter in place - but I don’t expect that I will not be working for a prolonged period of time but rather I expect to have some shorter periods of sheltering in place and then LONG LONG periods of serious social distancing - no shopping, eating out, social gatherings, and work that is scheduled to keep people from having to work close to one another or even at the same time (rotating shifts - remote working where possible and if systems are robust enough to support it). I am the “boss” so we have plans in place to do exactly that. But my work is in local government and our continuity of operations will be very important for the well being of the rest of the community.
As to the shorter periods of sheltering in place (a few weeks likely in my opinion during the worst infection wave that moves through)… I will keep watching the news and information sources I currently monitor… and use my good judgement.
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