H5N1: Vibes are off. How are you preparing, if at all?

May 27, 2024 6:34 PM

With governments starting to swing into action globally, it's hard not to feel like we're at the start of a familiar film. Though it's very hard to forecast risk, my partner and I are starting to discuss what, if anything, we should be doing and how to know when we should react(we're in California, have a toddler, have savings, are generally lucky to have options). We've all been through a pandemic before. If you thought you might be in November 2019 again, what would you do this time? What are you doing now?

Thanks in advance for any thoughts. We're kicking around all aspects of this conversation, from how we might (or might not) know when to pull our kid from childcare if things turn squirrely, to how to think about safety, to where we might want to be (abroad? do we ponder leasing somewhere bigger or with outdoor space just in case?), to how this particular black swan interacts with the various other risks we're all eying in 2024. And of course about whether we're being silly to start thinking this way. This smart community seemed like a good barometer to consult.

posted by SandCounty to Science & Nature (36 answers total)

One thing would be to stock up on shelf-stable food (tinned goods) and prescription medications in case the supply chain is disrupted like it was with COVID.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 6:56 PM on May 27 [3 favorites]

If you don't already have one, you might want to buy a pocket sized C02 meter so you can see how well ventilated each indoor space is, which helps assess risk.

You might also want to stock up on disposable N95 masks.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 6:58 PM on May 27 [4 favorites]

You might also want to go to the dentist and get your teeth checked - you don't want to need emergency dental work at the high of a pandemic, given that you can't wear a mask in the dentists chair, and many dentists only wear crappy surgical masks and not proper N95s.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 7:04 PM on May 27 [15 favorites]

Why would you want to be abroad? Given what we saw at the beginning of COVID, you'd be more likely to want to avoid planning international travel.

Also, don't drink raw milk. Probably best to avoid spending a lot of time in close contact with farm animals too.
posted by heatherlogan at 7:23 PM on May 27 [11 favorites]

Best answer: Although other countries might be better at dealing with a pandemic than your own, you have to factor in being unable to leave (travel restrictions) and unable to access benefits available to citizens and permanent residents (social welfare, medical treatment, payments for loss of income, whatever).

Essential medication seems like a good one. In general think about items you really need where international supply chains might hold up deliveries for months.

Decent masks (N95 etc) might be in short supply again.

Be vaccinated for COVID and up to date on other things. They won't be going away, and you do NOT want to be in hospital when they are under more strain. Likewise if there are procedures you were thinking about getting, you either want them NOW or you want a plan for not being able to have them for a while.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 7:31 PM on May 27 [4 favorites]

Your Reuters link is actually really reassuring to me -- governments seem to be thinking ahead and doing the right thing with respect to vaccine procurement. Seconding shadygrove on advocacy (though their 50% figure is inaccurate).

Make sure your toddler is on schedule for their standard childhood vaccines. During COVID a lot of babies and toddlers were unable to get their scheduled vaccines and there are currently very alarming outbreaks of things like measles in a lot of places where they were previously eradicated. Measles can kill (a toddler died of measles in Ontario this spring), and it also knocks out the victim's immune system for up to a couple of years after infection: NOT something you want when another dangerous virus is on the horizon.
posted by heatherlogan at 7:39 PM on May 27 [4 favorites]

From the CDC:

The spread of bird flu viruses from one infected person to a close contact is very rare, and when it has happened, it has only spread to a few people. However, because of the possibility that bird flu viruses could change and gain the ability to spread easily between people, monitoring for human infection and person-to-person spread is extremely important for public health.

Until it mutates to transmit itself anything like COVID I will be doing absolutely nothing.

It might mutate, but so might many other things.

Which isn't to say it's not worth doing a "lessons learned" exercise. I don't think there's a question that some other pandemic will come along.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 7:42 PM on May 27 [48 favorites]

Best answer: In addition to not going abroad, so as to not get stuck there (unless permanent relocation is desirable), do some research into which states gutted their states' abilities to respond to pandemic emergencies in the wake of COVID. Look for things like a state limiting the ability (at both state and city/county level) to declare states of emergency, or putting strict limits on the duration of those declarations. Also, look at states that prohibit mask mandates, states that prohibit vaccine mandates, states that banned the ability to limit restricting sizes of gatherings, etc.

There are many states that did these things, and they're not just the obvious ones. Then, once you've done your research: don't move to those states.
posted by pdb at 7:43 PM on May 27 [11 favorites]

California will be competent compared to most states (and countries), so don’t leave CA unless you’ve got a solid line on somewhere better. Like, provably better, not just “Europe is smarter than the US” (I say this as someone who can’t be denied access to three countries).

If you don’t have an air filter maybe get a good one.

Beware, however, that you can vanish down a rabbit hole pretty easily on this stuff, take care to avoid turning into a MAGA prepper. Not everything can be controlled, and trying will destroy you.

Gloves, sterilizer, masks, maybe Lysol for certain types of laundry etc., TP, maybe frozen foods, meds.
posted by aramaic at 8:19 PM on May 27 [10 favorites]

I'd stock up on the things that were hard to get early in the pandemic: toilet paper, masks, soap, hand sanitizer, flour, name-brand anything. also consider your current set up for working from home/schooling from home.
posted by Toddles at 8:33 PM on May 27

I've got a big ol' collection of masks and a portable HEPA filter. That's probably my main prep (and a large stash of covid tests to tell the difference between the two), I'm not sure what else to do at this point.
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:42 PM on May 27 [1 favorite]

Best answer: You certainly don't want to be abroad unless you have very strong family connections or other roots there. Even then, without some kind of residency status, it will likely be difficult to access healthcare or other services that are necessary in an emergency. Social connections are also vital in a crisis -- it's not wise to uproot yourself from your community to go surround yourself with strangers, in a country where you're unfamiliar with the local systems and way of life.

Speaking as someone who has lived outside my home country for quite a few years now. Only after about 6 years did I start to approach the same level of community and access I felt at home. Unless you're playing the very long game, stay put!

And as a corollary, get to know your neighbors if you don't already. If you're housebound for one reason or another and need someone to bring you food or do your shopping, you'll be glad to have already built those relationships.
posted by mekily at 9:47 PM on May 27 [5 favorites]

Best answer: This Red Cross 21 days to prepare shopping list is a good guide to building up your stock of emergency supplies and breaks it down for you so you don't get overwhelmed trying to figure out what to buy. Remember everything that stores were out of for weeks/months - bleach, toilet paper, nitrile gloves, alcohol, hydrogen peroxide. Make sure you have those things now.

It's good to be prepared for an emergency no matter what, so it's good that you're thinking ahead.
posted by brookeb at 10:50 PM on May 27 [7 favorites]

If I was to do the Covid lockdown again, paper towel, toilet paper, bleach, hand sanitizer, masks would be at the top of my list. I live in a region of the United States now prone to forest fire smoke, so masks are practically a requirement, anyway.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 11:33 PM on May 27 [1 favorite]

It would also be a good idea to see how risky your child's day care is

eg if the C02 levels at your child's daycare are above 700, then the ventilation is not good enough.

Also, does your child's daycare have air filters or Corsi–Rosenthal Boxes?

Also, what is your child's daycare policy about sick children being sent to daycare - is it strict enough?
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 2:44 AM on May 28 [1 favorite]

Also, talk to your doctor about getting a prescription for Tamiflu - Tamiflu makes influenza less severe, but only if you take it early enough, so you want to have it at home ahead of time.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 2:45 AM on May 28

Meet your neighbors; get to know them.

I mildly stocked up on masks, isopropyl alcohol, bleach, toilet paper, hand sanitizer, and tissues in January 2020 and was glad I did.
posted by twelve cent archie at 6:34 AM on May 28 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Epidemiologist here. The good thing is to imagine how you would prepare for any natural disaster and do that--it helps avoid the eye-rolling political fatigue raction that Covid has left us with. Stock up on things like shelf-stable foods, water (and water purification stuff, easy things to order from backpacking suppliers), and other things you might find in, say, and earthquake preparedness kit (batteries, a working flashlight, a working radio). Supplement it with other essentials mentioned above: masks are great to get in reasonable quantities while they're cheaply available at production specifications that have been vetted and arguably made more robust at the consumer level because of Covid.
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 6:59 AM on May 28 [5 favorites]

Best answer: This 2020 thread was posted in the run up to COVID-19 kicking off properly, and helped me to have enough random things for the first few weeks that I might not have thought about otherwise: https://www.metafilter.com/185381/Prepping-for-a-pandemic

I'm hoping this isn't 2024's version of that thread.
posted by MattWPBS at 7:29 AM on May 28

Mod note: Several comments removed. Please focus on answering the OP's question and drop the mortality derail, thank you!
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 7:55 AM on May 28

I really like our County Public Health Officer, Dr. Matt Willis. Here he gives a very informative talk about and what our County is doing to keep on top of the risk which includes waste water monitoring, working with the Agriculture Department, and other efforts. Plus, what we can do.
posted by agatha_magatha at 8:13 AM on May 28 [3 favorites]

I would probably pull the trigger on a chest freezer (or any other new appliances you might need).
posted by bluesky78987 at 8:16 AM on May 28

Calling your representatives, both state and national, is an evergreen recommendation!
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 8:45 AM on May 28 [4 favorites]

During the covid pandemic, the only thing we lacked for was a backup fever reducer for our toddler. We had a full bottle of a specific brand that was fine for our older kid, but the taste made our little one vomit every single time, so I wished we had another brand handy. We ended up getting something from a neighbour so it wasn't a big deal.

When the next pandemic looms, personally I'll just make sure to have an extra month or two of essential medication stocked up. Obviously anything lifesaving (insulin, etc). And also anything related to illness and breathing - puffers, fever reducers (very helpful to have in suppository form for kids), benadryl, epi-pen, etc.
posted by nouvelle-personne at 9:07 AM on May 28

Best answer: Make sure you have N95 masks, most of us still have hand sanitizer, and supplies so you can limit going out. I have a basket with a thermometer, pulse-ox(ygen) meter, tylenol, sudafed, cough drops, that I prepped for Covid. I have a phone charger near the couch, where I camp out if I'm ill. I generally have canned soup, ginger ale, tea. I went outside in my neighborhood, masked, a lot. Otherwise stayed the fuck home, worked from home, got vaxxed promptly, never got Covid.

Unlike Covid, we know what flu looks like, know how to make vaccines for it.

Prepping a bit helps take the strain off people who had to work through Covid - grocery store, delivery, restaurant, and all the essential workers; please keep them in mind by having reasonable stores of food and supplies.
posted by theora55 at 9:34 AM on May 28 [4 favorites]

I think the primary action you can take that requires advanced planning is to plan to not need to go out among people very often, whatever that might mean to you. If you're living in a place small enough that you fear cabin fever in that situation, you may at least want to know what your options are to go elsewhere, but I do agree that staying in CA is probably smarter than going to another country (unless you wanted to go to maybe Korea, where do you think would be safer?).

Would your own personal lockdown include someone coming back to work from home when they don't now? Do you have everything you need for that? Were there things you specifically wish you'd done during the early covid lockdowns that you never got around to - bidet, gently hoard some kid-critical foods, do paperwork to use telemed services, get a second freezer?

Yes, understand the daycare situation and start deciding some benchmarks now that would be your flags to pull from daycare entirely. It's easy to get slow-boiled when you're in the moment, and think well it was fine yesterday so it's still basically fine today, right?? Does everybody have ID appropriate to medical records? (Consider getting your kid a passport, it's very handy for non-driving kids who aren't eligible for state ID yet.)
posted by Lyn Never at 10:34 AM on May 28

I really like Your Local Epidemiologist for regular updates on this sort of thing. She's tracking government response and available data pretty closely and if things start to go haywire she's likely to be one of the first people to spot it. (Right now she is at "annoyed but not worried", I'd say.)
posted by restless_nomad at 10:34 AM on May 28 [8 favorites]

As I'm both sick today and recently watched a pandemic film from a few years before covid, this is all on my mind.

I do not believe we are at November 2019 again because there is no evidence we are there. The first reported covid case was mid-11/19. There has been no equivalent event reported at this time, in terms of human to human transmission.

As many others do upthread, I try to make sure I have some backup supplies. If I thought we were actually at 11/19 again, I would check extra-hard on my supplies.

I would also prepare for a deluge of disinformation and misinformation from both official and unofficial sources, and behave in accordance with evidence-based safety protocols we are all familiar with at this point. Should H5N1 emerge as a worst-case situation, many people will be hesitant, slow, or resistant to behave as if it's an emergency (as always happens in emergencies), so I would do what you are doing: make an emergency plan, using the best information available. And then, should conditions align with your preset trigger points, I would commit fully to executing the emergency plan.
posted by cupcakeninja at 12:03 PM on May 28

Best answer: If I believed we were at November 2019, I would go out and see friends and family, go to a couple of concerts (since it is now I would do this masked if indoors, probably), go out to some good meals, do some weekend trips, and basically enjoy anything that involved fun out of the house and connecting with people to the max.

My community really came together during the first wave of the pandemic and I feel really happy living here - we organized fridges to take food from restaurants and redistribute to families in need; we had deliveries going to seniors from our local MPP's office. I would work to re-engage with that community.

I do keep more of the following than I did before: toilet paper, bleach, masks, some hand sanitizer (although at home we don't really need it much), basic meds, yeast, flour, a few esoteric things like the sunscreen we like etc. I always due to my upbringing tend to have a lot of dry goods like beans and rice and spices and all those things.

But really if I thought this was the non-contagious edge of a lockdown, I would concentrate on doing all the non-lockdown things as soon as possible.
posted by warriorqueen at 12:30 PM on May 28 [7 favorites]

“Also, talk to your doctor about getting a prescription for Tamiflu”

If you are on any kind of pysch meds, please talk to your doctor about interactions with Tamiflu.
posted by joycehealy at 2:01 PM on May 28 [3 favorites]

What timing - I just had a possible COVID exposure, in the middle of a move. Luckily, I'm in a middle of a move, so it will make things easier.

Things I'd do next time there's forewarning of a pandemic/things I did pre-move:

1. Do a deep clean!
2. Jettison all the things I no longer need, and I know I won't need during a pandemic. These are items like expired medications/food, clothes that no longer fit, etc. Items that are in good condition I will donate, the rest? Trash.
3. Stack up on nealthy non-perishables, of foods that I'll actually eat. Last pandemic? I stocked up on a bunch of foodstuffs I ended up never using, and it went to waste. This time around? Rice, chocolate, tea, oatmilk, and 58301510501 packets of vacuum sealed Indian food.
4. Splurge on online entertainment. For me, this is ad-free Netflix, and a premium Duolingo subscription.
5. Checkin and talk with friends and neighbors! Also, give them items that I won't need/offer to help them out with stuff.
posted by spinifex23 at 3:04 PM on May 28 [4 favorites]

when hand sanitizer was in short supply before, i was still able to order waterless liquid camping soap as an alternative... i ordered so much that i still have 3 or 4 unopened bottles.
posted by kokaku at 4:06 PM on May 28

Best answer: Definitely agree with warriorqueen. I coincidentally visited family far away in early February 2020 despite my partner's increasing anxiety over "it" being in the US, and I held tight to the memory of that trip for a long long time.

Diverse hobby supplies also seem like they'd be nice to have. And a library card if you don't have one already. Also yes to personal outdoor space if that's remotely an option. It was clearly a vastly different experience to have ready access to the outside versus living in an urban apartment tower.

Regarding the kid: we were extraordinarily fortunate to be at a small enough preschool that they shuffled siblings around and ended up with mixed-age classrooms consisting of about six families each, which was tight enough to hold (masked, distanced) in-person school almost continuously. It was a very collaborative process and everyone who chose to attend seems to have genuinely stuck to our agreements about otherwise socially isolating, because the only illness we had was a teacher with COVID and it never spread. If you can't see your current childcare provider being up for facilitating something like that, I'd contemplate what might come after hypothetically pulling the kid from care. How else might you meet the socialization, educational, and physical needs that are currently being served by that provider?
posted by teremala at 6:15 PM on May 28

If you drink milk keep a stock of dried milk. In my country where prob. 5% of the world's milk powder comes from there was no milk powder from about two weeks before lockdown. It didn't become avail for 6 months - turns out that the packaging is from Asia, and the sole manufacturer shut down as Covid took the staff out.

There's lots of stuff like this in food supply.
posted by unearthed at 1:43 AM on May 29

Outdoor space was key for me during Covid. I live on a 5 acre farm, so had plenty of space, plus outdoor projects to do.

If you have outdoor space, think about what you'd like to be able to do out there, especially anything you've been holding off on. I'm thinking a swing set, jungle gym, a patio and grill, better lawn furniture, fencing, raised or regular garden beds, basketball hoop, aboveground pool, trampoline, that koi pond you've always wanted, basic agility equipment if you have a dog...maybe add a screened in porch or get a screenhouse.

Do you have tents or camping equipment? That could be a fun backyard adventure for you and toddler.

And you could enjoy that stuff regardless of a pandemic.
posted by Archipelago at 12:40 PM on May 29

Response by poster: Far belatedly, I want to thank everyone for these profoundly thoughtful answers!
posted by SandCounty at 9:30 AM on June 13