Pandemic have been around as long as humans have been around. Bubonic plague, Spanish Flu, Avian Flu, Swine Flu, and many, many, others have circulated around the world. Today, with air travel, pandemic can be spread world wide in a matter of days, before the first symptoms even surface. Remember when doing your preps, pandemic is just as valid a disaster as a Hurricane, Earthquake, Volcanoes, and flooding. In this day and age, the threat of pandemic is ever greater. If Bubonic Plague killed 1/3 of Europe during the dark ages, and Spanish Flu killed 100 million people.

According to Wikipedia:

The 1918 flu pandemic (the Spanish Flu) was an influenza pandemic, and the first of the two pandemics involving H1N1 influenza virus (the follow-up was the 2009 flu pandemic). It was an unusually severe and deadly pandemic that spread across the world. Historical and epidemiological data are inadequate to identify the geographic origin.[1] Most victims were healthy young adults, in contrast to most influenza outbreaks which predominantly affect juvenile, elderly, or weakened patients. The flu pandemic was implicated in the outbreak of encephalitis lethargic in the 1920s.[2]

The pandemic lasted from June 1918 to December 1920,[3] spreading even to the Arctic and remote Pacific islands. Between 50 and 100 million died, making it one of the deadliest natural disasters in human history.[4][5][6][7][8] Even using the lower estimate of 50 million people, 3% of the world's population (1.86 billion at the time[9]) died of the disease. Some 500 million, or 27% (≈1/4), were infected.[5]

You can prepare for an influenza pandemic now. You should know both the magnitude of what can happen during a pandemic outbreak and what actions you can take to help lessen the impact of an influenza pandemic on you and your family. This checklist will help you gather the information and resources you may need in case of a flu pandemic.
1.To plan for a pandemic: Store a two week supply of water and food. During a pandemic, if you cannot get to a store, or if stores are out of supplies, it will be important for you to have extra supplies on hand. This can be useful in other types of emergencies, such as power outages and disasters.
Periodically check your regular prescription drugs to ensure a continuous supply in your home.
Have any nonprescription drugs and other health supplies on hand, including pain relievers, stomach remedies, cough and cold medicines, fluids with electrolytes, and vitamins.
Talk with family members and loved ones about how they would be cared for if they got sick, or what will be needed to care for them in your home.
Volunteer with local groups to prepare and assist with emergency response.
Get involved in your community as it works to prepare for an influenza pandemic.

2.To limit the spread of germs and prevent infection: ◦Teach your children to wash hands frequently with soap and water, and model the correct behavior.
Teach your children to cover coughs and sneezes with tissues, and be sure to model that behavior.
Teach your children to stay away from others as much as possible if they are sick. Stay home from work and school if sick.

3.Items to have on hand for an extended stay at home:



Examples of food and
non-perishables
Ready-to-eat canned meats, fish, fruits, vegetables, beans, and soups
Protein or fruit bars
Dry cereal or granola
Peanut butter or nuts
Dried fruit
Crackers
Canned juices
Bottled water
Canned or jarred baby food and formula
Pet food
Other non-perishable items

Examples of medical, health,
and emergency supplies
Prescribed medical supplies such as glucose and blood-pressure monitoring equipment
Soap and water, or alcohol-based (60-95%) hand wash
Medicines for fever, such as acetaminophen or ibuprofen
Thermometer
Anti-diarrhea medication
Vitamins
Fluids with electrolytes
Cleansing agent/soap
Flashlight
Batteries
Portable radio
Manual can opener
Garbage bags
Tissues, toilet paper, disposable diapers

While this is sort of minimalist, one should come up with a plan to handle Pandemic in their community, take responsibility for their families. Some things you should consider for your planning:

At the on set of an outbreak, what will be your families response? Will you contact each other so everyone is aware? Will everyone come home? Will you prepare to stay in and ride it out, depending on severity? At what point might you leave?

Many of your current preps are the same as you might do for Pandemic, however, one must consider masks, chemicals to sterilize your environment, getting your shots to help prevent the preventable diseases, you don't want cholera or something added to the pandemic. You should also consider what to do with cadavers, should sickness invade your home.

I heard some hard truths on how the government will handle some pandemic issues. I was told by one of the preparedness people that the government has concluded that the easiest way to handle things is a "no one in/no one out" type of arrangement. They will ask all people (except essential workers; who will be spending pandemic time in a seperate location) to stay home and not come out of their houses when there is some one around. They will drop supplies from the road (if needed and if available) and you wait until they leave, go out and get the supplies, and then return to your house. That's the "new plan" apparently.

Probably, from Governments standpoint, the best way to keep disease contained. So that would make sense. And if that IS the case, you'd only need to use your food preps until Government drops off supplies, that if it were me, I'd use their supplies, saving the remainder of my preps. Never know how long or how bad something like that will go on.

It is likely that all of the current pandemic plans the government has drawn up will go out the window in the next few years when it really happens. Many people will either ignore the warnings or just decide not to comply as they will imagine themselves as being immune...

Best place to be, will be on a large farm with like minded people and wait out the BS. If someone goes out they go into quarantine when they come back until 1.5 times the recommended quarantine period is over.

I agree, the best place to be during major pandemic is where that pandemic is not! Even if that means I gotta go chew on bark while it dies off in the area of my home, I guess that's what we'll do. Well, I'll not likely chew bark... Maybe Granola (might be Libs reading this, gotta appease them, NO MEAT! ONLY GRANOLA!!). Anyhow... Yeah, I agree LOL

Oke. Glad to see this post. Pandemics is where I got my preparedness start, actually! I attended quite a number of rather significant National/International pandemic preparedness meetings/summits between 2006-2009 with folks from most of the ABC organizations in gov't, health care and emergency management offices, in Washington DC and Virginia. In attendance were folks from World Health Organization, CDC, Health & Human Services, Homeland Security, FEMA, Red Cross, to name a few. I spoke with many folks from all these agencies. I attended as a 'citizen' via the 'ReadyMoms Alliance' non-profit that I co-founded several years ago. (no longer active, since most civilians did NOT want to hear about pandemic preparedness).

What I learned is that there has been/probably still is MAJOR pandemic preparedness 'behind the scenes'. This is NOT a threat that is taken lightly. The threat of a pandemic is very real and very troubling.

The ball for alerting communities was dropped by local governments, in getting the word out about preparedness. This has been my pet peve and my passion. There were National meetings held in each state. Then each state was told to break into regions. (I attended one of the 7 PA state-wide regional meetings several years ago and got an awful 'pit-in-my-stomach' type of feeling seeing all those government, medical & emergency officials all there addressing this concern). Then each region was supposed to have the LOCAL officials start preparedness. THAT is where the planning was dropped. It was a CHOICE to do this on a local level. NOT a mandate. So, most chose NOT to do so. For a variety of reasons: financial, man-power, disinterest, concerns of panic. You name it. They claimed it.

Per the World Health Organization, the current death rate for H5N1 (Bird) Flu is:
http://www.who.int/influenza/human_animal_interface/EN_GIP_20111215CumulativeNumberH5N1cases.pdf

China: 65% * Note: China just reported a H5N1 death, so this should probably read (1) more.
Cases: 40
Deaths: 26

Egypt: 34.2%
Cases: 155
Deaths: 53

Thailand: 68%
Cases: 25
Deaths: 17

Viet Nam: 49.5%
Cases: 119
Deaths:59

Indonesia: 82.4%
Cases: 182
Deaths: 150

Global Totals: 58.64%
Cases: 573
Deaths: 336

We *thought* that the H5N1 ('Bird') Flu was going to be our next pandemic, and then the H1N1 (Swine) flu came in out of the sidelines and broadsided us with a 'mild-moderate' pandemic (although I dare anyone to tell the families of the victims that this was a 'mild-moderate event!)

Then when we had the 2009-2010 H1N1 ('Swine') flu pandemic, people thought there is was NO reason to be concerned about pandemics, because if THIS ONE was any example, it really was not that bad. What folks do NOT realize is that we came VERY close to a serious pandemic situation. What saved us was the fact that summer came and the kids did NOT have school, so the spread was contained some (remember how many schools were closing when they WERE open???). That gave the manufacturers time to get the vaccine produced (which they did very quickly) ---

PLEASE do not go into any vaccine discussion here,
because it is VERY CONTROVERSIAL, and a PERSONAL CHOICE.
I'm just letting you know what happened.

---Having the vaccine pushed out through the schools kept the spread of the virus at a minimum. One of the ways the spread of the virus was certain to be expedited was by having kids all together in classrooms, where hygiene is NOT at it's best. Virus would have been spread from kid to kid and then taken home to families. As it was there were a lot more deaths from THIS flu, than from seasonal flu. MANY, MANY were pregnant women who either delivered their babies and then died or both they and their unborn died. Pregnant women are most susceptible to a pandemic flu virus. We will never truly know the REAL number of deaths due to the lack of FULL reporting of H1N1 flu patients/victims for a variety of reasons.

So, when the pandemic was shortened, the death toll minimal, and the effects of a pandemic minimal to non-existent, folks lost any interest in pandemic as a concern. Problem is ... we still have the H5N1 (Bird) flu in our world. That is the one I mentioned above that is so deadly (80%/60%). Right NOW, it is not easily transmitted person-to-person. That could change, as it mutates/changes. There are only a few mutations left to make this possible. As the health experts on here will tell you, flu is always prime for mutating. And mutations ARE occurring with this Avian Flu virus.

Some of you may have even read where this was just recently done
in a lab overseas.
It only took (5) mutations/changes to make this VERY DEADLY/ virus in the lab!

Now ... we have in our world the DEADLY H5N1 (Bird) flu virus AND the easy-to-transmit-person-to-person H1N1 (Swine) flu virus. There is concern about the two virus strains meeting and mixing. That would make the combination a VERY deadly, Easily transmissible virus (which is what was made in the lab, this year). Also of note: When the 2009-10 Swine Flu pandemic was circulating ... over in Indonesia there were reports that patients with the H5N1 (Bird) flu virus were in the SAME hospital at the same time as patients with the H1N1 (Swine) flu virus. We were very lucky they did not mix.

So ... pandemics should certainly be considered on your radar as another reason to prepare. I have a number of posts I can add that would help in preparedness for pandemics. For the most part, prepping is the same as what you are doing now. The difference would be in some of the medical things that you should have on hand.

Hope all this helps. -k

A pandemic is statistically inevitable, but it does seem that WHO and the various ABCs cry 'wolf' with some frequency. Perhaps it is due to the sensation-driven media over hyping the various threats, but I'm concerned that folks will have 'pandemic burnout' by the time a real one comes along and ignore whatever warnings that they receive at that time.

dochudson wrote:A pandemic is statistically inevitable, but it does seem that WHO and the various ABCs cry 'wolf' with some frequency. Perhaps it is due to the sensation-driven media over hyping the various threats, but I'm concerned that folks will have 'pandemic burnout' by the time a real one comes along and ignore whatever warnings that they receive at that time.

EXACTLY, doc! That's my worry too! Burnout. I think it has already happened because of the Swine Flu outbreak. That's why I wanted folks to understand how close we DID come to that situation getting worse. We were lucky. And you are right, the 'sensation-driven media over hyping the various threats' is NO help at all. I have to tell you the people in the rooms I was in ... they are worried about this virus. -k

Deleted post. Made it a separate thread-See: Pandemic Prep: Flu Buddies

Deleted post. Made it a separate thread-See: Pandemic Prep: Pandemic Parenting