The Novel Coronavirus that erupted in 2019 (NCOV19) is quickly reminding us how important basic preparation can be. Within the last few weeks, we've seen hundreds of deaths, tens of thousands of cases emerge, and millions in quarantine.
But quarantine is more than just putting a community on lock-down. Or an entire city. Or a country. As details emerge about this virus and the economic and social impacts start to take their toll, many of us will need to rethink our preps. We'll need to rethink the importance of sanitation and food storage. And we'll need to rethink the way we acquire goods, services, and safety.
Most importantly, we'll need to rethink how we can keep our families safe and healthy.
Making sense of quarantine and containment
Simply put, a quarantine is a method of segregating one person or problem from a larger concentration. You can create a quarantine by removing a bruised apple from the rest to prevent it from causing others to bruise as well.
The same is true for people. But people aren't inanimate. People travel, communicate, and come into contact with each other. We also come into contact with surfaces and spaces around us, creating a likelihood of depositing or collecting viruses, germs, and bacteria. When effective, a quarantine allows people who have a communicable disease to be completely separated from the public to allow them to heal, or at a minimum, prevent the spread of the disease.
when quarantines fail
The recent media coverage from people on social media within the red zone - the epicenter being in Wuhan, China - is a clear example of what is possible when containment fails. Infected people left or traveled through other regions of China that were not affected by the quarantine. Those individuals then managed to spread the virus by means of land, sea, and air travel to regions all around the globe. As of this blog post, there are 83,342 confirmed cases. The death toll is 2,858 and climbing, and those who have recovered are approaching 36,500. However, those numbers are continuing to climb as other areas of the world are starting to experience the same infectious explosion that Wuhan experienced because people weren't properly contained.
Now, there are 60 cases in the United States compared to 6 less than a month ago. Other countries around the globe are reacting in the same fashion. Emergency clinics. Attempts to quarantine. Exponential spread. This is a prime example of when containment efforts fail. The spread of the virus will continue long after the first cases emerge. And the droves of unconfirmed cases are yet to be reported.
When to take matters into your own hands
Act now. The Coronavirus spreads rapidly and can be fatal. Any communicable disease has an incubation period - the time frame between when the illness starts and when the host starts to experience symptoms. In most cases, an illness is contagious when you start to experience symptoms. However, there are early indications that the Coronavirus can be spread before victims start showing signs of infection. This means that once a case is confirmed, the victim may have already come into contact with several other people or other surfaces and spread the disease. Those people, in turn, will come into contact with many more before they show symptoms, and so on.
The best way to get ahead of panic purchases is to be smart and logical. Pay attention to the sequence of events and respond accordingly.
What you can do - how to build a containment of your own
You can build a containment of your own. There are several steps you'll need to consider and specific products that will work better than others. Whether you are building a room within a room, or installing critical seals on doors or windows, you'll want to keep one main principle in mind; keep air clean.
The podcast below describes sequences and methods for building a containment or quarantine and what areas in a house are ideal for a quarantine. The shopping list referenced in the podcast is listed in the next section.
the ultimate containment and quarantine shopping list
These are our specialized items hand-picked for your use. Don't let the prices fool you - many of these items are reusable, concentrated, or may be used for other work. These products, when combined, will allow you to create your own quarantine, disinfect significant areas, and create barriers and engineering controls to keep your home safe.
Note that some of these items are unconventional and not typically on mainstream advisories. Many of these items are in high demand, but others are still widely available. If Amazon is sold out, be sure to check your local hardware stores.
For additional information and more specific details on pandemic response actions, see the book below from Ron Foster. Inside, you'll find some great tips, tricks, and techniques to create just about every form of response action level containment.