The spin doctors are seriously out in force. "Face masks do little good." "Computer simulations show 'only' 1,400 cases of Swine flu."
Let's look at the last one first. If a reader understands math, they understand exponential growth. I realize math gives folks the heebie jeebies so I'll give a short story of exponential growth for you. A king once promised a reward of a gold coin that was doubled for each square of a checker board. The king died a poor penniless old man for that. In the first eight days it started small.
1 coin for the first day, 2 coins for the second. Four for the third day, and eight for the fourth. On the eight day, the king paid 64. The next row things got a little out of hand. On day sixteen, the king paid, 16,384. He had paid in total by the sixteenth day over 32,000 gold coins. With six rows left to go, the numbers get huge. Now lets look at this "only 1,400" amount they are placating you with.
If we look at the words exponential growth and that "looking further out, things are
very different." There are still six more rows to go folks. It isn't over in four weeks, it's just starting. The numbers that get sick are going to be huge because we have no defense You might want to be an early bird and get it over with now. Getting any kind of service in a couple of months is going to be interesting.
Not to panic though, this isn't Bird Flu and the death rate will be manageable. Yes people are going to die. Not hordes of them. The media will try to make it seem like hordes, but not so. If it were Bird Flu (H5N1) I'd have bought a gun last week. Not for me, but society will have some issues with Bird Flu. Anyhow, they are spreading disinformation to lull you into not taking action until too late.
Might was well buy some cough syrup and cold meds now while they are on store shelves. Stock up on toilet paper too. Trust me when you are sick and everyone in the house is bowl blasting, you do not want to have to run to the store and see empty TP shelves. TP is near worth it's weight in gold sometimes. As for other things, you know the drill. Racine actually has a disaster preparedness website. The Journal times actually ran a series of what to buy each month to outfit a well stocked disaster kit. I don't think you will need a full kit, but a good look over the list will help you see what you and your family need for that rough period.
Oh yeah, the face masks. You aren't going to find them, you're going to pay premium when you do, and they do work better than you've been lead to believe. If you make a run on them, then those out on the Front Lines won't be able to find them. This is the real reason the news story went out that they don't work that well. If you have an N95 rated mask, and use it correctly, you are much safer out in public. *NOTE I said "N5" in an earlier post. the correct number is "N95"
http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20090501/sc_livescience/worstcasescenarioforfluestimated