Anyway, I like this site and believe he and his readers have good advice on preparing for disasters in general.
(J. W. Rawles is also the author of the novel "Patriots: A Novel of Survival in the Coming Collapse")
There's a couple of verified cases (supposedly) in Canada.
This map looks like it's spreading in the USA along the migratory wildfowl pathways.
That's a clue.
Mexican officials are saying that this Mexican Flu, has left 5 dead in San Luis Potosi, and they are reporting confirmed cases now in the State of Hidalgo.
Someone started this because we beat them at soccer. We should have just let them win.
Can you imagine the chaos that would grip this country if the President and a bunch of senior politicians died of this flu?
When this thing gets to China could it combine with the bird flu into some kind of super transmittable flying pig virus?
Since the cases in the US have all been mild (to this point)...yes, I’d say it’s over the top.
just finished the book last night. very highly recommended reading. a fiction work of how things might go down. Rawles’ survivalblog.com is the best site of it’s kind out there imho.
The author mentions a deadly serious problem the US has right now: an acute ventilator shortage.
Nationally, we only have about 102,000, and during a typical flu season, we need 100,000. Without a ventilator, people risk death by oxygen deprivation to their internal organs.
Here are two possible solutions. While we are critically short of ventilators, we have a lot of oxygen generators. These just produce oxygen that people breathe in under their own power. Ventilators create an overpressure that pushes oxygen into their lungs.
So (1) is it possible to fabricate an acceptable ventilator out of an oxygen generator? Granted it will not be hospital quality, but it might be a life saving “jury rig”, if someone can come up with a design for it. It might save thousands or tens of thousands of lives.
The other idea is based on blood substitutes called “oxygen therapeutics.” These are chemicals that actually carry *more* oxygen than does the hemoglobin in our blood.
Even though they would not be used to replace our red blood cells delivery of oxygen, perhaps they could enhance the delivery of oxygen to the internal organs. Thus helping to fend off organ damage.
Typically it stays in the body only 48 hours, but in this case, just a simple intravenous injection of oxygen therapeutics might provide just enough oxygen so that cells don’t start to die.
Both of these are just thoughts, and real experts would be needed to both evaluate their promises and make them happen.
bump for later