[Screaming_Gerbil]

Any practical suggestions about what we should be doing on an individual basis NOW and in the coming few months to prepare for a possible SARS disaster in the fall?

Have enough money in the checking account and canned/dried food and related supplies in the basement to stay inside the house for one month?

Several bottles of Vinegar (white or apple or doesn't matter?).

Disposable latex gloves and disposable N95 masks?

Oxygen bottles and mask?

Get Will and Durable Power of Attorney up to date?

Plan on going up North and living in a tent in the woods from September of this year to March of next year?

Seriously, knowing that nothing is guaranteed and the best laid plans can go astray, what would be the most practical steps for concerned (non-paranoid) individuals to take between now and the Fall?

[TaxRelief]

What precautions for next winter? Your #1-5 are always good to have in place anyway, but expand it to whatever is in the FEMA manuals.

#6 is an emergency option to be ready to use. Buy the land now though, while it's still cheap.

</tin foil hat

[Domestic Church]

"Plan on going up North and living in a tent in the woods from September of this year to March of next year?"

You will be going closer to Toronto. If SARS is at all airborne, even in short time span (the 24 hours it lives on hard surfaces might be 48 or more in air as nothing has been shown on this aspect yet), you don't want to do that.

Best thing for now is to pester your legislators for immediate action on the borders. The worse it gets in Canada the more Canadians will stream south for medical care and take use of our respirators. We are limited with only an additional 3000 being purchased by the feds and 80% of the respirators in the nation are in use every year with the flu.