The panic begins, but you are going to keep calm.

Reports are that California has its first case of “unknown origin” of COVID-19 reported. Since the origin is unknown, there is apparently no known contact with an infected person, nor did the person travel extensively or to China. This particular person was sick for at least a few days prior to testing, and of course we know may have been carrying the virus for a couple weeks prior to onset of symptoms. So who else has the disease? We’ll know for sure in about two weeks or so. Maybe. Fun stuff.

As you can see in the headline photo from the Drudge Report, which is WIDELY viewed, the stocks are starting to take a hit, the “correction” we all should have been expecting after our markets had a years-long stratospheric climb. We should have expected it because our fiat-based “just increase the debt ceiling” economy was always going to “correct.” I just didn’t know it was going to be a virus, a biological kind rather than a computer-based one, would be the catalyst. Of course we understand that we might get lucky and the markets might stabilize and recover before they crash into the bedrock, but that’s not what we prepare for. It’s just what we hope for.

There are now over 81,000 cases (up from the last update I posted a few days ago), with most still being in China, but numbers are increasing worldwide. There are 83 people being quarantined (voluntarily) in Nassau County in New York, because they exhibited a cough and a fever. Now, what else produces a cough and fever? Almost every illness. So if this thing really breaks out in the US, everyone with a cough and fever is a potential COVID-19 threat. The CDC is now saying that we are “likely” to see a pandemic. Once again, you’re still probably never going to come into contact with the bug, but you will come into contact with a panicky public, a shaky economy and an incompetent, heavy-handed government.

So you’re going to keep your head on straight.

Youre going to get your updates from American Partisan and this CDC COVID-19 summary page.

The first thing I want to tell you, as a RN working in an emergency room, is that if someone in your home becomes sick with a fever and/or a cough, assess your situation. Have you been traveling? Did you go to China? Have you been around anyone who was sick with COVID-19 (that’s almost no one in the US for the moment)? It’s ok if you received mail from China, that doesn’t count. Is there a particular illness running through your town? Recently in my town, we had viral gastroenteritis wreaking havoc. A few months back, it was Flu type A. We were getting positive results on tests for type A. If you know that everyone in town is battling strep or the common cold, you’ve probably got that instead of COVID-19. Call your primary care doctor and get an appointment. Your cough and 100.6 temp is not an emergency. Go see your doctor. If you have prolonged or repeated shortness of breath, this might be something to come see us about. Probably still not COVID-19 if you haven’t been traveling to a hard hit area, or been in close contact with someone who has.

Hopefully you’ve already been looking for 3M brand N95 particulate masks, because that’s what you’ll use in a worst case scenario in public. If you haven’t found any, keep looking, they will be there eventually. Make sure to size it right. As far as I know, they come in small and regular.

If you’re so inclined, a more robust CBRN capability is available from MIRA Safety. This stuff looks great. It’ll be a force multiplier if you need it.

Plastic sheeting, like 4 or 5 mil Visqueen, could be utilized in a scenario where you might want to quarantine someone in your group who is sick. This is also a worst case scenario, and might sound terrifying, but it’s not. Firstly, it’s not the aforementioned jackbooted “top men” forcing you into it and renditioning you off to some ET-movie-looking biohazard quarantine tent, and secondly, you’ve probably already done something like this a few times in your life. When a family member gets sick, you take care of them, but you try to keep your distance. Don’t get in their face. Don’t eat or drink after them. Keep the area clean and wash hands. In this case, due to the high communicability of the virus, you’re just going to add masks and use plastic sheeting to compartmentalize areas of your house, NOT JUST THEIR ROOM, because you don’t want them to be in a sealed, airtight space with no circulation. Just make sure you don’t suffocate them, please. If possible, we would ventilate the air in their space out of a window so the breeze can carry the virus away harmlessly to the woods. Please don’t vent contaminated air into your neighbor’s apartment.

Hand washing in town, of course. Just get a small bottle of hand sanitizer (because I see alcohol-based sanitizers are effective) and keep it handy. In a worst case national outbreak scenario, it’s going to be a body wash when you’ve been out and about. If you’re out all day in town, come home and scrub in the shower. No big deal. Many of you do that when you come home from work anyway.

As I mentioned in prior pieces, avoid crowds. Especially ones where it looks like a lot of them are... Ahem... Extensive travelers.

I’ve also mentioned before putting cash away. I know this sounds like a tall order for some readers, and I agree, you need put away an emergency fund of at least $1,000, and then put away money to cover monthly expenses for X number of months as you see fit. I don’t know how these market waves will impact you, but the market has the ability to impact all of us through prices of goods, most of which are brought in from overseas or manufactured in China. If a hurricane in Puerto Rico can short my ER on normal saline and Dilaudid, then a global viral outbreak that may or may not be that bad, but where the public is panicking like it’s the Black Death again can short you on things we import, like Chinese beef.

Yeah, the US is importing Chinese beef right now, which the farmers I live around are not pleased about. When do the Chinese decide to hold onto that for themselves and drive the price of beef up again? That may seem like small potatoes, but apply it to nearly everything, and you get the idea. If you’ve got money saved away, You won’t feel as much of that pain.

When you go shopping for food, buy twice as much, and go shopping half as often. I had mentioned that in centuries past, a trip “into town” was an ordeal, and depending on distance, could take a day or longer. They made up an exhaustive list that would last them a long time. If you adopt that same mindset, you’ll greatly limit your exposure to crowds.

If you’ve read this far, you get that I believe some simple preparation can buy you some peace of mind, which will allow you to keep your cool when everyone else is heating up. 

Go spend some time in the woods. The CDC is now saying that it is “likely” the virus will cause a pandemic. But they haven’t found COVID-19 in your local creek, and they aren’t going to.

Take a camping trip.

A word of caution to the boomers.

There is a reason that older millennials (those of us born in the early 1980's) try to evade the millennial label and instead try to convince ourselves and others the we are part of Gen X. The reason is because none of the older generations have ever had a decent thing to say about us.

If you study Strauss and Howe, you'll see that yes, the millennial generation started in the early 1980's. The timeframe, despite the disagreement of most people born in that time, is correct. If you fall between the ages of 23 and 37 or 38, then you are a millennial whether you like it or not.

But that's okay. It's okay to be a millennial, even if your family members who are older think poorly of the generation.

Boomers and Gen Xers have gotten something very wrong about what defines a generational cohort. It's not the behavior of that cohort the defines it, rather it is the national and global events the shaped our coming of age that defines us. There is a wide range of behaviors and attitudes and ideologies presents in every generation, and these things are more influenced by geography, culture, upbringing, etc. than they are just by age.

The millennial generation is the only generation in history that has it's individuals shouldering the blame for the worst behaviors of our generation without receiving any credit for the achievements. Case in point; I am 33, a millennial, and I have to accept, by default, that my generation apparently eats Tide Pods (it's doesn't). I don't get credit for being part of the most educated generation in history (I'm finishing my B.S.), or for fighting America's wars for the last 18 years (I was in OEF), or for anything else people in my generation have done correctly. But rest assured our grandparents got to pretend like they, through the achievements of their generation, had something to do with the moon landing.

Speaking of education, this is part of why we feel we were sold a false bill of goods. We were all told that we needed to get a 4-year degree and then we would have every Fortune 500 company falling over themselves trying to throw money and corner offices at us just for having that degree. Get your degree and you won't have to do all that back-breaking manual labor. Meanwhile, that degree saddles almost all of it's recipients with crippling debt. If you are reading this and think that debt is the fault of the student, then you are out of touch and you should email me at TheGrayMan314@protonmail.com so I can correct you. College should not be free, but it also should not cost what it does.

Suddenly now the older generations do nothing but make fun of our degrees and chastise us for avoiding the manual labor and skilled trade jobs, while ignoring the fact that most manual labor and skilled trade jobs are now filled by millennials anyway.

Politically, millennials are labeled as "liberal", but this is not the case either. Generation Z is on track to become the most "conservative generation" since WWII, but millennials are the generation that is turning conservative at the fastest rate since that time. And where did American neo-liberalism come from? You guessed it; the boomer generation. They're the ones teaching it in the American university system where we were told by boomers we needed to go to avoid the skilled trade jobs that are now sorely needed in America.

Millennials have been fighting in continuous wars since we turned 18. I see millennials in my town harvesting America's cotton. Our millennials are working the hospitals taking care of people who are mostly boomers. We are working your skilled trades, despite what you think. We didn't invent participation trophies, you did that, and we didn't ask for them. We went and got the degrees you told us we needed, and then some. We didn't import millions of brown-skinned savages from all over the world, you did. We didn't ask you to erase our borders. you did that on your own. We didn't set the country on this path. Hell, I'm only old enough to have voted in four general elections.

Look, if you have a negative view of the generation, then you have one or more of these problems:

1. You raised terrible millennials. If so, that's on you.

2. You are spending too much time around terrible millennials. Do you live in Kalifornia, or something?

3. You believe the media stereotype of what a millennial is, and mistakenly believe that a generational cohort is defined by it's behavior. I already went over that. It's not.

If you suffer from one or more of those problems, fix yourself.

Boomers and Gen Xers, ignore this if you will. The boomers probably will, and their response to it will be nothing new. Boomers as a group haven't had anything new to say since the Reagan Administration anyway. That's fine. Just keep something in mind, though, if you can remember it...

A generation that is unloved by it's nation may need to burn it down so they can finally feel it's warmth.

The anger and panic of the left, briefly explained.

During the 0bama Administration, or what I call "the eight year punishment", the left wing of US politics allowed themselves to forget that people like us existed. Or maybe they intentionally convinced themselves that we didn't. Or maybe they really thought we had vanished. Regardless of exactly what happened, when Trump was elected they were forcefully reminded that we did indeed exist, and that we still vote, we still have our guns, we still oppose abortion and homosexuality being forced into our lives and we still opposed having a wide open border.

Under Trump, some, or many, of these problems still exist. But much to the dismay of the left, we do too. We still exist. The anger and violent rhetoric we get from the left is the manifestation of their realization that we are still here.

Make no mistake, they intend to erase us.

News and analysis on Coronavirus.

Originally posted by The Gray Man at American Partisan

Over the last several days there have been a lot of updates, almost daily in fact, on the global situation with the Novel Coronavirus (nCoV). The reported numbers of infected have gone up significantly, the mortality numbers have gone up and several more countries outside of Asia have found cases or suspected cases inside their own borders. Person-to-person transmission has been observed in several places. Not much progress has been made in actually combating the virus itself, as it appears the entirety of effective treatment modalities are still focused on supportive treatment, that is to say that healthcare providers are treating the symptoms rather than the cause.

As of February 4th, China is reporting almost 21,000 cases with about 430 dead. This increase in both infected and dead is a significant increase in just a few days. The CDC is now reporting 27 countries with confirmed nCoV cases. As of right now, all of the deaths from nCoV have occurred in China, except for one that occurred in the Philippines. As of February 3, there are 11 cases in the United States, those cases being in California (6), Illinois (2), Arizona (1), Massachusetts (1) and Washington (1). The patients in Illinois were a husband and wife, and that is believed to be the first transmission between people in the US. Charts produced by various outlets are displaying the virus spread in China at nearly exponential rates. Keep in mind that in order for someone to be counted, they have to get sick, go to the hospital, get tested specifically for nCoV, test positive and get reported to their national health system (In the US, it would be the CDC). In China, the government actually has to then let the rest of the world know. That last step in China is not a guaranteed proposition, but neither are any of the other steps. It is a near certainty that the numbers of infected and the numbers of dead are lower than reality.

The increased spread may be due to the actual infectious processes, or it may be partially due to surges in reporting. We are dealing with an information-averse, totalitarian police state who's number one goal is the image of the power and control of the state above all else. The unprecedented reaction by China to quarantine over 50 million people (according to the last count I could find from a few days ago) is a telling message in itself. Imagine the Soviet Union suddenly evacuating a 100 mile exclusion zone around Chernobyl instead of the 6 mile zone they initially cleared out, all the while claiming the situation was under control. This reaction would have been disproportionate to the claims. This is how I feel about the Chinese reaction versus what they've been saying. Never before has the world seen a quarantine (however ineffective it may be) of 50 million people, let alone the larger numbers it must have risen to by now without my knowledge.

I do have some experience in the East Asian medical systems, as a patient. In 2012 I was hospitalized for a short time in Korea with an illness that I've deduced resulted from their drinking water. I recall being placed in a large ward with a large number of other patients and a janitorial storage corner. There was little concern shown for the possibility of passing germs from one patient to another. It's one thing to have the knowledge and training and research like they do, and entirely another thing to actually put it into practice.

I have serious reservations about China being forthcoming about the numbers, but I suspect that they aren't going to be able to cover up any part of the situation for much longer. The Chinese Communist Party has been working it's censorship apparatus overtime deleting Weibo and other social media posts as fast as they appear. A Chinese man was arrested for posting a photo of a pile of body bags at one location. Fortunately the rest of the semi-free internet has been able to take screenshots and repost the videos and photos.

nCoV is a respiratory virus that has an incubation period ranging from two days to as long as two weeks. It's believed that a person can be highly contagious during the incubation phase without having shown or felt any signs or symptoms. People often develop a cough and shortness of breath with a fever. It appears that most of the patients who have died had progressed to severe pneumonia-like complications. I suspect the odds are high that some people, probably mostly elderly, have been dying from pneumonia-like symptoms caused by nCoV, but may have never been tested for the virus at all. The virus spreads from person to person through airborne droplets coughed or sneezed into the environment, and some physicians in China, though later censored, claimed they had evidence that the virus can spread via contact with mucous membranes. This means it could possibly infect you if it contacts your eyes.

So, this is all good information to have, and the situation is changing pretty much daily. But you may be asking "What are they doing, what are we doing, what do I need to do?"

Firstly, countries like Russia are closing border crossings and US airlines are cancelling flights and suspending services to the Chinese mainland. No word yet on what will be done on the US border, assuming that we still have a border at all. It's debatable. The World Health Organization has declared a global health emergency based on the spread to other countries and there are fears of what the disease could do if it spread to a poorer country that lacks the tools of modern medicine. Of course I think we are mostly talking about Africa, but a lot of people don't realize that most of China is still very much a third world place with third world hygiene. I think this is one reason we've seen it spread so rapidly. Imagine this virus arriving in San Francisco, where achieving third world status would be an improvement.

Another note of interest is that there are reports from Thailand and India that the virus appears to respond to re-purposed HIV medications, which is quite curious. Apparently one of the later stage problems with this virus is the progression from leukopenia (a critical reduction of your white blood cells) to full blown pancytopenia (a critical reduction in your white blood cells, red blood cells and platelets). My wife and mom both have years of experience treating patients with leukopenia and pancytopenia, and these patients are often lost to illnesses totally unrelated to their cancer. Pneumonia, once again, strikes hard in these cases.

As far as your own household:
-You need to have a supply of face masks, like the regular surgical masks, and some 3M brand N95 respirators if you can find any. In my opinion, the N95 masks are something you should already have if you are a prepper of any sort. It's not time to wear them, but when it is time, there won't be any on the shelves.

-Make plans to spend more time at home and less time in town. Once upon a time not everyone in America traveled into town every single day for whatever minor items they needed. There was a time when you had to plan and prepare and make lists before going into town on your horses or carts, and stock up for a longer period of time, because trips into town happened much more rarely. Adopt a similar mindset and cluster your errands. My wife and I try not to go into town (the actual town about 40 minutes away) more than once every couple of weeks. During the two weeks leading up to it, we make a list of the things we need to get done and try to put it off for that day. Obviously you will have to attend to more urgent and emergent needs, but if you can reduce you trips into town by half or more, you'll probably save gas, time and maybe save yourself from catching a bug.

-Wash your hands. This may sound obvious but I'm not just talking about hand sanitizer. The alcohol based hand gel "kills" bacteria. You can't use it to "kill" a virus. You need to use soap, water and friction to dislodge the infectious particles and wash them down the drain. Here is a 90 second video to show you how.

-Stock up on food, water and medication. I currently work in an emergency room and before that I made my bones on a trauma/surgery floor. It seemed like every time there was an earthquake somewhere on earth, or a typhoon, or a tornado, or a tsunami, or some random civil unrest, we would go on "nationwide backorder" for something, because everything is either made elsewhere, or part of it is made elsewhere, or the container is made elsewhere, or the packaging, etc. Some medication or medical supply or material would go short and we would have to go without. I've seen our hospital (based in a modern city of nearly 60,000 people) go empty on dilaudid, morphine, nubain, normal saline bags, plastic urinal cans, protonix, etc. at various times due to storms in the Caribbean or Typhoon in Asia, or whatever else was happening in the world, and we would often be dealing with the shortages for months. I'm sure you know that the society of the United States run largely on the flow of cheap Chinese garbage and cheap Chinese/SE Asian labor. If this virus has already affected the world markets, don't you think it could have an effect on our supply chain? Your family needs at minimum one gallon of water per person, per day. You can either buy water or you can buy containers and fill them yourself. Go shopping for some Mountain House meals, or buy in bulk and store rice and beans long term. Buy flats of canned goods cheap. Talk to your doctor and let them know you'd like an extra refill or two to cycle through at home. A lot of docs would be happy to give it to you if it's not a controlled substance.

-Put some cash away for a bad day. The world's economy runs through the US and China, and our two economies run through each other. Already Chinese stock markets have had their worst day in at least four years, and markets are continuing to drop. Of course, Chinese state media is telling everyone there is no need to worry. US stocks dropped initially but rallied afterward, and showing gains at this point. For now. Having cash on hand and other tangible assets (ahem) is always a good plan, but if you can put some more away right now, you'll still be ahead of the game.

-You need a good medical bag and a way to take a full set of vital signs. If you can learn to use a stethoscope to listen for adventitious breath sounds, then you can get a friend or family member, or yourself, to the doctor faster or quarantine people as needed. There are people in the US who have recently returned from China and imposing self quarantines away from their family for two or three weeks.

More updates to come as they happen. We haven't seen the worst of it yet. Stay away from crowds.