It’s really hard to say - estimating with any certainly would be like estimating the likelihood of the lottery being won without knowing how many people are playing.
What makes it tricky is the mutation that changes to human specificity may change specificity away from cows/birds. In that case, if there’s no opportunity for it to infect any humans, it just stops there. This may have happened multiple times already.
I’d say it’s possible, incoming political idiots will make it more likely, and given how poorly they handled the last pandemic, it wouldn’t be unwise to make reasonable preparations in advance: respiratory protection, soap/sanitizer (it needn’t be antibiotic), maybe a bit of backup food and other daily supplies in case the shit hits the fan and supply chains get squirrely.
I used to make fun of preppers before COVID (and still think many of them are a bit too paranoid, you don’t need a buried shipping container full of weapons), but we now have full-face respirators and a few months of dried food supplies.
Sounds like your risk assessment is similar to ours on bird flu.
As for prepping, I think it comes down to being realistic about actual threats. I’m a lot more worried about Lyme disease and other tick carried disease than I am being bit by a water moccasin so I treat my clothing with permethrin. I’m a lot more worried about a house fire than a home invasion so I have CO and smoke detectors. Just added an emergency fire ladder to our second floor. Real life isn’t a Mad Max movie.
My girl keeps a well stocked pantry and deep freezers. She’s experienced food insecurity before, and she manages our food. We stock up on things we already eat when they go on sale. She’s read some alarming things about the coffee harvest this year so we now have a year supply of coffee. It will all get used and we are insulated from a big price hike.
Longer term, we hope to raise or hunt all our own meat. Our “prepping” isn’t really anything we wouldn’t do anyhow. We love venison, rabbit, and now have land to raise a couple of steers.
We have soaps and sanitizers. Keep a good supply on hand, super long shelf life.
With COVID, I got us all half face respirators. I spoke with my girl, I think I’m going to look at getting a couple of full face. Our house is old and has a lot of asbestos in the walls and shingles, so I use the respirator when cutting into a wall along with a HEPA shop vac. Also use my respirator when dealing with moldy hay or bad allergans. So, it’s not like I’m wasting money. Thanks for getting me thinking about it. P100 is great for peace of mind.
As far as guns and such, you can’t eat ammo or rifles. We have farm and hunting firearms. Thinking a bunch of weapons will be what makes a difference if things got really bad is foolish.
Mostly, we just try and pay attention and anticipate big price changes. We are slowly working towards having less dependance on supply chain disruption. True supply chain independence is a pipe dream and would be a brutal existence.
We also have a bit of land and a full-face respirator is the best for working with anything dusty, spraying weeds, or even just burn piles. Smoke in my face? Zero fucks given now.
If I may, I recommend the Scott AV-3000. They’re a bit pricey but you can beat the hell out of them for years, can replace individual components, and they work with canisters, cartridges, SCBA, and supplied air, all of which use a bog-standard connector. If there’s any question on sizing, you’re probably a medium. 80+% of the adult population is medium, around 15% large, and less than 5% small. Large is barely larger, small is way smaller.
I may or may not have had a job related to respiratory protection for awhile. Science is fun!
If you ever have any questions, feel free to hit me up! Us friendly “reasonably prepared” types gotta stick together.
I went with 3M 6900 (Large) as it is what I have experience with and before I saw your message Amazon was low stock and MSC was really high. Most of my mask use has been in industrial process and only for short periods.
I will absolutely look into the Scott AV-3000. I only got a couple pair of the full face.
Will do. You have machinery and tooling questions lemme know.
It’s really hard to say - estimating with any certainly would be like estimating the likelihood of the lottery being won without knowing how many people are playing.
What makes it tricky is the mutation that changes to human specificity may change specificity away from cows/birds. In that case, if there’s no opportunity for it to infect any humans, it just stops there. This may have happened multiple times already.
I’d say it’s possible, incoming political idiots will make it more likely, and given how poorly they handled the last pandemic, it wouldn’t be unwise to make reasonable preparations in advance: respiratory protection, soap/sanitizer (it needn’t be antibiotic), maybe a bit of backup food and other daily supplies in case the shit hits the fan and supply chains get squirrely.
I used to make fun of preppers before COVID (and still think many of them are a bit too paranoid, you don’t need a buried shipping container full of weapons), but we now have full-face respirators and a few months of dried food supplies.
Sounds like your risk assessment is similar to ours on bird flu.
As for prepping, I think it comes down to being realistic about actual threats. I’m a lot more worried about Lyme disease and other tick carried disease than I am being bit by a water moccasin so I treat my clothing with permethrin. I’m a lot more worried about a house fire than a home invasion so I have CO and smoke detectors. Just added an emergency fire ladder to our second floor. Real life isn’t a Mad Max movie.
My girl keeps a well stocked pantry and deep freezers. She’s experienced food insecurity before, and she manages our food. We stock up on things we already eat when they go on sale. She’s read some alarming things about the coffee harvest this year so we now have a year supply of coffee. It will all get used and we are insulated from a big price hike.
Longer term, we hope to raise or hunt all our own meat. Our “prepping” isn’t really anything we wouldn’t do anyhow. We love venison, rabbit, and now have land to raise a couple of steers.
We have soaps and sanitizers. Keep a good supply on hand, super long shelf life.
With COVID, I got us all half face respirators. I spoke with my girl, I think I’m going to look at getting a couple of full face. Our house is old and has a lot of asbestos in the walls and shingles, so I use the respirator when cutting into a wall along with a HEPA shop vac. Also use my respirator when dealing with moldy hay or bad allergans. So, it’s not like I’m wasting money. Thanks for getting me thinking about it. P100 is great for peace of mind.
As far as guns and such, you can’t eat ammo or rifles. We have farm and hunting firearms. Thinking a bunch of weapons will be what makes a difference if things got really bad is foolish.
Mostly, we just try and pay attention and anticipate big price changes. We are slowly working towards having less dependance on supply chain disruption. True supply chain independence is a pipe dream and would be a brutal existence.
Yep, you and I are 100% on the same page.
We also have a bit of land and a full-face respirator is the best for working with anything dusty, spraying weeds, or even just burn piles. Smoke in my face? Zero fucks given now.
If I may, I recommend the Scott AV-3000. They’re a bit pricey but you can beat the hell out of them for years, can replace individual components, and they work with canisters, cartridges, SCBA, and supplied air, all of which use a bog-standard connector. If there’s any question on sizing, you’re probably a medium. 80+% of the adult population is medium, around 15% large, and less than 5% small. Large is barely larger, small is way smaller.
I may or may not have had a job related to respiratory protection for awhile. Science is fun!
If you ever have any questions, feel free to hit me up! Us friendly “reasonably prepared” types gotta stick together.
I went with 3M 6900 (Large) as it is what I have experience with and before I saw your message Amazon was low stock and MSC was really high. Most of my mask use has been in industrial process and only for short periods.
I will absolutely look into the Scott AV-3000. I only got a couple pair of the full face.
Will do. You have machinery and tooling questions lemme know.