The America Strain

Conspiracy Dude got me to thinking on his latest post about measles being imported into the U. S. I have been looking into and thinking about a show’s subject matter I just saw on a History Channel documentary.  Early September of  1918, a Liberty Loan parade in Philadelphia prompts a huge outbreak of the flu epidemic in the city. By the time the epidemic ended, an estimated 30 million people were dead worldwide.  This flu ran its course.  Do you understand that no cure was found and the flu itself died.  It ran out of host.  In July 1918 Philadelphia’s Bureau of Public Health had issued a bulletin about the “Spanish Influenza”. But health officials had not listed influenza as a reportable disease, and this denial of the danger of what was happening had encouraged people to take foolish risks and this spread throughout the country and  across the world.  30 Million people died worldwide as a result.  The world had 1.8 billion people in 1918.  The amount of world travel or travel abroad way pales in comparison today.  The amount of human interaction is huge compared to 1918. “Influenza pandemics are natural phenomenon, like earthquakes,” said Klaus Stohr, coordinator of the global flu program at the WHO. “The problem is bad preparedness.”Influenza is highly contagious and has killed millions over the past 100 years. It has traditionally moved in cycles, and some scientists say a major outbreak is already overdue.

To say we are ill prepared to handle a major out break of a 8.0 on the scale of flu is an understatement.  We as people have handled the latest minor out breaks of bird and swine flu to some degree, but in time we will have an outbreak that could send us back in technology 100 or so years for the survivors.   If your lucky enough not to be killed in the first three weeks,  you might just make it,  if your prepared.  The people who make vaccinations will be so overwhelmed during this time they will not have time to come up with a shot to protect the people.  A flu this strong in today’s well-connected world will take about a month to wipe out way more per capita of the world’s population as it did in 1918.   It could have a death toll of 75 to 85 percent of the world’s population.  It will flood hospitals in the first several days to a point people will be in the street.  Shelters and triage centers will be overrun.  It will spread from these areas like wildfire.  Hundreds of flights are taking off at several hundred airports everywhere with sick people showing no symptoms.  It will be in every major populated country including both poles in ten to fourteen days.  Protocols to protect the important people who may just find a vaccine will not have provided enough time to catch a flu like this in time.   Stores run out of food and soon the gas pumps dry up.  Your power is out and your water pressure is very low.  The internet crashes.  Water is gone by the third or fourth week.  Half the people left are in shock.  You don’t know close to a billion people are dead in the world.  Neither do you know that 3 to 4 more billion are going to die.

You have made it a month so now what do you do?   Not a single person is working unless they are military if there is one left.  Do you have enough food?  Water?  A way of getting those two things?  Because those two things are all that matters to you now.  Is it just you or are you providing for your wife and kids too.  Staying in your house was the smartest thing you have ever done.  This is the way to survive the first month or so.  Did you have three months of food and water and essential meds to make it this long without having to venture out?  Did the military have enough time to move you into a camp, as will happen in most major cities?  If so,  you’re going to be in the second round of deaths from this in one way or the other.   I know you have locked yourself up at home and had enough water and food to make it.  Now have you survived the looters who are trying to get your stash of goodies?  If you have stored up enough of the right kind of goodies you might just make it.

Survivors now around the second month are dealing with dead bodies everywhere in the major populated areas.  People will literally die where they are standing with this flu.  Rural areas are now banded together and formed a network to help each other as they can.  Unless you have set this up before hand you can count yourself out.

It could be years before you have power again.  Hopefully someone who knows how to make fuel will have survived.  This is a big what if scenario.  For all the crap you have stacked up in your house, make a couple piles of food and water.  Enough to make it at least three months.  Cause politics and all the stuff we complain about will be the least of your worries.   For the sake of this argument they and the military, other than small bands will not survive either.  Some scientist say this is a when and not an if.  It is just something to think about.

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