Medical

A few years ago, I met a man on the internet named Craig. Like me, Craig was a prepper, and Craig and I were in many of the same prepper groups on the web. He runs several prepping Facebook groups, including the 365Survive network of groups and pages. Some of these groups include Prepperlinks and SHTF medics. (I encourage you to check out both. LOTS of great info and articles are posted in these groups daily!)

After a while, I was helping Craig with some of those pages, and we became friends.

Over the past few months, more and more Corona-Virus information was being released in our prep groups. It seemed to dominate the topic of discussion in these groups, and understandably so. Then few weeks ago, Craig told me that he had been diagnosed with Covid-19. I was not shocked, though a bit surprised. For a few days, it certainly had many in the group worried.

Fortunately, Craig is pulling through. I thought it would interesting and informative to ask Craig about having this virus, both as a former Royal Marine, and as a prepper. So I did a little informal email interview with Craig. Enjoy!

Can you give us a little background information on yourself, and how you got into prepping?

My background is that I was a Royal Navy Commando Medic with the Royal Marine Commandos as well as a Search and Rescue Medic. Unfortunately my career was cut short due to injuries I received while in service. So I am now retired and miss it.

I was probably a prepper before I knew of such a thing. In Scotland during the 1970s when we had the 3 day working week, with the fuel strikes and the rotating power cuts, my mum use to put extra food tins away. She said these were not to be touched, they are for a rainy day.  At the age of 7 or 8, I did not know what that meant.

But when in the military I was in a position to see what was happening around the world. Both on deployment and on the news. I too started putting cans of food away for “a rainy day”. Eventually with the internet becoming more accessible, I found out that I was actually a prepper.

My next question: Do you kind of know how you got corona-virus? If so do you mind sharing that with us? And what was it like for the first several days that you had it.

I don’t know how I contracted corona-virus. Being a medic, I was primed to look for the symptoms that have been published, but none of them were present.

I started to get a scratchy throat which became more painful (like swallowing glass and razor blades). I didn’t have a temperature, so I just thought it was a bout of laryngitis. But then I had chest pain and breathing got harder. When the pain started radiating, I knew it wasn’t right. So just before midnight I called our medical non-emergency number. After a short discussion and questions about this or that symptoms, they sent me to the ER for medical service at one of the city hospitals.

After arrival and book in, due to the prospect of having an highly infectious virus, they send me back out to my car to wait. I would receive a call on my mobile phone to come into the hospital and see the doctor.

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I have started receiving a bunch of email about the coronavirus. Now I am NOT a medical doctor of any sort nor an infectious disease specialist. I do know that Coronavirus is a respiratory disease that can cause patients to have flu-like symptoms.

It can remain alive outside of the human body for up to 9 days, and can be contagious in humans for up to 27 days according to the latest study. I also know it can be fatal, and is something we should be paying attention to.

I have seen a lot of people blow off the Coronavirus. Even members of my family aren’t taking it seriously, saying things like “The flu is more deadly! It has killed more people.” While that is true, they are missing the big picture. And that is this virus can easily have a MAJOR impact on all of us globally.

Yes, at the moment influenza has killed more people worldwide than the Coronavirus. The flu kills thousands of people every year. The flu infected over 32 million last year. So far, Corona virus has about 90,000 confirmed cases that we know if. Hence currently the flu is more deadly because it is currently more wide spread. But that could change. Coronavirus has the potential to become at least 10 times more deadly. General, the flu mortality rate is around .02 percent.  Coronavirus has a 2 percent mortality rate according to the figures from China, Iran, and now Italy.

In reality, that mortality rate for Coronavirus might be lower. There could easily be many undetected Coronavirus victims who go undetected because their cases are very mild. But then again, I do not trust the numbers given by the Chinese government. It is certainly a “Wait and see” as the virus has now hit the US mainland. As of this writing, 6 confirmed coronavirus deaths have been reported in Washington state.

Now in NO way am I trying to diminish the death toll of this virus. It is a terrible tragedy. But for those who are focused solely on this, I say you need to take a step back, and look at the big picture.

For starters, the hospital rate for this virus is about 20%. This means that around 20% of people infected by coronavirus will be serious enough to require some sort of hospital visit. What sort of strain do you think that puts on the US medical system? Especially considering that a large percentage of things like medical supplies and medicines come from China which is now putting major cities under quarantine. If doctor’s offices and hospitals are swamped with coronavirus patients, what happens when the medical supplies and medicines run low? This could impact EVERYONE needing medical attention, not just coronavirus patients.

Next…look at the impact it is having on the economy. Wall Street is being hit hard. The DOW keeps dropping like a rock. That is going to have potential major impacts on not just the US, but on the global economy.

China had to quarantine the city of Wuhan, a city of around 11 million people. By way of comparison, it is almost 4 times the size of Houston. What sort of impact would that have on the US economy if that happened here? Imagine having to quarantine Los Angeles? A major shipping hub. What sort of economic problems will that cause? The potential economic impact to me is a bigger concern than the virus itself.

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