Prepping – Disease

Mask mandates probably weren’t the best thing out there, but I’ve seen enough evidence to know that masks do help stop the transmission of many illnesses. Vaccine mandates probably aren’t the best thing out there, but a lot of long-standing vaccines are the reason we don’t have people in iron lungs anymore. Disease and illness is a problem that human beings will always have to deal with. Our methods for dealing with them change as we develop better ways of fighting disease, but the fight will always be there.

As a prepper, disease is something we need to be concerned about. There are likely going to be more pandemics in the future (because there have been many in the past, and it’s the type of pattern that doesn’t change much). It’s in our best interest to learn how to deal with the most likely diseases to bother us, should a SHTF scenario happen. So which diseases should we prepare for?

Diarrheal diseases are the first things we’re likely to see. These happen for a variety of reasons, sometimes with very little change. The food you are eating may change if a large scale emergency happens, and that can cause changes in bowel movements (in either direction, I might add, and both are bad). The “big” diarrheal diseases are cholera, typhoid, gastroenteritis, and dysentery. Changes in food and sanitation will make these four diseases something to be feared. You combat them by making sure you’ve addressed good hygiene in your emergency preparations. Be sure to have clean water to wash your hands in, if nothing else. Keep bleach in your preps so that you can sanitize things. Be prepared to use boiling water to sanitize some things. Good sanitation will take care of a lot of the things in this category, but not all. Consider keeping hydration mixes on hand in case of gastro or other diseases causing dehydration.

Nutritional diseases will eventually show up. Lack of vitamin C can cause scurvy. Vitamin D deficiency can bring on rickets and osteomalacia. Low iron and zinc can bring on all sorts of issues. Eating too much protein, or not enough protein, can cause mental confusion. Severe weight loss due to lack of food or lack of GOOD food can cause problems, too. We tend to think of losing weight as a positive thing for SHTF, but it isn’t. Rapid weight loss of that kind can bring on a bevy of health problems that we’ll be in no shape to deal with.

Insect borne diseases are also of great concern. With lack of sanitation, we will likely see people disposing of fecal matter in public spaces (I don’t know why they do it, but they do, and it’s horrid). Waste and garbage mean there will be an uptick in mosquitoes, rats, ticks, fleas, flies, and a dozen other pests. I have in storage a handful of “mosquito pucks” that I can toss into standing water. They kill mosquito larvae without affecting the potability of the water (though it still needs to be cleaned and boiled). I have rat and mouse traps in my home that are ready to use. There’s not much to be done about flies, quite honestly, but I always keep fly strips on hand (low tech answers to low tech problems). Ticks and fleas and other tiny pests are going to be endemic, and we’ll need to think of ways to deal with it. A friend of mine wore cat flea collars on her ankles during an emergency, at one point, and said it helped tremendously.

Then there are the respiratory illnesses. These include influence (aka “the flu”), colds and coughs, pneumonia, COVID, pleurisy, RSV, and a host of others. This is where masks come in, quite frankly. You can’t stop other people from doing what they’re doing, and they will be shedding diseases into the air. In the case of diseases like flu and pneumonia, the infectious particles can hang in the air for an hour or more. Masks can and do stop the majority of floating particles from entering your lungs as you breathe. They won’t stop what gets on your skin (so wash carefully when you’ve been in crowds) or in your eyes and ears (which can transmit some bugs, unfortunately). Do your best to stay away from people who are ill. If someone in your family/group gets sick, quarantine them immediately. Staying away from people while they’re sick is one of the few methods that works every time to prevent the spread of disease. Be aware that pneumonia, pleurisy, and RSV may not resolve on their own, and prescription medications may be necessary to beat them. If you don’t have those kinds of meds on hand, it behooves you to be 100% certain that the spread of those diseases stops at your property line.

Skin diseases will probably be easily transmitted and very infectious. Avoid touching people that you don’t know. Shaking hands might be polite now, but in a SHTF scenario, skip it. Infection is only one side of the problem, though. Consider that you may be wearing shoes and/or clothing that are new to you. You may develop rashes, blisters, raw spots, etc, and all that can become infected. Treat all skin lesions with serious attention, no matter how small it seems. A tiny blister can become infected and cause the loss of an entire limb. Treat the blister immediately instead of putting it off.

All in all, we’re going to have to deal with a lot of illness, should the country ever break down. It’s important for us to face that fact. We may also see an uptick in preventable diseases when Trump comes into office, not because he’s going to get rid of vaccines or anything silly, but because the crunchy tree hugging folk and the far right “God told us not to vaccinate” folk are going to take it as a sign that they should forgo even the important vaccines. If we’re prepared, we’re less likely to be troubled by these things.