Becoming increasingly clear that nothing good is ever going to happen again, so if it gets me it gets me. Long live our successor, the saiga antelope.

So, one thing to consider is that “how bad it gets” can be directly related to how well people and governments prepare. For example, if the CDC starts work on having vaccines made and stockpiled now, they may be able to react quickly and decisively to any outbreaks as they happen and prevent them from growing to a pandemic level. If infections are kept to low levels and the CDC ultimately has a lot of left over vaccines, did it “over react”? It’s actually a hard question to answer, because it’s entirely possibly that the end result was a direct result of that stockpiling and rapid reaction, leading to some level of wastage. However, had those precautionary steps not been taken, shit would have hit the fan.

We had something similar back with the Y2K Bug was being talked about. Companies lost their shit over it. But, when the date finally rolled over, it seemed to be a huge nothing-burger. Part of the reason it was such a nothing-burger was the fact that companies actually did a lot of work to validate and fix software before the date roll over. So, in retrospect, lots of people talk about the Y2K bug like it was all hype. But, had action not been taken ahead of time, it really would have caused a lot of problems.

This is the perennial problem with proactive fixes, if they are done right, people won’t be sure you have done anything at all. So, it is often difficult to get people to prioritize future problems. Even when the cost to fix those problems now will be vastly less than waiting until the problem actually arrives.

So no, I don’t think it’s “overblown” per se. It something that governments and health organizations should be tracking and should be working to have plans and resources available for. On a personal level, not much is changing. It’s not currently at a level that I feel I need to make major lifestyle changes to avoid. The CDC puts the risk as currently low, and has seen no cases of human to human transmission. If any of that changes, I’ll re-evaluate.

It’s pretty concerning, as health authorities in the USA don’t seem to do enough to prevent the situation from getting worse. The dairy industry doesn’t want its profits to be touched, and several politicians seem to be more concerned about the economic impacts. Various far-right groups basically created the framework for their anti-science actions with the COVID pandemic and various anti-vaxx groups that existed before it. Therefore they will double down in their efforts to resist any kinds of mitigation efforts because of “freedom” and “do not comply”. Hell, many of them are buying raw milk in hopes of “gaining immunity” and of course “owning the libs”!

It could be said that I am already preparing. When at work, doing groceries, hitting the gym and so on, I am wearing an FFP2 mask (equivalent to N95). This is exceptional here in Finland, where many people have drunk the Kool-Aid of “COVID being over” fed by the THL, our equivalent to your CDC. The only people I have seen masking actively are people collecting bottles from streets and parks! The THL has done similar blunders about public health messaging and “studies”.

I am not losing my night’s sleep because of this, but who knows what happens in the coming months?

I lived through Covid without a car, taking public transport for all my transit needs, it was mostly fine, but I was so isolated as I didn’t want to risk visiting my parents out of fear that I would infect them, I also never really did anything interesting and mostly sat home.

I now have a car and if shit hits the fan again would actually be able to get out and see stuff, I am talking nature, abandoned places and just being able to see new stuff would be so much better for my metal health.

I am not really doing anything to explicitly prepare, and Sweden managed quite well all things considered.

I’m going to cook my chicken before I eat it.

Already got a box of N95s and a stick with nails hammered into it to beat the next motherfucker that tries to accuse China of this one when it’s just plain, raw, yankee greed and shitty living qualities for the livestock they ‘raise’. Plus a healthy smattering of those same yankees being absolutely brickshittingly ignorant.

Praying to God it kills the return to office movement

I’ve gone back to wearing a mask in public.

Has there been more than like 1 known case of someone contracting it from a person? When the answer to that is yes and we’re in the dozens of known cases plus there’s evidence of it in the local waste water, then I’ll be worrying on a personal level. But not that much because I never stopped masking and I don’t drink raw milk.

Unfortunately these flu outbreaks among livestock that make the jump to humans happen fairly regularly, we’re just more tuned in to it now that we live in a post-COVID world. Improving conditions for animals and farm workers would go a long way in preventing zoonotic diseases from making the leap into humans in the first place.

At the moment it has a pretty low (~0) person to person infection rate.
But, it does have a 56% mortality rate (Covid was between 3%-5%) so I don’t think we should be fucking around with our response to it.
Viruses can mutate and that R value (person to person transmission rate) can shoot up after a mutation.
I would much rather us have an “overblown” response than an inadequate response like we did with Covid. .

What about H5N2 or H7N3?

Nothing in particular that we didn’t already do for covid. I have various PPE and we already only leave the house once every couple weeks on average. The only two things I think I could prepare better are: more canned/frozen veg in case we need to stay in longer, and more farm supplies for the same reason (this is my first year actually farming in land (not in my parking space/balcony), so there’s a bit of a learning curve and I’m not good at it yet). We live in a very small town so health resources are scarce but, on the plus side, we live in a really small town and there aren’t many people.

I’m doing the basic precautions, but they should just be daily life now especially if you live in a dense urban area

Get sunlight everyday, if not vitamin d pills

When out in public, wear a face mask, not only is it polite, it helps with pollution.

If you have a runny nose, a cough, chest congestion, anything that feels less than 100%, you absolutely should be wearing a face mask in public. Even if you’re the only one doing it, it’s just part of the social contract

On the train, if somebody is coughing, I offer them a new face mask, they always take it and put it on after looking around sheepishly, cuz they know it’s the right thing to do. So I just carry extra face masks

Wash your hands before touching your mouth, eyes etc. It takes a bit of getting used to to not touch your face in public, but that should just be basic hygiene now

Have a healthy level of cardiovascular exercise, it helps your immune system tremendously. 30 minutes at least every week, it could be walking, anything to get your heart moving

Ensure you’re getting enough protein

A multivitamin doesn’t hurt, though it can be just wasteful, but if you’re not sure about your diet why not

I take zinc supplements, but they are also rumored to help with your immune system

Probably most importantly, like extremely importantly, make sure you don’t have diabetes, or insulin resistance, those tremendously hurt your immune system. These are the broad metabolic issues that society is suffering under, and they really make use susceptible to communicable diseases.

As someone who did my part with the social distancing, masks, and shots up to the 2nd booster, I genuinely just do not care any more. Let’s face it the worlds trending downwards now for whatever reason we want to blame it on. If the virus gets me that’s fine. I’ll probably not listen to any regulations if it ever got to it.

Panic buy pasta and bog roll, just like last time.