How many out there actually are prepared?

Well, I don't feel alarmed... I mean, I'm not panicking, freaking out, or anything. I'm just going about my daily life, pretty normally. I've never been through a pandemic, but my mother has been thru 2 when very young, and my grandmother was born shortly after the 1918 one. But I don't know anyone personally who has any memory of pandemic or advice to give. So I don't know from experience what to expect, I only know what I've been reading from history.

All I really know to do is go about life and not really spend time obsessing over it, but in the meantime, just stock up on things I would need if I had to stay at home for a month or two. Because if this does turn out to be bad, many people will stop reporting to work in many sectors, and businesses may begin to shutter until it passes, which could include grocery stores. Places like water waste management might be jeopardized because of lack of workers to maintain it properly. Or the authorities might even recommend that people stay inside if it's very bad, to keep it from spreading, and allow for the wave to pass. And a wave could last weeks or months. Or an interruption in utilities could last a few days. There's no way to know.

My feeling is that I just want to be ready in case I'm home for a while. Each trip to the grocery store, I buy a few extra canned goods or more medicine. I also picked up a metal shelf (it's 5 shelves) to store everything on in the kitchen, so I know what I have with a glance. I have water stored to drink (but not enough, yet, to go about flushing toilets).

I'm sure some people are preparing way more, and some are preparing way less. I'm cool with that - to each his own. I think if you have the gut feeling that you need to prepare, then you should listen to that gut feeling, and not let the opinions of others make up your mind for you. You're responsible for yourself, let them be responsible for themselves.

I hope that helps some... :)

First I would like to thank Indigo Girl for the incredible amount of factual info that she has gathered and posted regarding influenza. Awesome job!

The more I read about bird flu/swine flu, the more convinced I become that we are overdue for a world pandemic which we are totally unprepared for. For all the advances we have made in science, we have lost more in plain common sense. The significant cuts in public health, hospitals, staff, equipment etc. will come back to haunt us.

Still, I find myself feeling like an alarmist. I am surrounded by smart, well educated people-none who are very concerned about a 'true' pandemic. I cant figure out if they are just too busy to think about it or they really dont believe it will happen.

You did a very good summary of the concerns that should be front and foremost on every ones minds but are not being addressed. Excellent post, I myself am very interested in infection control but you know I am also very unprepared. I have mentioned this before about the bad flu outbreak of 2000. Everyone seems to have forgotten it already but it pushed health care in the US and Europe right to the edge. There were nurses from all over the world posting here that they had just about had it and couldn't take on another patient. In the US at least our capacity has shrunk so much in the 10 years since that last bad outbreak, we are really in trouble if this H1N1 comes back this fall and we get a major pandemic. I think it could be the finally straw that will break the back of health care as we know it in this country. People are going to realize they have a health care system that is based on a business/for-profit model that has no excess capacity in it. The system does not care for them or about them or plan for the unusual situation because there is no profit in that sort of planning. My greatest sympathy goes to people who are working at the bedside at present. They are really going to bear the brunt of it. Glad I am retired, glad it is not me.