The CDC Warns Businesses, Schools, Communities to Prepare NOW for Covid19: “THE DISRUPTION OF DAILY LIFE MIGHT BE SEVERE.”

Author of The Blackout Book and the online course Bloom Where You’re Planted

Today Nancy Messonnier, who is the director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases issued a stark warning about the potential spread of Covid19 through the United States.

“We expect we will see community spread in this country,” said Dr. Messonnier. “It’s more of a question of when.” (source)

Whenever there’s a direct warning from the government agencies whose job it is to manage crises in ways that don’t cause a panic, I always wonder how bad the situation actually is and what they’re not telling us.  While this was the most bluntly worded warning, it isn’t the only one this week.

What is the CDC warning us about?

In a briefing, she discussed the measures that businesses, schools, and communities needed to prepare to take to tackle the looming outbreak.

“We are asking the American public to work with us to prepare for the expectation that this could be bad…”

Schools should consider dividing students into smaller groups or close and use “internet-based teleschooling,” Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told reporters on a conference call.

“For adults, businesses can replace in-person meetings with video or telephone conferences and increase teleworking options,” Messonnier said.

She said local communities and cities may need to “modify, postpone or cancel mass gatherings.” Hospitals may need to triage patients differently, add more telehealth services and delay elective surgery, she said.

“Now is the time for businesses, hospitals, communities, schools and everyday people to begin preparing,” she said. (source)

Anyone who has watched the way the government handles things that could potentially cause a panic should realize that this is a warning that problems are imminent.

And not just minor problems. Messonnier said, “The disruption of daily life might be severe.” 

This briefing certainly coincides with the line of thinking in our earlier article today entitled, This Is Not a Drill.

This is the warning before things get serious.

It’s rare that the government comes right out and says something clearly. There are always agendas to be hidden and a**es to be covered. The government prefers to “manage” the flow of information, as they did during the Ebola outbreak in 2014, when they instituted an outright blackout on information.

In Cat Ellis’s book, The Covid-19 Survival Manual, she wrote that the editors of mainstream media outlets were told by the President to stop reporting on it.

To counter the rising public tension, President Obama appointed Ron Klaine, a Fannie Mae lobbyist with no health care background at all as his Ebola Response Coordinator. Klaine was known in and around Washington DC as being a man who could circumnavigate government bureaucracy and regulations. The media referred to Klaine as Obama’s “Ebola Czar”.

Within weeks of Klaine’s appointment, the Associated Press released a statement that was sent to editors. There were to be no more stories on Ebola unless it is linked to a massive upset or delay. All stories about suspected cases disappeared from the mainstream television news coverage, although you could still find articles on their websites occasionally.

So, if it is a standard for governments to downplay the severity of an infectious disease in order to control public panic, it is reasonable to examine what we know and understand that the situation is likely worse than it appears to be. (source)

Now apply that to what we’re seeing in the news right now. Today’s message was loud and clear, however. An outbreak is coming, and it’s no longer a matter of if, but when and how bad. It’s most likely something that is just too big to hide.

What happens next?

In all likelihood, the next official warning will be something that makes it extremely difficult to put last-minute preparations into place. We need only to look at how quickly parts of northern Italy were locked down to see how it might go here.

One day there was a sick guy. The next day there were a few sick people. The day after that people were advised not to leave their homes and those breaking quarantine were threatened with three months in prison. All in just three days.

The next official statement could run the gamut. It could be anything from curfews, a recommendation for social isolation, the lockdown of cities or towns with clusters of illness, or full-on quarantine where people are forced to stay in their homes. Sign up here for updates.

What should you do?

If you haven’t already purchased PPE and masks, that ship has probably sailed. There are very few to be found. Your focus should be on the things you need to lock down with your family for a period of time that could range anywhere from a couple of weeks to a few months. You may think to yourself, “Ah, it’s just the flu, I’ll be fine” but you also may not be given the option – in many places, particularly China, the lockdown has been mandatory and it has been brutally enforced.

My advice is to plan for the possibility of having to stay home for a while. Here’s a guide to preparing for an outbreak of this particular virus and the potential quarantines that could come with it.

Plan to self-quarantine and make your preparations now, before it becomes mandatory.

Rest assured when the announcement is made telling people to stay home, your chance to run to the store and fill a few grocery carts has passed. If you are going to make a last-minute shopping trip, do it now. If it turns out that nothing happens, the worst thing you have to deal with is figuring out where to put all those groceries.

• Here are some tips on what to purchase to prepare for a potential quarantine.
• Here are some thoughts on the personal financial aspects of a lockdown during which you can’t go to work.
• Here are some substitutes if the things you want to buy are already sold out.

Right now, you have a window of opportunity that will close as soon as everyone else realizes what is about to happen. By the time the official announcement comes, the shelves will be bare.

I would not be surprised to see things evolve rapidly within the next 72 hours. I hope I’m wrong.