CORONAGEDDON vs CORONA CONSPIRACY

I hope I'm not the only person skeptical and confused about what is happening. As I mentioned last week my first thoughts on this virus was there was some sort of manipulation occurring but as I did more research I began to buy in to the concept that this is a highly dangerous disease. As last week progressed my anxietycontinued to rise. I read about a surgery in China in the nose to remove a tumor of the brain that infected every healthcare worker in the room with Corona virus. This was followed by the revelation that the two groups of doctors in Italy and China most infected by the virus were ENT, which I am, and Ophthalmology. I have spoken with colleagues in San Francisco and at Stanford and have dramatically curtailed visits in my office, stopped all elective surgery, and begun wearing a mask full time in the office.

Those of you who know me are aware I usually look at Facebook about once a month but as I have exhausted news outlets, cdc website, university postings I have turned to Facebook to see how all of my friends are doing and to get a feel on perspective. I have learned a lot! Although none of it has really answered my questions. So now I go back to the tried and true, my own logical analysis of what is happening. I am not going to provide references for the information I am going to share but if you have caught some of my shared reports and if you are willing to check out the main purveyors of statistics you will see that I am doing my best not to share false information.

The first item on my list is whether this virus is apocalyptic and by that I mean likely to infect 50% of the US population with deaths in the millions. Let's look at the numbers. As of today the world total confirmed infections is about 330,000 with about 15,000 deaths. Of course we don't know how many deaths are being missed and we don't know how many people have had the virus but not tested. The overall mortality rate claimed is about 1% with transmission rate or Ro of 2.5-3. Ro means that each infected person will infect 2.5 to 3 other people. By the way one of the articles I reposted claimed this was the rate per group encounter which is not correct.

Let's focus on the US. As of today about 400 deaths with 33,000 confirmed cases. We also know that we have done at least 275,000 tests. We know the testing has been restricted to people who are suspicious to have the virus. So, based upon this if you feel pretty sick in the US you have about 1 in 6 chances of being positive. We know the virus has been here at least since late January.

Now I am faced with two diverging issues. Either we are vastly undercounting the number of people who have been exposed or overcounting the mortality rate. Working backwards if we have 400 deaths with a 1% mortality rate and we allow 2 weeks for a death to occur after infection we should have had about 40,000 people positive 2 weeks ago and if everyone did their job infecting 3 others we would have 120,000 people positive today. We know 80% show mild to moderate symptoms and that we have not tested nearly enough people to capture all the positives. But our current count of 33,000 positive means miraculously we caught everyone of that 20% group plus a few more. That makes no sense to me. The other thing to keep in mind is that the tests are for active virus shedding. If your negative it neither answers whether you were infected in the past or whether you will be in the future. My only logical conclusion is that far more people have been infected than we assume and therefore the mortality rate is much less than 1%.

What can we say to support this? The highest rate of mortality has been in China, Italy, and Iran. I don't know anything about the healthcare systems but I can draw some conclusions about lifestyle. Wuhan has a population of 1200 per square mile with a male smoking rate of 52% and I fear to guess the level of air pollution especially prior to the start of the endemic. Regarding Italy even though the Lombardy region is not densely populated Italy has one of the highest densities at 200 per square kilometer. Italians do tend to live in tightly clustered towns with multiple generations in the same household. Regarding Iran, the country is known for high density religious gathering as well as less than optimal sanitation.

The next question is what is the correct Ro? This is much more difficult to assess. I think this may be more related to how healthy an individual is and how many close contacts with an infected individual occur. This is supported by reports that most transmission in China was among family members. And don't forget density. In the US the density in our cities is around 615 per square kilometer and outside cities a remarkably low 13 per square kilometer. This explains why the US hotspot is New York City with a density of 10,000 people per square kilometer. Based upon these facts I believe the Corona virus will most severely impact the large cities with high density, aging population, and high rates of smoking, lower density populations that are healthy will likely have small clusters of severe infections like nursing homes.

Now that I have convinced myself the virus won't be the end of the world what about all of the conspiracy theories? I shared a pretty long winded one the other day that tied Bill Gates, University of North Carolina, the Chinese and some undescribed cabal as the creators and manipulators of this pandemic for world dominance. Based upon the level of convolution I vote that one down, on the other hand it would make a great novel. I am more concerned regarding the massive power grab governors and the President are taking to subvert free will and democracy. Every day there are threats of martial law and increasing activation of the National Guard. I am concerned about the massive impact this is having on our world economy and I am not convinced based upon the first part of this post that this is a response that is relative to the threat.

When all is said and done and the forensics of this are complete in a couple of years I suspect that if this sizzles out leaders will claim it was only a success due to their difficult decisions in difficult times. If it ends up that the virus runs rapid destroying the world they will say they did their best in a horrible situation. In the mean time what constitutional rights will we have forfeited?

Regardless of the outcome the economic damage is done. We will just have to hunker down in our homes, keep our six foot distance, and of course crack open a bottle of fine wine or your preferred beverage.

CoronAgeddon

Are you starting to feel like the world is ending?

If you are you're not alone.  The Covid-19 Corona virus information feels like a classic Hollywood movie, a common virus mutates in a different continent and rapidly spreads around the world shutting down the economy as it quickly spreads destroying lives. In fact, some of you might recall a few years ago I started to write a story with a similar idea based on the Influenza outbreak from 1918. I still need to finish the story. I actually think Covid-19 and the handling will give me some great material to work with.

Ironically, as I started to write this post I was beginning to suspect there was some underlying nefarious plan to take down the world economy but as I researched more and more information I have come to understand why the government is reacting so aggressively. I still wonder if we may be over reacting but I can understand how the progress of the virus in Italy has scared everybody. Seems every day the Italians have worse news.

Here in Santa Cruz we have a shelter in place order. Our schools are closed, most businesses are closed, ironically the recreational marijuana distributors are open. In my office we have cut volume by over 50% I'm walking around with a mask on and send each patient home with the wise words "stay healthy". I still wonder if there is an antihero like Dr. No hiding behind this but then I look at Italy, Iran, South Korea and I nod in agreement with the grand plan.

Of course, everything you read says if you get the virus your risk is low to moderate but no one really has any idea what that might mean. Realistically when we have 200,000 people infected in a population of billions and 8,000 deaths it seems hard to understand why everyone is so frightened. But, then I look at predictions of 100 million American infections and 1-2 million deaths predicted and that does look super frightening.

I wish there was more and better information from experts aside from stay indoors for 15 days and reassess. I saw a great article on how that made a huge difference in the Spanish flu in 1918 but one would hope we had made progress in the past 100 years. I also wonder why there hasn't been an accelerated review of the drug Ritonavir which the Chinese have tried but without any info on if it works. We all know it will take ages for a vaccine but if we might have a drug that works early maybe it could be used like Tamiflu to slow the spread.

And with the still relatively small numbers it is very hard to keep focused on maintaining distance. I understand how China essentially locked down Wuhan and now they have very few new cases. This has given rise to optimism that controlling contact can control spread of the disease and we are seeing dozens of countries essentially asking people to stay in their homes. The question we all have is how easy is it to get? I am unable to find any data on what percent of close contacts of positive individuals get the virus and I cannot figure out what percent of people tested are positive. These are the numbers necessary to help us decide how scary this really is.

Yet, news reports suggest this is one of the most contagious viruses ever, which makes sense since the Corona virus is also the typical cold virus. Current analysis indicates each infected person should infect two to three others, but is this accurate? We may not know until the end when someone goes back and analyses the data but I suspect it is overestimated. I recently read that in China most of the healthcare workers who contracted the disease were traced back to family contact transmission and not from patients in the hospital. If this is true then the contact time with an infected person needs to be longer.

The information we do have is that people are most contagious early before they know they have a serious problem, this is similar to how the flu virus behaves. The CDC estimates 2019 influenza has infected 36 million people with 22,000 deaths over 25 weeks. The infection rate peaked around week 18. If Covid-19 is more contagious then we are going to see some seriously large numbers in the next few weeks unless everyone isolates. I suspect we already have more cases out there and either the mortality rate is lower than advertised or we a due for a big shocker real soon. In the US Washington State is going to be our canary and if Washington starts to go down the drain we know we are in big trouble. But if they start to turn around then that will probably also tell us what to anticipate.

Either way, we are right now stuck in the unknown so uncork a bottle of wine, sit back, binge watch some end of the world movies and relax.

I'm going to college...again

I graduated with an undergraduate degree in Biology about 32 years ago. Since then I've accomplished a lot, I went to medical school, did a residency, and built up a respected and successful medical practice. And in that time I've forgotten all I learned those many years ago.

I ended up becoming a physician because I had a deep love of the elegance of science. Everything I learned had this incredible logic and my passion that drove me was to explore and learn. Somehow as the years have gone by I have forgotten all that great knowledge.

Have you ever wondered if you went to school now would it feel different? I was so goal oriented in school sometimes I worry that I missed something about the magic of learning. I even have feared that trying to learn again would be so difficult at this point in life that I might become discouraged or frustrated.

I also worry about my mind becoming stale and unwelcoming to new ideas. I know that studies show that if we don't keep our minds stimulated there is a much greater risk of dementia. I read a lot but passive thinking is not nearly as effective at mental simulation as an active task. Puzzles and mind games have been proven to decrease the pace and even reverse cognitive decline. Unfortunately, mind games bore me. About the only time I can tolerate them is on an airplane. I listen to stimulating radio shows like TED talks, Freakonomics, and others but I still feel I need to do more.

One thought I had was to see if I could remember my old science education. I tried to remember everything I could about biology, physics, chemistry, and math. I realized I just couldn't recall chemistry or any of my higher mathematics. So, I decided to explore what was available on the Web.

Many of you probably know this, but I was not aware that the Khan Academy has essentially all of the lectures for college courses including all of the basic sciences. So about 2 weeks ago I went back to college and began studying chemistry again.

Fortunately, I discovered I haven't lost my knowledge I have only misplaced it in some dark corner of my mind. Each lecture brings back that knowledge and as it does I feel a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction. I find it ironic that I am so excited to relearn concepts like ionic and covalent bonds or how the elements interact or how to solve a stoichiometric equation.

In a very short time I have already completed about 6 weeks of learning. Obviously, I am at a distinct advantage, I did learn this all before. But, the rememory process is highly stimulating. I am convinced I will keep going until I have repeated all of those courses. I will probably toss in a few I never experienced before as well.

I would probably repeat my medical school course as well if they are available. Am I crazy? I don't think so. The second time around I get to see how this knowledge I am using on a daily basis fits. The first time learning I was so focused on cramming the knowledge in to my head so I could excel on exams but this second time I get to see the true practicality of it.

My mom asked me today if I see how chemistry fits into the practice of medicine. What I notice is that I don't think directly about the science but I realized that the problem solving process is similar. All those years of studying S and P orbitals actually makes a difference.

So while all of you are frolicking this weekend there is a very good chance my mind will be buried in a lecture on chemical equations. We'll see who had more fun!

Barbara For President

Ok, it is official, Barbara Lavorato has agreed to run for president of the United States. You may recall I mentioned that Barbara was my choice in a blog I wrote about a month ago. If all of you feel like I do that the two candidates nominated by the dominant parties have completely failed to impress then you may want to write in Barbara Lavorato as I plan in November. Now, you may feel you need to know a little bit more about Barbara so with her permission I am going to fill in some details. Today I saw Barbara and she is agreeing to run and has answered some of my questions regarding her background. The easiest way to learn about Barbara is to compare and contrast.

1. Like our two major candidates Barbara is a senior, she recently turned 72.
2. She is a strong supporter of the military but unlike the major candidates she actually has family in the military, her two beloved twin nephews who she would consider before placing them or their friends in harms way.
3. Barbara has worked her whole life, ironically she was a government employee working for the IRS. Even more ironic, she did not become one of the wealthiest people in our country by being paid for speeches. Perhaps even more ironic, she never used a personal email server for government work.
4. Like Trump she is skeptical of Obamacare, unlike Trump she would not throw it out. Unlike Clinton she would not expand it without paying for it and unlike Sanders she knows nothing is free.
5. Barbara doesn't care what happens in the bedroom and she really doesn't care who gets married to whom.
6. She thinks building a really big wall won't do really anything except make it harder to visit really nice places in Mexico. 
7. School isn't free, someone had to pay for it like she did. Her nephews joined the air force to pay for theirs.
8. Free trade isn't free, she likes her foreign built cell phone but is worried about bad deals.
9. Regarding deals, she always worked to make reasonable ones as an IRS investigator.
10. No bankruptcies
11. Actually worked with others, played well, had superiors and inferiors in the office and everyone got along.
12. Never made a corrupt land deal
13. No big inheritance and no spouse to stand on the shoulders of.
14. Really, really,really nice.
15. She cares about the environment, she's worried about global climate change, she knows that scientists know more about science than she does. And she's pretty convinced the planet is more than 5,000 years old.
16. She believes in the power of prayer when she's worried about someone she loves, she believes in the power of common sense when trying to develop a way to deal with climate change, world conflict and natural disasters.
17. Putin has neither endorsed nor critiqued her.
18. She is a strong supporter of Israel as an American ally and stabilizing force.
19. If I didn't mention it before, she's really really nice.
20. She must be really smart because she likes me.

A vote for Barbara is a vote for sanity. If you have the same level of discomfort I have about the complete lack of logic in Trump and morals and ethics in Clinton then like me you want to vote for somebody that doesn't turn your stomach.

So why vote for somebody who has essentially no chance of winning the election? I want to be able to look myself in the mirror and not feel that I am traitor to my beliefs. Face the facts, Clinton is almost sure to win. She has gotten to this position with a lot of cheating, manipulation and probably illegal activity. I certainly believe her behavior in the Whitewater scandal in the 90's was illegal. She may not be the first criminal elected to the highest office but I refuse to assist her.
A vote for Trump is not a vote against Clinton as much as it is a vote for an obnoxious, foul mouthed bully who lacks any political skills, and is mostly lacking in any substantial ideas. The few ideas he does have are either illogical, not doable, or might place us in a huge international conflict.

I know that in 20 years if my kids ask me who I voted for I don't want to feel like I chose the lesser of two awful choices. I would rather feel good that I found someone who is caring, and not controlled by big influential lobbyists or influenced by billions of dollars that they probably want to grow at my expense.

So a vote for Barbara is a vote to say something about our future. And that is "Dammit I'm not gonna take it anymore!" Yes, I know that slogan has been used before. But, it does express the fact that if the major political parties can't do better than this then they can forget about my vote. But I'm not going to stay home, I am going to vote for Barbara.

I warned Barbara today that  based upon early polling she is likely to get two or three write in votes in Santa Cruz and maybe one in Michigan if my mom can be convinced. If any of you want to join the Barbara for President campaign I'd love to know.

Heck you never know, we might get four votes in Santa Cruz.

Why I can't vote for Hillary or Donald

I feel terribly conflicted, do you? My conflict isn't about how the upcoming election will affect me but rather the impact it will have on my children. I recall as a child looking at our elections every four years as the time my parents made their choice as to the future they wanted my family to have. If your family was like mine they didn't always agree and more often than not my parents canceled each other out in their choice of candidates. But, this cancelation had more to do with political direction than the candidates themselves.

For example, my dad is fiscally conservative. He's a businessman and his primary concern has always been the survival of his company. He prefers minimal government intervention, low taxes, reasonable trade restrictions and the right to pay and benefit his workers as he sees what is best for his company. I don't think he was a big fan of Richard Nixon's personality and he probably wasn't an enthusiastic supporter but his company prospered during that presidency and he voted to reelect him in 1972.

In 1980 my father's business was in trouble, he was unable to take any income out and he worried about the very survival of his 40 year old family enterprise. As you can imagine he voted for Reagan, his business recovered and he did again four years later. I am pretty sure my dad has been a consistent Republican his entire life.

My mother has had a different feeling about how to influence the future. As a caregiver she always has been much more concerned about social issues. As many of us are aware Republicans don't have a great track record supporting social issues, primarily because they conflict with fiscal conservatism. I think early on my mother voted with dad tilting in favor of the business but as years went by I am pretty sure this changed. Her sister was disabled and depended on state support and as her mother aged she relied upon social security and Medicare. Mom supported Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.I'm pretty sure this frustrated my fiscally conservative father.

I watched my parents discuss their decisions and I saw their frustration with each other. But, I never heard them say they thought the other was making a choice for a morally or ethically bankrupt person.

Unfortunately, 2016 is such a year where I believe the two primary candidates are morally or ethically bankrupt. I wish I could just vote the impact on my wallet or the social issues. That would make the decision easy. Hillary will probably raise taxes, increase regulation and probably slow economic growth. On the other hand, she will probably be much more favorable to immigrants, legal and otherwise, support personal choices, and maintain a safety net. Trump, is more likely to keep taxes lower, minimize regulation and be less likely to retard growth, but he has little sympathy for the unfortunate and no recognition of climate change.

But, political positions are not what I an voting about this year. This year I am really thinking about my children and their future. When I parent my children I tell them not to play with bullies, avoid people who lack moral character, are prone to unethical behavior, and have a disregard of others.

So, how do I vote in an election where the two primary candidates reflect most if not all of these unsavory characteristics? Hillary has years of behaviors that reflect this. Not just the recent email debacle, but one has to look at the whole Whitewater investigation. The Washington Post has a very remindful article today, http://wapo.st/29p1x03 . OK, what about Trump? Well, he lacks any political scandals but he has many business issues which call into question his moral and ethical qualities. He has many years of hooking investors into weak business enterprises that go down in flames yet somehow he emerges unscathed and wealthier. Yes, bankruptcy is legal, but an ethical captain of a ship goes down with it. Also, is it just me or do others see him as the obnoxious school bully we all tried to avoid?

Under better circumstances I would be intrigued by a candidate with no political experience. There would be no big donors pushing an agenda, no career in politics to tank. But, Trump's lack of political experience does not mean he has avoided conflict and his long track record of questionable business practices and thorough lack of empathy and insight makes him just as bankrupt in the soul as Clinton.

So what do I do? For my children's sake I don't believe I can vote for either of these people. That would be a complete contradiction of all of the moral and ethical guidance I have been trying to instill. My friend, Barbara, offered to be a write in candidate. This pleasant, intelligent woman is fiscally conservative, cautious about international conflict, worried about social issues. She has two grandchildren in the military. She gets it!  I'm pretty sure she has the moral and ethical values I am looking for. She has never run for public office, probably doesn't even know how to sign up. I'm pretty sure there aren't any big donors influencing her.

Barbara has the lack of experience I'm looking for. Not Trump's. I bet if you look around you probably know someone just like Barbara. I have to believe in a country of nearly four hundred million people we can find at least a couple who despite having different points of view are still good people.

I'm not a politician, I don't know how to solve this problem, and I will probably be writing Barbara's name on a ballot in a few months. I know she won't win. But, I have a responsibility to my children not to vote for someone who lacks the moral character to lead the greatest nation on earth.

If you agree with me, please share this post.

Time to Quarantine?

The question we need to ask ourselves is whether our officials are making the right decisions regarding this Ebola outbreak. I am sure you have heard the CDC say that there is no way an infectious outbreak of Ebola could occur in our country like it has in Liberia and Sierra Leone. This is because we have too sophisticated of a healthcare system and our population is able to exercise appropriate hygiene.

I beg to differ. In my opinion I am beginning to believe that Dr. Anthony Fauci of NIH and Dr. Frieden of the CDC are not only wrong but maybe it is time for them to step down as head of their respective departments. While I agree that we are unlikely to have a scenario such as that seen in those West African countries where the corpses are tossed into the river we have duplicated their problem of having a healthcare worker using appropriate precautions now contracting this dreadful disease. Now, the CDC is reconsidering whether every hospital in the country is able to handle this disease. This is no surprise to me as we have seen hundreds of healthcare workers in Africa sickened and dying from this disease due to exposure at work while doing their best to exercise appropriate precautions.

My concern as I stated in my last post is not that we will have a massive outbreak of uncontrolled Ebola but rather the financial devastation an outbreak would cause our country. We need to look at the amount of effort we are expending in Dallas for a single patient that brought this disease to our country. We are now monitoring 50 people, one of whom has developed the disease, we have hundreds of CDC professionals in the city of Dallas both monitoring the disease as well as reassuring the public.

Do we have the resources to respond to this degree if we have individuals in multiple locations being diagnosed and treated for this condition? At what point does the cost of fighting the disease as well as the lack of adequate professionals trained in caring for the disease become overwhelming? I think we each need to ask ourselves if we would modify our behavior if someone in our community developed Ebola. Would you take your child out of school? Stop going to parks and other recreational activities? Would you treat a coworker differently who comes to work coughing and sneezing? If you were a healthcare worker would you feel confident that the patient you were seeing in your office or the emergency room was not a dangerous carrier of this disease?

I suspect that many of you would answer yes to at least one of the questions above. Therefore if we this infection is not contained to the two people in Texas we might see dramatic changes in behavior as we act to protect ourselves and in the process our economy could come to a serious halt. We must remember that the act of 911 where 3000 people died resulted in the freezing of aviation for only two days. How many days would we be shutting down airports if we were worried about the disease spreading throughout our country?

I think it is time to state the obvious. The inherent dangers in this disease require a much more aggressive response than we have seen by our government. I am not reassured that checking body temperature on individuals traveling from the countries of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea is adequate to prevent additional transmissions in our country. I believe that anyone who has traveled to those countries should not be allowed to enter the United States until they have passed the 21 day incubation period. While this may seem inconvenient to the 200 people a day who wish to enter our country it is a hazard we should not risk!

Finally, now that I have finished ranting I would like to announce I have completed 5 more chapters of "Virestorm" and I will begin sharing them on this blog. Check back soon to see them posted.

Are You Afraid of Ebola? You Should Be...

Why? Many of you have read the first few chapters of my story "Virestorm" about a nefarious plot to trigger an outbreak of Avian flu. If that seems frightening the possibilities with Ebola are truly staggering.

Let's start with a few statistics.  As of 9/30 7400 people contracted the disease and 3439 have died. We have now had our first confirmed case on US soil and Spain has had their first. The disease has a 50% mortality and is transmitted in blood, urine, saliva, sweat,  and feces. The dormant period is up to 3 weeks and you are contagious when you have initially mild symptoms of fever, sore throat and cough.

OK, big deal, the CDC says they will have no trouble containing the outbreak in Texas monitoring the 50 exposed people. Texas doesn't scare me, what scares me is what Texas tells me could happen.

Give me a moment to expand. I was talking to a biomedical expert 2 weeks ago and she confirmed the virus can live on soiled clothing for at least a few days. I can think of lots of ways trouble could happen. When I was talking to a friend about it on Saturday he thought I was describing a new Clancy novel.

So, let's imagine there is an evil person or group who wants to cause terror and disruption. How might they do it and could the plot already be in action? Maybe our person in Texas was just a test to see if the virus could make it into the country and to see how well we responded. If that's the case the hospital failed the initial test as Mr. Duncan was sent home contagious. During the next few days he was in contact with many people.  But, the scary aspect of this is how easily he made it here and once ill was able to circulate among the population.

What would happen if someone was able to gain access to tissue and bring it here? I don't think the idea is too farfetched. I was just reading that in the poorer areas of Africa people are tossing infected bodies into the local rivers for disposal. How hard would it be for a Jihadi to grab one of these bodies and take a chunk of diseased tissue and put it on dry ice or liquid nitrogen and manage to bring it in to our country?

Once here he could walk through a crowded subway rubbing infected tissue onto unsuspecting hands. I'm sure someone would end up rubbing an eye or nose or mouth and perhaps this person would start their 21 day incubation period. What happens when the unsuspecting person becomes contagious with typical flu symptoms a few weeks later and is transmitting the virus to others on public transportation? Imagine a few people doing this in a few major cities. If Jihadists are willing to blow themselves up I believe they would be willing to die of a tragic disease to achieve their aims.

How disrupted would our economy be when hundreds if not thousands of people became either infected or placed in quarantine? We can't forget that taking down two office towers and killing 3,000 people resulted in a severe impact on our nation and economy.

You can even twist the plot a little. Our own president was riding an elevator a few weeks ago with an uncleared contractor with a bad history and was carrying a weapon. Maybe the sloppy secret service could allow someone with an Ebola tainted cloth come in contact with the President or a family member or member of the cabinet. Maybe aim low and just infect a US congressman.

I think that if 9/11 caused us trouble we have no idea how bad it could really be. Forget about grounding airplanes. If we had a well orchestrated attack we would be shutting down transportation, schools, sporting events. The list goes on.

You are reasonable if you ask if there is anything we can do. I don't think we can completely prevent something this evil but I think we better be prepared. Personally, I am beginning to think that anyone traveling from those areas of Africa should be placed in 21 days quarantine. And I'm not afraid of us forfeiting some civil liberties for the next few months particularly regarding monitoring of telephone and electronic communications. I also suggest being prepared to park yourself and your family at home for at least a few weeks if something does happen.

That reminds me, I better tell my wife to buy some more canned goods!