John Hudson - John Hudsons How to Survive a Pandemic: Life Lessons for Coping With Covid-19

Show me a man who though sick is happy, who though in danger is happy, who though in prison is happy, and Ill show you a Stoic.

Epictetus

Since my book How to Survive was first published, Ive been contacted by many readers who found its advice helpful in their daily lives and challenges, from those working in offices to members of the emergency services, and also everyday folk battling awful things like cancer and PTSD. Since the beginning of March 2020, readers have also reached out to me to ask for some practical advice that will help during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. I hope you find the additional material here useful.

John Hudson

March 2020

Life-changing moments can happen at any time and anywhere not just in the extreme world. But life-changing moments can also happen more gradually and, as weve seen with the current pandemic, it can be no less of a shock when the realization comes. As weve seen throughout this book, accepting this and taking responsibility increases your ability to tolerate hardship and to restart your perseverance engine. This is the key to your survival mindset and one of the greatest skills to develop in life.

If survival means staying alive, viruses raise a fundamental issue because they themselves survive by leading a kind of borrowed life. By understanding what a virus is, we can make sure any borrowing of our lives, or our loved ones lives, as hosts is avoided or is as temporary as possible.

Viruses are small strands of genetic material that rely on infecting other living cells in order to reproduce.

The COVID-19 virus, or SARS-CoV-2, is transmitted by droplets, typically emitted when an infected person coughs or sneezes a single cough can produce up to 3,000 droplets. Researchers at the US National Institutes of Health found that the COVID-19 virus could survive for up to three hours after being coughed out; fine droplets can remain airborne for several hours in still air. They also found that it can survive on cardboard for up to twenty-four hours and up to two to three days on plastic and stainless-steel the kinds of materials that surfaces like light switches and ATM keypads are made from.

Once the virus infects a person, it can take days until illness symptoms occur, which is probably one of the reasons why COVID-19 has been able to spread so quickly and widely.

As some of the milder symptoms can appear like other seasonal illnesses, in order to diagnose that someone actually has COVID-19, a test called PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) needs to be done, which can identify the viruss genetic fingerprint.

Now you know how this particular virus spreads and works, you can fully appreciate the reasons behind advice thats given by professionals in disease prevention like The World Health Organization (WHO). As we saw in Chapter 5 of How to Survive, with Captain Blighs successful crossing of over 4,000 miles of ocean in an open boat, when you know why you should do something because you understand the principles at play, youre much more likely to stick to the right course of action and thereby achieve your biggest goals. This is why it is so important to always get your information from the most credible source of facts and guidance when you can in this current case the WHO.

Try where you can to have more than one way to access information, too. During large social upheavals, key infrastructure like power, internet and mobile networks can get overwhelmed. Your nearest TV transmitter is probably still working, though; why not check if you can still pick up its signal if all the streaming services stop? If all else fails, an old-school radio that runs from batteries will pick up news updates. There may also be a radio fitted in your car.

The next step to dealing with a pandemic is to understand what practical steps to formulate in your own PLAN to stay safe. Regardless of the nature of the threat, the principles in survival remain the same. PLAN (Protection, Location, Acquisition, Navigation see Chapter 2 and Amelia Earharts desert island for the full story) is still the key to your priorities in a scenario like a pandemic. That means the first thing you need to do is to run through the what will harm me first? (where are the biggest threats) questions. There is a huge role that taking responsibility for personal protection plays here. And, in the case of a pandemic, when you take the right steps to protect yourself, of course youre also protecting others. In the case of COVID-19, humans are now the main vectors for this virus and an infected person may not display symptoms while unwittingly carrying the virus. This is why the WHO recommends, wherever you can, to avoid agglomerations groups of other people and specifically also the kinds of places and venues where other people are closed in together.

If you have to venture into areas with other people, try to keep at least one metre away from them (but doubling this WHO advice to two metres whenever you can, as the UK Government suggests, would be even better). As important as this is, theres no need to be rude about this social distancing. We are a civilized society and the grease that makes its wheels turn is good manners and mutual respect. We are all in this together, so smile because, in the long-term, the virus will pass, and we will get back to normal, and you wouldnt want to fall out with people over a perceived lack of good manners.

After returning from London, as the pandemic was starting to flicker on our collective concern-o-meter, a friend of mine jokingly observed that on the Tube you used to have to hide a fart with a cough; these days its the other way around. The key is to prevent the release of the virus droplets into the air, and thats why we need to catch them in a tissue, and dispose of it safely the WHO recommends into a ziplock bag if there are no closed waste bins available. Coughing and sneezing without covering was never right, but now that its true harm is much more widely known, unhindered coughs and sneezes are thankfully again a real social taboo. We can retrain ourselves to behave differently.

If youve not got a tissue, the crook of your bent elbow will stop coughs and sneezes blasting into the atmosphere; but youre reading this because youre survival-minded, so you will have prepared for this and have some tissues, right? Afterwards you need to clean your hands: that will stop any of your germs transferring onto surfaces that others may touch. This hand-cleaning advice holds for other times you may have touched a surface that could have droplets on it too; if youve successfully avoided inhaling droplets by social distancing, it would be a pity to then touch your eyes, nose or mouth if theyve transferred onto your hands by contact, and let the virus in that way. If you know you have to enter a higher-risk zone like a public toilet or the petrol station (handling the pumps is something that you may not have already thought about), you can further protect yourself by using one of your tissues as a disposable barrier when you have to touch handles, etc.