b'| INFECTIOUS DISEASE GUIDEPreparing YourFamily for aPotential PandemicWhat you and your loved ones can do. Diane Goodman, RN, MSN-C, CCRN, CNRNData as of March 20, 2020A pproximately six weeks ago, wordhas expanded across every continent aroundcalling the H1N1 Influenza a pandemic in began creeping out that a city inthe globe except for Antarctica, and it is nowthe past. Precisely what changes an epidemic China was being overwhelmed within countries around the world, alphabeticallyto a pandemic is when a disease begins to a new coronavirus. Wuhan, a city not on thefrom Algeria to Vietnam. As of this writing,travel from continent to continent and exhib-public radar, was sending out distress signals.nearly 90,000 cases have been confirmed, andits community transmission that cannot be A new virus, the same type known as caus- 3,000 deaths (as of 3/2/2020).traced to travel or person to person contact, ing MERS and SARS, was infecting the peo- The United States has just announced itswhich is what has occurred in recent weeks ple of Wuhan. The virus seemed to be evensixth death, as well as the beginning stageswith the coronavirus. So, calling it a pan-more contagious. It had, in fact, migrated toof community spread across several states.demic is less important than what it has been the city of Hubei. Zoonotic studies suggestedAmerican citizens vacillate between paniclabeled, which is a Public Health Emergency the origin of the virus might have been linkedand disinterest, but the amount of misinfor- of International Concern (PHEIC). That defi-to a seafood market in Wuhan, possibly tomation more than equals the amount of accu- nition allows the WHO to mobilize funding bats or snakes, but information was diluted.rate, clinical data being released. Nurses needand resources. 1Not much was known, and information thatto be the trusted database for sound informa-did leak to worldwide journalists was puz- tion during this crisis, and that starts at home! MISINFORMATIONzling. What was known was that the diseaseNearly every day, a mountain of false or mis-sounded highly contagious and deadly. ChinaBACKGROUND INFORMATION leading information is announced on televi-began to lock down the journalistic narrative,What is a pandemic? So far, the WHOsion, podcasts, or anywhere media is viewed plus borders around the cities of origin. (World Health Organization) has not calledor heard. One of the most common false-this global virus a pandemic, although it fitshoods is that the seasonal influenza is far THE STEPS MAY HAVE BEEN TAKEN TOOcriteria for being one. The pandemic phasesmore deadly than the novel coronavirus. This LATE. were revised in 2005, after being developedis not true. People are confusing the likeli-Fast-forward to this date, and we know a mod- in 1999. However, the very use of the wordhood of getting infected with seasonal influ-erate amount of information about the novelpandemic is closely linked to the wordenza versus dying from a disease. Last year, ISTOCKcoronavirus that has been named Covid-19. Itpanic, and the WHO has been criticized fornearly 16,000 Americans died from seasonal www.elitecme.com |2020| INFECTIOUS DISEASE GUIDE 19'