Safety Planning for Coronavirus (COVID-19)

If you understand exponentials, you can see that like a slow-moving tidal wave, COVID-19 is becoming a serious pandemic.

 As society, we need rational, well-informed plans to protect ourselves, our loved ones, and our communities.

Because of exponential growth, what seems like a slow rise of cases can quickly surge to overwhelm our health centers.

This creates a negative feedback loop because it means health workers are working harder and are more likely to get sick. Fewer health workers means more stress on the system, and so on.

Public health officials including the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are talking about how we can each do our part to slow it down.

 ­We all want do our part to avoid this, so let’s explore some risk mitigation…

What We Know So Far

Watching the math, my stomach drops and my balance is uncertain. I recognize a feeling of anxiety about the future.

No matter what my stress response says, there’s a ton we can do to prepare and lessen the pandemic’s impact.

I covered some individual actions leaders can take in my last post, so here I want to walk you through some risk mitigation and strategic planning.

It’s scary to think about, but it’s still worth thinking through what to do if you or someone you care for comes down with COVID-19.

Let me be clear: this is not medical or health information, but basic preparedness so we can all stay as healthy and happy as possible.

When we keep our households safe, we’re better able to help our family, friends, colleagues, and others in the community. 

This is what humans have done across societies for millennia, help each other in times of need…

Thank You, Health Workers

One thing we can all do for our community's resilience is focus on keeping health workers healthy and happy.

Whatever it takes, these frontline responders need our support. This means advocating for overtime, paid sick leave, and benefits for the thousands of health workers showing up in your area to tackle COVID-19.

From all of us, to you frontline health workers reading this, thank you. As these brave people do their work and help society at large, here's what we can do.

These themes will be useful at any stage of the pandemic, but since we're in the early stages, doing them right now means they will have the greatest impact.

Thank you for doing you part.

5 Ways to Safety Plan for Coronavirus (COVID-19)

Here are some things to think about from a public health perspective, as you’re safety planning your response to COVID-19.

This is by no means an exhaustive list or meant to be standalone preparation. It is also not medical advice of any kind. For that, you need to see your doctor.

For ongoing medical and health information, you should be curating relevant and high-quality information — I explore this below.

 So let’s start safety planning…

1. Prepare your household supplies sensibly.

Despite what the doomsday preppers say, we are probably not going to need weeks of bottled water, ice cream, or wine. In Wuhan and even the last global pandemic in 1913, the running water and the electricity never went out.

If you already have these services reliably, there is no reason to expect they won't continue.

If you don't raid the supermarket and buy all the soap, it means there's soap for everyone who needs it — reducing the overall disease burden in your community. That means you’re less likely to get sick.

We’re a community, so stockouts from hoarding absolutely do create neighborhood supply chain vulnerabilities that will negatively affect all of us and make it harder to get the things we need.

One important thing to think about is that you need supplies for a long recovery if you get sick. Speaking from experience, you should plan to have enough supplies in your household in case everyone gets sick all at once.

That might mean two or three weeks of food, medicine, household goods, and whatever else you need to be safe and comfortable.

2. Have a household emergency protocol.

Here’s how the CDC recommends you care for yourself and others if you fall sick.

If you do get sick, or someone you care about gets sick, you want to have a plan already in place. If you need to start caring for someone, or yourself, you need to be prepared.

Your emergency plan should include who will care for your children in case their primary caregivers get sick. Elderly people you live with will need special precautions taken around them to reduce their risk.

(While you’re at it, think through how to care for your household's pets or plants as well.)

Ideally, you coordinate your plan with your friends and neighbors, so you can support each other as needed. Have a system to check in on people regularly, especially those who are elderly or immuno-compromised.

There was a young American woman I met in Liberia. She was recuperating alone in my friend's guest bedroom for almost a week before she emerged, shakily, to share that she had serious typhoid. No one had fully realized she was there.

Lucky for her, a group of us stepped in to take care of her  —  but don't be that girl. Have a plan and ask for help when you need it. 

3. Have a household care protocol.

Here is what the CDC recommends you do to prepare your household.

If it’s an emergency, you need go to the hospital, so you should know where the closest one is and have a plan for how to get there.

COVID-19 can be made more manageable. We can take community-wide steps to slow it down. But right now, this is the guidance for over-60’s from the CDC, including how to reduce risk for vulnerable groups.

Sure, most people don’t need emergency medical care – and we know that no matter your age, statistically, most people recover. Minimizing the impact of a pandemic is something I think we try to do out of fear, but it doesn’t help you do your part to help your community weather through.

We all need each other right now. And since we all love people who are vulnerable, we all need to do our part to protect one another.

So, how do you protect yourself and contain the virus? How do you avoid going to the emergency room and taking resources from an over-burdened health center?

First, prepare to be sick and in recovery for a long time. We're talking weeks, maybe a month or more. So your household care protocol needs to cover that time frame.

People who end up in the ICU and on ventilators with coronavirus (COVID-19) need them for weeks, so plan a convalescence accordingly. Don't try to do too much, too soon.

During pandemic flu a century ago, people recovered — and then died when they went back outside and went back to work too early. They didn’t — or couldn’t —rest.

Those who stayed in bed for weeks and sometimes months were the most likely to survive because they let themselves fully recover.

This is where community support comes in. We barely think of convalescing from illness over the long-term like this, but people used to — and we may need learn how to do this again.

With so much uncertainty, the best thing we can do right now to take care of each other. Co-create a plan for supporting anyone who's sick in your household. I hope not, but it just might end up being you.

In West Africa, many people nursed Ebola patients at home without contracting the virus. Even in resource-poor environments, it's possible with good protocols.

And treating mild cases of COVID-19 at home with appropriate bedside care (including hydration) will go a long way towards keeping the pressure off the hospitals. That, as I’ve explained, is good for everyone.

Now go and explore all the elements of your household plan that you need to. Do some adulting and you will feel much better.

4. Stay up-to-date while controlling your intake of information.

Between daily updates by the World Health Organization and Monday to Friday updates from the US CDC, there are expert medical opinions to stay up-to-date with.

Your local public health office will also release updated information. But be careful not to get information overload.

We need to avoid coronavirus fatigue, because no matter where we are, the response is going to take months, not weeks — if we’re lucky. We're probably looking at years.

In addition to knowing what to do if someone gets sick, you need a containment plan for your ongoing mental wellbeing and to manage any anxiety.

From now on, COVID-19 is part of our everyday life and daily context. We need to learn how to adapt without it taking a massive toll on our quality of life.

As we learn how to navigate and experience the social impacts of the global pandemic, it's as important to control the flow of information as it is to know when and how to take action.

An abundance of information can be overwhelming, even if it isn't fear-based. Make time to get updates on information that affects you, then, hold a boundary that you're going to focus on doing something else.

For example, go out into the garden, do some yoga, make yourself a nice cup of tea...

5. Manage your anxiety.

 Stress has an immediate impact on our immunity. The better we can learn how to down-regulate when we’re in a stress response, the healthier our bodies are.

Learning how to center ourselves when we’re feeling intense stress is an essential part of being powerful and embodied leaders.

I wrote about this in my post, Leadership in the Time of Coronavirus, but I’m also going to be exploring this in the future.

We need to learn how to be present for ourselves in times of high pressure, so that our thinking stays focused on our needs and the needs of our communities.

It's time to take ourselves seriously as leaders and resource ourselves for real.

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I hope you found these points about coronavirus (COVID-19) helpful as you navigate the uncertainties ahead.

Later this month, I'll be teaching an online workshop about strategies to move out of stress and into thriving.

There’s so much going on the world right now that us leaders need support with. Sign up here to be on the invite list, so you can be sure to join me.