Apocalypse Survival Guide: Pandemic

I’m doing this on Tuesday this time because I couldn’t think of another post for Tuesday. So here it is.

It’s a plague! That somehow kills everyone and doesn’t respond to any modern medicine. Hey, at least no one’s turning into zombies this time.

So I’ve scoured everything I could find that has world destroying plagues (sans zombification…wow, that’s a real word, who knew?) and while there’s a pretty good chunk of literature (THE STAND and THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN are probably the most well-known) and movies where the world is wiped out by some illness.

Survival Tips: Plague Addition

1. Don’t assume you’re immune. Even if you’ve been having vivid dream-messages from God. In fact, that might be a symptom.

2. If you hear word of a plague, stay away from all strange animals. I have seen entirely too many pandemic movies that have started with someone deciding, “Ooh! A monkey! There can’t be anything dangerous about touching a wild animal with a medical tag on its leg!”

3. Remember to always wash your hands. But don’t use antibacterial soap. All that stuff that promises to kill 99.9% of germs just means that the remaining 0.1% has evolved to kill you better. Seriously, antibacterial soap probably caused the pandemic in the first place.

4. Make sure you’re not with anyone who will kill you the second you come down with a case of the sniffles. Which pretty much means make sure you’re not with anyone.

5. Depending on the severity of the plague (i.e. if it infects all the animals, too…which is impossible, but if we’re imagining a plague we might as well go all in), you might not be able to eat any meat, even if you hunt for it yourself. Stick to dried goods and vegetables.

6. One of my general apocalypse survival tips is to find a doctor and stick with her/him. This goes double for plague-pocalypses.

7. Remember: everyone is a potential carrier, so it’s probably not a good idea to invite the neighbors over for tea in the middle of an outbreak.

8. Good news! Unless all the movies have lied to me (why would they do that?) there’s probably a research facility somewhere that will keep searching for a cure until the bitter end! Bad news! They probably aren’t accepting lodgers. But you should try to stay alive as long as possible so you can get said cure (if they find it).

That’s all the plague tips I have. If you can think of anything else to add, be my guest. And remember to stay away from monkeys.