Last winter I was warned the roads might get bad, so I was careful to put on good tires. I didn’t have an accident. Now this winter they’re saying the same thing, but to heck with worrying about tires; I was fine last winter.
If at this point you’re thinking “Spice is not the brightest herb in the rack,” I don’t blame you. Hey, just maybe the reason I didn’t visit any ditches when driving on bad roads was that I had seen to my tires? Disregarding future risks because the preps prevented a disaster last time is a lot like closing the fire department because the town hasn’t burned down so far. Yet, we (the big We, humans in general) tend to do this.
For example, in 1976 there was a massive vaccination program against swine flu, based on an outbreak at Fort Dix, New Jersey. The program was so intense for two reasons: 1) Of 286 cases, 13 needed hospitalization and one died. In a nursing home, that wouldn’t be unusual. On an army training base where most of the cases were fit young men who’d passed a rigorous physical exam within the last month, that’s a big problem. 2) From what we know about the 1918 pandemic that killed millions worldwide, it started at an army base and had its greatest effect in previously young, healthy persons. When I read about the Fort Dix outbreak, I get deja vu with the nightmare that was the Spanish flu playing in the background…I bet the health officials felt the same.
With visions like this history in their heads, it’s no surprise the public health people got serious about stopping Swine Flu.
At any rate, millions of Americans were vaccinated in 1976 and crazy intense medical care was provided at Fort Dix in an attempt to avoid a pandemic, And there was no pandemic. Less than 300 people presented ill overall. And oh, how the crowd laughed. The protection campaign was called a fiasco, and worse. Ever since, some people have been pointing to that episode as a reason to Not do massive vaccination programs. Because the disease didn’t spread. Now, the lack of spread was partly luck (that particular virus, while having some very dangerous qualities, wasn’t that great at getting itself spread from person to person.) . Would you call me stupid to have bought new tires for a north Missouri winter if the year happened, in retrospect, to have less than usual snow?
A pattern that can lead to disaster
The point here is not to push vaccines; it’s just an example that had the following points:
1) There was good reason (the 1918 Spanish flu) to think a serious risk existed.
2) Strong and timely response was initiated in an attempt to prevent disaster.
3) No disaster occurred, due to a combination of having that strong response and sheer luck (the 1976 virus being harder to transmit than usual).
4) The lack of disaster was widely interpreted to mean that the strong and timely response was a waste of time and resources, so we shouldn’t bother to have such responses in the future.
The wolf is still out there
Why did the shepherd boy cry “Wolf!” ? Sure he was bored, but he didn’t call out “Godzilla!” to attract attention. He cried wolf because everyone knew the risk of a wolf to the sheep was real, and it would happen sometime. They were ready to act — as preppers should be. The problem was that when the disaster didn’t materialize, they forgot that the fact that the wolf hadn’t shown up today didn’t mean there were no more wolves. They let their guard down, and their sheep as well as the shepherd boy got eaten.
The wolf is still out there. Thanks Mas3cf* for the image.
They’d have been better off to fire the shepherd boy and engage one who wasn’t a liar — and continue to come when they heard the cry of “Wolf!”. We as preppers need to careful risk assessment to decide what preparations we need, and then keep those preparations ready even as time goes by and we haven’t needed them …yet.
With that, I’ll sign off to go change the batteries in the flashlight I keep in my bag, even though the last set died of old age before I had any emergency on a dark road side.
Some of my sources:
Lessler, J., Cummings, D. A. ., Fishman, S., Vora, A., & Burke, D. S. (2007). Transmissibility of swine flu at Fort Dix, 1976. Journal of the Royal Society Interface, 4(15), 755–762. http://doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2007.0228
Senser, D.J. and Millar, J.D. (2006) Reflections on the 1976 Swine Flu Vaccination Program. Emerging Infectious Diseases 12(1). https://web.archive.org/web/20090428171908/http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/vol12no01/05-1007.htm
*By Mas3cf (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons