First, let me make clear that I am not belittling this pandemic or the destruction of individual lives and families that have resulted. I am not even critiquing the governmental responses to date; hindsight is too easy to use to denigrate others. However, we do need to begin to consider what happened and what we can learn from our responses.

1. Regardless of how this COVID 19 pandemic turns out we need to learn some key lessons prior to the next one (and there will be a next one whether mild, moderate or horrendous). We especially need to learn to prepare for horrendous; think the first SARS that had a 10% infection death rate and combine that with COVID-19s infectiousness.
2. Beware of too blasé a response to the next one. Just because this one and previous ones were relatively benign (compared to the Black Plague, 1918 or epidemics in third world countries) doesn’t mean we won’t run into something nasty in the future.
3. Yet, don’t listen too much to tales of the 1918 Spanish Flu. Among other things hospitals in 1918 were little more than rooms with cots and medicine was markedly primitive (plus there was a WOrld War going on).
4. Be careful of trusting information or lack of information from governments and government organizations that have incentives to spin, modify and/or suppress it.
5. Be careful of both soothing and dire predictions early in the process; the people (experts) making them may not (most likely don’t) have the information they would need to make those predictions.
6. Remember which sources of information were responsible, informative, timely and helpful (and which weren’t). Fear is easy to spread but seldom productive (certainly not as helpful as concise, accurate, actionable information).
7. Take the time to learn the lingo of epidemiology (e.g., case fatality vs infection fatality rates: CFR is the ratio of the number of deaths divided by the number of confirmed cases of disease. IFR is the ratio of deaths divided by the number of actual infections) and what steps have been recommended in the past to deal with pandemics (both the US government and the WHO have, in the past , produced detailed reports (https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/pdf/pandemic-influenza-implementation.pdf; https://www.who.int/influenza/preparedness/pandemic/en/) on what should be done. Learn what information is valid and what may be speculative (e.g., case fatality rates vs infection fatality rates) so you can better evaluate what you are being told.
8. Don’t expect big government or centralized government to have the necessary preparations or answers in a timely fashion. Many governments have plans but plans need to be enacted and large centralized government organizations can be clumsy and slow. There are several US government plans developed by several agencies but they apparently weren’t efficiently put into practice, at least at first.
9. Work to make sure your local and state authorities are prepared and stay prepared. Prepared, responsive local authorities are more likely to help you with your specific issues during an epidemic. This was the basis of our Civil Defense organizations long before FEMA.
10. As far as possible make sure your financial situation is prepared for at least a short term emergency.
11. As far as possible have a reasonable stock of key items available for a short term emergency; but don’t turn into a hoarder during the initial stages of the situation.
12. As far as possible establish a good communications relationship with your healthcare professional; especially one with a telemedicine aspect to their practice.
13. The next epidemic will most likely also be spread through touch and possibly be contagious through the air. Polio was a gastrointestinal virus spread through oral-fecal contact, cholera and similar diseases are spread through contaminated water and some others are spread by mosquitoes but most recent epidemics, especially in developed nations (bird flu, swine flu, etc.) have been respiratory in nature and spread through aerosols or contact.
14. Having N-95 or N-99 fitted masks available in your home is a simple precaution. In addition, continuing basic hand washing and avoiding touching your mouth, nose and eyes between hand washings. Also wiping down surfaces with disinfectant solutions. These will all reduce other communicable diseases like influenza and even the common cold.
15. Take as many steps as you can to stay healthy: reduce weight and control any co-morbidities you may have; take all recommended prophylactic precautions (flu shots, pneumonia shots, etc.).
16. Press upon your responsible officials that early testing (if available) and contact tracing and tracking and appropriate quarantine measures should be instituted targeted at likely infected people and vulnerable populations rather than widespread lockdowns. A widespread lockdown may be necessary if an unknown disease hits which is extremely deadly and contagious, at least until more is known about it; but a shut down economy is a hinderance to responses rather than a help. So any broad lockdowns should be short in order to gather data and formulate an appropriate response, if needed at all.

We’ll get through this and we will get through the next one too; personal preparedness will keep more of us safe now and in the future.