Preparing a quarantine emergency kit

What would you do if you had to quarantine yourself because you caught an infectious disease?

Would you have enough supplies to last a week inside your home? I’m not just talking about food and water – although those are, of course, essential. What about fever-reducing medication, such as Tylenol? Toilet paper?

And what if your children couldn’t go to school because of closures? Would you be ready?

For most Canadians, it’s not something we’ve had to think about. And with the way the story of the swine flu is evolving this week, it hopefully won’t be something most of us will have to face anytime soon. The cases of infection in Canada have been mild, causing no more of a serious illness than our garden-variety seasonal flu.

Still, in Mexico, the epicenter of the swine flu outbreak, it’s caused a much bigger scare. There, the government has ordered the closure of schools across the country. In Mexico City, all 35,000 restaurants were closed for dine-in service; only take-out is permitted. Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard had warned that if the situation worsens, the public transportation will shut down.

That’s a lot of services cut off and a lot of people staying at home, scared.

Here in Canada, public health and emergency management officials say it can’t hurt to always be prepared for the possibility of limited access to vital resources.  As Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan said earlier this week: "Once a disaster or emergency takes place, that's too late to start your planning.

Here’s a list of the items you should stock up on in case of the event you weren’t able to leave your home for a week:

Food that won't spoil. That could include: canned food, pastas, energy bars, crackers, cookies, canned fruit, soft drinks and dried foods.

You’ll want things you can prepare without adding fresh food to it, such as milk or butter. And remember, even canned and bottled food doesn’t last forever, so you’ll need to check the expiry dates and replace it regularly.

Manual can opener

Hand soap and sanitizer

Medications, including Tylenol or other fever reducers, and anti-diarrhea pills

Your usual prescription medications and contraceptives

Toilet paper

You might also want to be assured you had online or telephone access to banking, or someone who has the authority to conduct your banking for you.

If your kids’ schools were closed, you’d probably need backup daycare plans. If your own children were sick, and you chose to care for them at home yourself, you would need extra food, formula, healthy baby food and diapers. For older kids, you would also want books, games and activities.

Now, what would you do if the situation got really bad? Of course, we don’t have a pandemic on our hands now. But in a worst-case scenario, a disease outbreak would cause thousands of people to stay home from work. That would mean disruptions to services provided by hospitals, banks, transit, stores and pharmacies. It might even mean power outages and gas shortages.

Here’s a list of additional things we might need in that case:

Flashlight and batteries

Battery–powered or wind–up radio (and extra batteries)

Candles and matches or light

Sleeping bag or warm blanket

Bicycle, boat or other “alternative” travel means

Water – You’re going to need a lot: two litres of water per person per day. Include small bottles that could be carried easily.

Cellphone, in case you had no land line access

Phone list of family members and doctors

Lists of current medications

You may have some of these items already; the key is to make sure they are organized in one spot, are easy to find and easy to carry (in a suitcase with wheels or in a backpack) in case you need to evacuate your home.

The federal government’s GetPrepared.ca website as well as the U.S. CDC's Emergency Preparedness website has some good ideas for how to get ready for a worst-case scenario.

The site were really designed for natural disasters. But it offers good ideas for thing to stock up on. And things to think about.