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Comment by throwawaylinux | Hacker News Reader

If you have just survived a nuclear explosion and find yourself in need of assistance, call 911 and be sure to let the operator know if you have or believe you may have COVID-19.

Absolute insanity.

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"Many people may already feel fear and anxiety about the coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19). The threat of a nuclear explosion can add additional stress"

Ah, yes, a little additional stress from the nuclear explosion over and above covid. It's hard to know if this was written with a straight face or not.

"If possible, please position the nuclear blast between yourself and COVID-19 in order to minimize proximity to COVID."

"In the post-apocalyptic wasteland, breaking in to warehouses to steal and hoard COVID-19 vaccines should be your first priority. Your mind will be at ease knowing these can be stored or long periods by burying them in the glaciers that will rapidly form as the atmosphere will be black with radioactive dust for many years. Social distancing and mask wearing should be your next priority. The global failure of agriculture and radioactive contamination of surface water are the next concerns."

Geez, I shouldn't have clicked on "Threads".

So we are getting the glaciers back?? What a win

Note that this is not a direct quote. That bit about COVID-19 appears in a big paragraph about what to do if you’re sick or injured. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a shared boilerplate across lots of government websites about emergencies. This whole page mentions COVID-19 a few times but really isn’t as ludicrous or reminiscent of satire as people here are making it out to be.

> If you are told by authorities to evacuate to a public shelter, try to bring items that can help protect yourself and your family from COVID-19, such as hand sanitizer that contains at least 60 percent alcohol, cleaning materials, and two masks per person. Children under two years old, people who have trouble breathing, and people who cannot remove masks on their own should not wear them.

I beg to differ.

I expect you're right. I think a number of these sections were copied from a similar page on COVID-19, e.g. in the section about preparing early, it refers to the emergency as a pandemic:

> Remember that not everyone can afford to respond by stocking up on necessities. For those who can afford it, making essential purchases and slowly building up supplies in advance will allow for longer time periods between shopping trips. This helps to protect those who are unable to procure essentials in advance of the pandemic and must shop more frequently.

There's also this one talking about a flood under Prepare Now:

> If you are able to, set aside items like soap, hand sanitizer that contains at least 60 percent alcohol, disinfecting wipes, and general household cleaning supplies that you can use to disinfect surfaces you touch regularly. After a flood, you may not have access to these supplies for days or even weeks. Keep in mind each person’s specific needs, including medication.

Most likely this was prepared quickly by pulling content from other preparedness pages. (which is really ok, a lot of preparedness works for most emergencies, although some more editing would be nice)

There's lots of bits about COVID-19, and what I paraphrased came from the part about what to do after you have survived a nuclear explosion.

I think the more likely explanation is simply that it was written by people in disaster management who have a myopic focus on the COVID-19 crisis and a vested interest in keeping COVID under their purview (i.e., to be seen as an ongoing disaster).

Whole new branches of government (and corporate governance) have now been created thanks to Covid—19. These new bureaucracies are getting money and the people getting those funds have a vested interest in continuing to get those funds.

Right. For some reason people get offended and lose their ability for rational thought if you mention this obvious fact though.

They'll rail against government corruption in the military industry, tobacco and alcohol, the healthcare industry (including the pharmaceutical industry pre-vaccines), private prisons, the energy industry. But mention that some government department or agency might have an interest in exaggerating or perpetuating the problem it is tasked with addressing, and suddenly everybody loses their minds.

But there are several places where the majority of the text is about covid-19 precautions. Example:

> Go to the basement or middle of the building. Stay away from the outer walls and roof. Try to maintain a distance of at least six feet between yourself and people who are not part of your household. If possible, wear a mask if you’re sheltering with people who are not a part of your household. Children under two years old, people who have trouble breathing, and those who are unable to remove masks on their own should not wear them.

I figured that one was for radiation, not covid.

If you're suddenly sheltering with a bunch of unknown people, then taking aggressive hygeine precautions is just sensible so you don't all get the same illness within days of a major disaster.

You also need to be constantly cleaning everything (military barracks aren't just doing that for discipline purposes).

During the Cold War, I believe the official British advice to be broadcast to the populace in the event of nuclear attack was "First, go make tea," because it was the most ingrained and instinctive thing every Briton knew how to do, and would best maintain calm. Whatever this advice says about Americans, I would like to fix it and elect the opposite of the thing perpetuating it, please.

It's the news. Fear is their business model and they're all hurting, so they gotta ratchet it up to keep the dollars coming. The whole Appleby's advert in the middle of the Ukraine raid siren is the epitome of what they do. They also have a lot of sway in getting pols elected. It only works when people get fooled by it. The spell will break soon I hope.

"survived a nuclear explosion" and arent blind, deaf, or dying, use a magical telephone that also survived a massive EMP rendering most telco switching equipment useless, and inform the nonexistent person at the other end of the line you would like to experience mass-casualty triage at an already entirely overloaded US hospital, presuming you have insurance.

Would hate to see the copay for radiation burns

I have bad news: your health insurance policy may not cover acts of war.

https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/payer/aetna-sued-for-acts-w...

Not too surprising, they barely cover anything else.

Personally, a government that takes 50%+ of my income producing this kind of garbage-level content scares me more than COVID ever did.

What the fuck am I/are we paying for?

Hey, they're also producing the nuclear weapons. :)

Are they though? I’m not exactly confident those work anymore. Our subs keep crashing in to underwater mountains.

That's not the fault of the subs, it's the sleep deprived and overworked crews, and inexperienced and also sleep deprived officers manning them. Our ICBMs will work perfectly when they are accidentally launched.

Or it may be because the military has shrewdly shifted their priority from operational capability to ensuring peoples' feelings don't get hurt.

Maybe the technology will work a little too perfectly so the generals will helpfully circumvent the civilian government and phone their friends in the CCP to warn them ahead of time so they won't feel offended.

The case you’re slyly referring to was pretty much treason.

Imagine if today a US general called Russia to let them know we wouldn’t launch nukes if the president asked.

It would be all you hear about on CNN.

The maximum tax bracket is 37%

It can get worse if you add in local taxes.

(Another comment already said this but they used the word "midwit.")

An entirely relevant observation. The kinds of people that pretend the top tax bracket is 37.5% are the kinds of people that don’t understand payroll tax or sales tax.

It seems like we were meant to be in a constant state of fear. The war on terror seems to have abated and now we get to worry about covid and nuclear explosions?

I believe it was steve pinker who showed that we live in the most peaceful time in human history. And yet, we are the most fearful people in history. It never lets up.

For example for experimental vaccines with uknown contracts.

What's your BATNA? Hmm?

Edit: I just skimmed the document. It's really not that bad.

Seems pretty reasonable though. Wearing masks and some amount of social distancing isn’t that hard, and reducing other strains on the medical system during nuclear war seems prudent.

Actually LOL’d!

Right. What little is left of the medical system now is only a million and twenty three times overburdened instead of a million and twenty four. I guess it's good to inject some humor into dark situations.

Oh I totally agree with you, my problem with it is that they missed out some pretty basic fundamental advice. Like if there's a nuclear winter and subsequent collapse of society it's very important to huddle together for warmth in groups of no more than 3 while your nomadic tribe follows the migrating buffalo herds. See it sounds obvious now but it's easy to miss these trifling details.

I think they just mixed up a page on pandemics in general:

> This helps to protect those who are unable to procure essentials in advance of the pandemic and must shop more frequently. In addition, consider avoiding WIC-labeled products so that those who rely on these products can access them.

At first I thought this was a parody, it's so ridiculous the way they added random COVID preparedness bits into it.

“Also, ensure your most recent tax information is up to date using e-file on IRS.gov”

It really seems like we're approaching peak clown world. We are not being led by serious people.

At least the mask is dropping!

(Haha.)

Yes. If there's a nuclear explosion close enough that you need to take shelter, 911 isn't coming whether you tell them you have COVID or not, assuming you can even reach them, which is dubious.

> If there's a nuclear explosion close enough that you need to take shelter, 911 isn't coming

Not necessarily true. Even if you are quite far away, going inside to avoid the fallout is a very strategy and 911 will (most likely) at least be available.

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