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Comment by geraldalewis | Hacker News Reader

The comments here are silly.

You can absolutely prioritize your risks, which means you’re not precluded from taking sensible precautions if you’re able to. This isn’t rock/paper/scissors. If you’re far enough away from the point of impact and the winds are right, Covid might be more of a threat than a nuclear bomb.

If you’re two states away from where a bomb goes off, and insist on open-mouth kissing strangers as they cough on you, that’s up to you. But also you can just throw on a mask and step a few feet back from folks and be a little safer.

Also, really bad scenarios can often stem from a couple of things going wrong all at once. So just be safe and use as much good judgment as the situation allows. And lean on easy, automatic, strategies to help you not compound issues.

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No, what's silly is filling people's heads with rubbish about COVID in case of a nuclear disaster or other acute emergency.

Hand sanitizer is absolutely not the right thing to be concerned with. Masks perhaps, but not for COVID.

Storing clean water, minimizing your perishable food waste, securing your house/shelter and making makeshift repairs to damage, using a radio (e.g., from your car) to listen for information, etc., keeping a basic first aid kit around and understand basic wound management, are all far more important.

Social distancing because of covid comes in at around number 32,238 of things to worry about.

Remember kids, the best time to needlessly contract a disease is right after a nuclear blast has rendered any aid completely inaccessible.

Also considering that one of the parts that suggests hand sanitizer says the following

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. Don’t forget the needs of pets. Obtain extra batteries and charging devices for phones and other critical equipment.

The "After a flood" part makes me think this is just general disaster preparedness and has nothing at all to do with COVID.

Edit: There was another part about hand sanitizer that was much more COVID-19 related that I missed the first time, my mistake. But the entire page looks like a copy-pasted frankenstein.

Again, COVID is just not that high a concern to mention it 8 times on a short page that is supposed to be giving advice about surviving a nuclear explosion.

You also don't want to light yourself on fire if you're cold, slit your wrists to drink the blood if you get thirsty, or try to loot the nearest gun store for protection.

Bringing hand sanitizer with you is stupid and ridiculous, and so is social distancing from your family or people who you are with while you're trying to help each other through the disaster. It's idiotic and wrong. Again, water, shelter, warmth, and basic communication are the most important.

Covid is an absolute non-issue in this situation.

It appears from the wayback machine that they added the COVID precautions on or around November 11, 2020. https://web.archive.org/web/20201111235211/https://www.ready...

A reminder that at that time there were no vaccines available, and the US was seeing a fairly large increase in both cases and deaths.

So someone was tasked with adding COVID precautions to this document then, and they have not been removed.

The idea that disease is a non-issue during a disaster (nuclear or otherwise) seems rather myopic. After a disaster, resources will be scarce, people may have to fend for themselves for a while or travel because they've been displaced. Why you wouldn't take reasonable and simple precautions to not throw disease on top of that is beyond me.

It also mentions not using disinfectant wipes on your skin, which is likely because it can cause irritation. Skin irritation also seems like an "absolute non-issue" and yet you aren't taking umbrage with that.

Again, see my previous post. Putting covid 8 times there (and no mention of any other disease or infection) is stupid and wrong.

Bleeding control, preventing infection of open wounds, and basic splinting of broken bones etc are all far higher priority on the medical scale anyway.

Why are you making excuses for this absurdity?

You're being incredibly hyperbolic with the "8 times" you keep saying. Only like 2 of those times are actually instructions about what to do if you have COVID.

The other are actually useful things, like: "While commuting, identify appropriate shelters to seek in the event of a detonation. Due to COVID-19, many places you may pass on the way to and from work may be closed or may not have regular operating hours."

You think that's bad, it's nothing compared with how hyperbolic the idiotic website is being about the danger of covid during a nuclear attack.

You do realize that this advice is supposed to apply for some time into the future, i.e. potentially during the next wave, right? Risk assessments are fluid and change with conditions. Covid precaution hostility is not rational.

No, they're clearly talking about quite immediately afterwards (as well as mentioning covid before, and during).

You do realize that this advice is useless at best, and that it is deliberate covid fearmongering, right?

I think you may have a reading comprehension issue, but this clearly isn't a conversation worth having.

I think you're unable to cope with the reality that covid is not as big a problem as you have been lead to believe, or that many government bureaucrats in charge of policies and response and advice are nitwits and have conflicting interests.

Wearing a mask also seems sensible to keep the radioactive fallout out of your lungs and thanks to Covid, most people have masks on their person most of the time right now. If you survive the initial blast, fallout is the thing that you need to be weary off and radioactive dust is just nasty. Your concern right after that should be staying safe, cleaning up, and minimizing the risk off radiation sickness, cancer, etc. The article does a good job of giving you some simple hints here of what might be helpful here. The covid thing is just ass coverage, I guess. It's the modern equivalent of making sure the deck chairs are properly arranged on the Titanic. It's not going to be a primary concern for anyone right after a nuclear attack.

No, the page is truly absurd. It mixes things up so much that you can't even tell why you're supposed to be doing something like wearing a mask. What kind? Gas mask? Cloth mask? Why?

The page is useless as is.

> If you’re two states away from where a bomb goes off, and insist on open-mouth kissing strangers as they cough on you, that’s up to you.

Which states? Two states away can be <10 miles or it can be >500, even if we ignore Alaska and Hawaii.

As to "open-mouth kissing strangers" after a nuke, that's a rational way to build the social structures that you're going to need to survive. Stand back and be the creepy guy. That difference trumps whatever "little safer" you think that you're getting.

> If you’re two states away from where a bomb goes off...

Spoken like someone who isn't from Rhode Island.

The good news is, Providence _probably_ isn't on the top of anyone's to-bomb list, so a direct blast likely isn't going to be a concern.

"The principles of MAD have been narrowed for a post cold-war age. Now that Russia and the United States have decreased their nuclear arsenals, it's been decided mutually that only Providence and Shoyna are to be bombed."

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