But this year, there’s one killer lurking: the invisible risk posed by the COVID-19 coronavirus.
Public fitness and emergency control experts are sounding the alarm that the dual dangers of the annual hurricane season and the COVID-19 pandemic are likely to overlap in the coming weeks and months.
“The tactics to mitigate any of the threats are contradictory in many tactics.”We reduce COVID by separating other people, and you reduce the threat of hurricanes by moving others to confined and confined spaces, making things difficult,” Dr. Sandro said.Galea, Dean of Boston University School of Public Health.
“The fear is that we cannot deal with both, ” continued Galea.”Trying to keep others away from hurricanes will worsen COVID, or worrying about COVID means other people won’t stray from hurricanes.”
The hurricane season runs from June to November, with maximum storms between August and October, according to the National Weather Service.
The season is approaching even as COVID-19 is rampant in many southern states.COVID cases in the United States increase 3.7 times between the closing states in May and Hurricane Hanna on July 24, according to an opinion paper co-written through Galea in the Journal of the American Medical Association on August 12.
“We’ve had a COVID escalation in hurricane states, the states bordering the Gulf of Mexico, and the Atlantic,” said co-author James Shultz, director of the Miller School Disaster preparedness and extreme events center at the University of Miami.medicine.”COVID erupted in hurricane coastal states, and now we have a very, very underlying burden of COVID infection in our communities.
A lesson from countries
The United States already has an uplifting narrative of what can happen if COVID-19 is not included in hurricane-making plans since early this year in South Asia, experts noted in its article.
A cyclone hit the Bay of Bengal in May, causing more than 2.2 million people to be evacuated in Bangladesh and 4.3 million more in India, while the two countries were confined to COVID-19, according to experts.
People have been sent to 15,000 shelters across the region, more than ever to advertise social distance among evacuees; However, the spaces affected by the storm were left with an increase in the new instances of COVID-19.
People will probably have to stop a hurricane from approaching, Shultz said.
“The threat of not evacuating is that you will get hurt, hurt, hurt through a hurricane-threatened assembly,” Shultz said. “Our first fear is that given the heavy burden of COVID, will other people evacuate themselves?”
But additional precautions should also be taken to protect evacuees from COVID infection, Shultz and Galea said.
“When you evacuate and take refuge with others, sincere that your COVID threat is genuine and that you want to take the precautions you took while taking refuge beyond hurricanes,” Shultz said.
Emergency officials are adding new shelters to publicize social distance and preparing them to keep others away, Galea and Shultz said.in the gym.
Shelters should also be well equipped with masks, gloves and other protective equipment, as well as disinfectants, disinfectants and soap, Galea said.
Risks of staying with friends and family
However, preparing shelters is just one component of the problem.Many other people who are experienced hurricane veterans don’t care about shelters and deserve to be aware of their COVID threat, Shultz said.
“A lot of other people don’t take refuge in the shelters of the network.Season after season, they have had a circle of family members or designated friends who have a well-reinforced space or distribution in which they can take refuge.They combine and pass hurricanes in combination with other people’s equipment,” Shultz said.
“I don’t think there’s been enough schooling right now about the fact that they would possibly be members of the family circle, they might be your friends, but that’s actually where much of the COVID transmission happens, in the homes,” he added.Shultz told me, “Even if you combine with other people you know, trust, love, care, in the age of COVID, they may pose a danger to others.
Meanwhile, Shultz is hopeful that this is the year those two dangers overlap.