Duck and cover

In case of nuclear explosion, ensure you follow COVID-19 protocols.

One cannot help but hear the rhyme of history’s latest stanza in nearly everything. A couple days ago, seemingly in response to the geopolitical situation, the U.S. government's FEMA updated their guidelines for nuclear preparedness. Gone are the days of duck and cover — the emergency measures that many in the cold war era were taught in schools, and in come the days of mask and distance.

Fear of COVID-19 is a strange tinge to place upon nuclear preparedness, but it has, at least, some historical precedence. Duck and cover may have been useful to limit the concussive impacts of a nuclear blast, but the most important basis for such a response was the psychological underpinning.

By having a drill, or a set of actions with which to respond to an apocalyptic event, it provides comfort and prevents panic. It also provides legitimacy to the government and public health officials — see, they are preparing us because they have a plan — of course, the only way to win in the game of nuclear war is not to play at all (as the movie War Games so eloquently put it).

If there was a nuclear war, and the concussive blast did not kill us, the radiation poisoning, destruction of infrastructure and subsequent starvation/dehydration, banditry, or a hundred other things almost surely would. Society, especially Western Society, is a just-in-time fiasco waiting to happen. Almost all of us are not built to survive in a post-apocolytpic nightmare and all that such a world entails.

It is funny, then, that the new emergency preparadness guide deeply emphasizes COVID-19 preparadness. As if that will be a worry when the television sets no longer work.

What a performative farce. I do not know what would be more ridiculous. Adding a link about managing stress during a nuclear attack or a link about managing stress from COVID in the event of a nuclear attack, but FEMA has chosen the latter approach.

The one omission that FEMA made, to their credit I suppose, is no mention of vaccination. Presumably because telling people to get vaccinated before nuclear war breaks out would probably do little to increase uptake.

The only other surprise is that they did not include COVID-19 as a hazard related to nuclear explosions. But they might as well since we can be sure any surviving branch covidians will blame any nuclear bomb related deaths with the virus on the virus.