COVID19: Advance Planning To Fight Corona Well

Few thousand year back, when Noah was building his Ark by the command of supreme God, everyone around him was laughing but he kept doing it anyway, and the time came when flood has moved the ship. 

This example demonstrate the importance of prior planning, if you are observing that something inevitable is happening around you. 

Looking at the wider and wider spread of Corona everyday, it seems like sooner or later everyone might experience it at some or another level. While you feel that sometime either you, family, friends, near and dear ones might fell prey of this fatal pandemic, it is important to think through it earlier, evaluate the condition and situation around you and do some prior planning in advance to fight the Corona Situation well under stress. 

Reason is the nervousness, confusion, dilemma to think through the next step when the pandemic hit around you and believe me or not such indecisiveness make the condition worse and it hits harder in that case. Getting emotional, or doing something in nervousness without thinking of the results help this disease to spread its spectrum more in your family.

IMHO, it is very important to plan in advance for the Corona situation so that you may look at your cheat sheet and have the next steps ready to follow-on. 

What I am going to present, more look like a flow chart but instead of using the flow diagram, I am trying to keep it in a bulleted form so that it's equally easy for non-IT personals to understand the content better.

1. Complete these PRE-REQUISITES - (Checklist)

Keep these arrangements ready in advance, while you are completely healthy and not navigating through any stressful condition - 

1. Oxymeter - this would help you figure out the breathlessness issues, common for COVID patients.
2. Thermometer - contactless thermometer to avoid any saliva exchange.
3. Blood Group Report - keep the blood group report handy with you. Required at multiple places.
4. Medical Insurance - buy a top-up to increase the insurance coverage supporting up to 14L-20L.
5. A good smart phone with 4G data plan.
6. Keep scanned copy of your and family's Aadhar Card, Pan Card, DL, Medical Insurance TPA card, Passport ready in your mobile phone to share through email and whatsapp instantly. Better to keep this shared under your "care circle" in a common document set.
7. Setup PayTM, BHIM/UPI, Google Pay or other online payment methods.
8. If possible, keep a credit card handy with a limit of 3L-5L
9. Also have a setup of printer and photocopy machine in your "care circle".
10. Disposable Masks (>100) , Sanitisers (5L bottle) , Disposable Hand Gloves Box should be bought and be available in reserve. 
11. Keep one or two sets of PPE with you as well. This might be required under some situations.
12. Isolation Area - Keep a place ready for isolation either in your home, or vicinity. If there are no such place in your house, then advise to keep something on rent as an isolation home. Rental for this isolation house might be bear by individuals or "Care Circle" (explained below).

2.  Create "CARE CIRCLES" - 

1. This is important, and applicable equally whether you live alone or live with family and kids.
2. To create circles, 3-4 different families need to come together and commit towards taking care of each other if Corona hits to any of these families. 
3. Asymptomatic, Home Isolation use-case -- If both the parents or one of the parent is found positive for Corona, while kids are negative - in such case, these kids could be temporarily shifted / accommodated by one of the families in circle. 
4. Asymptomatic, Home Isolation use-case -- If entire family is experiencing Corona, then other families in Circle may divide the work and help with Breakfast, Lunch , Dinner, Nutritious Food, supplying medicines, necessary groceries for the home, getting important registrations done on behalf of this family,, obviously keeping and taking the necessary measures of hand-washing, mask, sanitisation etc.

3.When to run for Corona Testing - full details here

1. Corona is highly contagious in starting 3-5 days, it shows its symptoms of fever etc within 2d-3d.
2. As soon as someone has started feeling feverish - it is advisable to separate himself in the Isolation Area already planned (as explained in point 6 in the previous heading)
3. If fever subsidises easily, and no other person has caught it - you may safely assume that it was not Corona given that your oxygen level remains above 95% all the time. 
4. If fever has subsidised easily, but there is a pain or weakness in your body not going away, feeling a little of headache all the time, nervousness, uneasiness - then in that case, keep yourself isolated atleast for 14d+ and then proceed for Corona Testing. Assuming that there was no shortage of breaths at any point of time by Oxymeter and condition doesn't get worse.

4. Online Doctor Consulting - 

1. This also need to be done in advance as a part of your Corona Planning.
2. figure out what all doctors in your area are providing consultations using online methods or Tele-consultation. 
3. There are multiple apps, but it is difficult to find out local doctor in your area or your favourite doctors using these apps, therefore as an important step keep the online consulting detail of your doctor, this is the time when you would need to pay him using the online methods as detailed above in 1.4
4. Few apps that you may use for online consulting are - Practo, Healthplix, Docon, Navia, iCliniq.
5. Doctors have separate specific codes for Healthplix, Docon, Navia etc.
6. Try to book an appointment in case if nothing works out with your doctor and be there on-time, so that exposure is minimum. Do not sit on the chair, it must be infected badly.

5. Doorstep Pharmacy Delivery -

1. This also need to be setup in advance while you are all well. 
2. Figure out from your nearest medical shop if they can deliver medicines at doorstep if required. In that case, keep their number stored in your mobile with the pharmacy name, so that you may search it easily at the time of need. 
3. Keeping visiting cards or number on paper won't be useful.
4. Keep 3-4 numbers so that you are not dependent on a single Pharmacy store for the delivery of medicines.
5. Assuming that you are not very sick by this time or you are just doing the home isolation.

6. Doorstep Grocery Delivery -

Same as above as explained in the Pharmacy Delivery section. 

7. Doorstep Diagnostics Tests - full details here

1. This need to be setup in advance.
2. Figure out if your nearest diagnostic testing centre may collect the blood sample from your home in case of no COVID19 testing, keep their number and call them for the blood testing whenever needed.
3. Also figure out what labs are doing the COVID19 testing and who can collect the sample from your home. For my hometown, Kanpur based patient the detail is available here
4. Find out how they would share the report. You might need to upload these reports for your online doctor.
5. Also

8. Registration as COVID19 +ve and home isolation - details here

9. COVID19 Pvt and Govt Hospitals Listing - 

1. This also need to be setup in advance.
2. Figure out what all Pvt and Govt Hospitals are accepting the COVID19 patients in your and the neighbouring cities.
3. Govt keep cancelling the Pvt Hospitals licenses for Corona for not completing the SOPs properly. You need to keep an eye for that. 
4. List such hospitals somewhere for your easy reference.
5. Kindly note that, all pvt hospitals are NOT accepting the COVID19 patients.
6. Searching these hospitals later on is stressful and need to be done in advance. This would also help you avoid the huddle of shifting when a non-COVID hospital figures out that the patient is Corona +ve and refuse to provide any treatment.

10. COVID19 Hospitalization - 

1. Your "Care Circle" might help you during this period.
2. Depending upon the situation, you might need a normal or an ICU ambulance support to go to the Hospital. Keep a list ready of the Ambulance providers like the one available here for Kanpur.
3. In a worse scenario where the disease has hit severely, due to breathlessness, Typhoid or pneumonia symptoms it might be needed that you need to rush to the Hospital.  
4. These days all Hospitals are testing patients for COVID19 before starting the treatment. Although, they do accept <72 hours old RT-PCR Corona test report as well. 
5. During the Hospitalization, you need to understand Medical Summary and jargons , please go through this post to understand the important glossary being used there.
6. Hospital might put the normal gas mask with the oxygen cylinder, BIPAP or in ICU based on the condition of the patient.

11. Buying Remdesivir - detail is being posted here, you need to keep the list of authorised dealers ready with you in advance.

12. Plasmatherapy - 

1. Medical term for PlasmaTherapy is = Convalescent Plasmapheresis
2. This treatment is increasingly getting popular for patients with Mild and moderate symptoms.
3. You need to figure out donors for Plasma in this condition.
4. Please look at the post here to understand what all documents are required by Blood bank to issue the Plasma for the patient.
5. PlasmaDonor has certain criteria to be fulfilled as discussed in this post.
6. If you have someone in your circle having a doubt that the person had Corona in past, you may go for Antibody IgG testing as described in this post. Keep contact details of the labs who can do the Antibody Testing. Also get this person tested for negative COVID19 report.
7. Hunting for donor is the most tedious task and is explained in this post to help in the search. 

13. Going through the ICU/Ventilator Phase - details are posted here to understand the well-being of the patient during this period.  You also need to accumulate sufficient data to explain your patient's case for 2nd or 3rd opinion at other Hospitals and Doctors.

14. Returning Back To Home - If everything goes well, you might return back to your home safe and fine. Sometimes, weak patient might need some home care support for few months. Detail is being posted here for Kanpur. You may enquire and keep a detail for your respective city.  

15. Home Sanitisation - 

It make sense to do the Home Sanitisation once a Corona Patient leave for Hospital or return back from there with the negative test report. This would ensure Airborn suspended Virus Particles are grounded well. Details for this service in Kanpur city is posted here.