Critical Thinking Beats Panic Every Time

Trust is a survival skill, and it is getting harder to practice. After years of changing COVID guidance and nonstop breaking news, a lot of us are stuck in a dangerous place: we either believe everything we hear or we reject it all on instinct. I talk through a more useful option for preppers and regular people alike, one built on critical thinking, multiple sources, and a few simple questions that cut through fear fast.

We dig into the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo and why the scariest headlines often miss the most important detail: how a disease actually spreads. I explain what makes Ebola hard to catch in everyday settings, why the average person in the United States has minimal risk, and how online rumors can turn travel or paperwork issues into full-blown panic. The goal is not to dismiss serious events, but to place them in the right context so you can make clear decisions.

Then we shift to hantavirus, including why a cruise ship cluster gets attention and what most people misunderstand about exposure. We talk about the Andes strain, the reality that hantavirus is rare, and the most common risk scenario: breathing in dust contaminated by rodent urine or droppings while cleaning sheds, barns, or cabins. From there, we get practical with preparedness basics like stocking over-the-counter medications, staying ahead on prescriptions, and considering legitimate emergency medication options.

Finally, I connect health risk to everyday safety, from a shooting near the White House to sudden street chaos that can put you in the wrong place at the wrong time. We close with the balance I aim for: vigilance without slipping into hypervigilance. If this helped you think more clearly, subscribe, share the show, and leave a review so more people find it.

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Transcript

Cold Open And Welcome

SPEAKER_01 0:02

You are listening to the Common Sense Practical Prepper. Monstered by Duct Tape. The real duct tape. It fixes everything except that decision. Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. America. From border to border, coast to coast, and all ships at sea. Here is your host, Keith.

SPEAKER_00 0:21

Yeah, welcome back to the Common Sense Practical Prepper Podcast for May the 26th, 2026. And as I was putting together the outline for this podcast and writing down some notes, it appeared to be a bit disjointed, but I had several thoughts going through my mind, and I wanted to try to put them all together. So I do apologize if some of the segues sound a little clunky, but this is what I came up

Trust, Disinfo, And Shifting Rules

SPEAKER_00 0:45

with. I've talked about information, disinformation, getting your information from multiple sources, critical thinking. Don't be afraid to push back and ask questions. So I think with everything that's going on, we'll get into detail in a second, when it comes to the overall idea of who to believe and who not to believe, when it comes to the medical profession, I trust Dr. Seuss more than I trust Dr. Fauci. And I'm I'm kind of half kidding. Take COVID, for example, and I'll stay away from all the conspiracy theories. Social distancing six feet apart. Nobody could really tell us why six feet was the magic number. Wear your mask here, not here, have some friends over, not too many friends over, social distancing, you come in contact with somebody, stay away from your family and friends, 24 hours without a fever, all that stuff. And where this all comes together is that at some point when it came to COVID, the rules kept changing so often that a lot of people just threw up their hands and stopped believing most, if not everything, that they were told. And that's a real problem that we're dealing with now. The so-called experts, trust the science, and institutions have damaged their own credibility so badly that when something legitimate comes out, whether it's a virus, some sort of outbreak, or even crime in certain cities, who's doing what where, people don't know whether to take that information seriously or to completely dismiss it. So, in my opinion, that's the crazy position that a lot of

Ebola Headlines Versus Real Risk

SPEAKER_00 2:16

us are in. So when you start seeing headlines about Ebola outbreaks in Africa, Hantavirus on cruise ships, it left a lot of people wondering, me for instance, who are we supposed to believe? And so that's what I want to talk about tonight. Who are we supposed to believe? Not about just the disease themselves, but the fact that so many of us no longer know who to trust when something like this happens. So here's the here's the street scoop. I'm not here to defend the WHO, the World Health Organization. Their credibility is absolutely shot with a lot of people and they earned that. But here's the thing: just because we don't trust the WHO doesn't automatically mean that everything they say is wrong. But we should be critical thinkers and we should ask questions. So that's a trap that a lot of us are falling into. We either believe everything that the mainstream media says, or we dismiss everything they say as lies and propaganda. In my opinion, both approaches are a bit lazy. The smart move is to look at multiple sources, use common sense, ask basic questions like where is this really happening? How does this disease spread? Am I realistically at risk wherever I am in the world? So this is what we're gonna do. We're gonna look at exactly what's going on with Ebola in Africa and then the recent hantavirus situation. I'm not trying to scare anybody, but this is my understanding. So let's start with Ebola. Yes, there is currently an Ebola outbreak happening in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The WHO has officially declared it a public health emergency of international concern. Now, I don't know where a public health emergency of international concern sits in the hierarchy of it's not really bad to it's super bad. I'm not sure where that falls into the spectrum. But as of right now, there's been no reported cases outside of Central Africa. The one that went viral, you know, about the flight that was being diverted, that wasn't someone that was sick with Ebola. It was someone who was a passenger from Congo, a passenger on a plane from Congo that was not supposed to be on that flight due to travel restrictions from that part of Africa. The person wasn't sick, it was basically a paperwork mess up that got turned into complete panic P-O-R-N online. So here's the deal about Ebola. Ebola is very difficult to catch. It spreads through direct contact with bodily fluids of someone who is sick and showing symptoms, not through the air. That's why, even in Africa, it usually burns out pretty quickly in that specific area, that smallish area, that it's located. So while it's something worth paying attention to, the average person here in the US does not need to worry about it. The risk is minimal at

Hantavirus Facts And Exposure Myths

SPEAKER_00 5:23

best. So let's talk about the hontavirus and what's been going on. There was a cluster of cases recently linked to a cruise ship. We've all heard about that probably two and a half, maybe three weeks ago. That was the Andy strain of the Hantavirus, which is one of the few strains that can spread from person to person. Okay, so we got that. So this particular strain has been getting a lot of attention because it is cruise ship. A cruise ship is a floating petri dish, everybody's jammed in together, and contagious diseases spread fairly fast on a cruise ship. So here's the reality. Hontavirus is still very rare. Most strains come from breathing in dust that contain dried rodent urine or droppings. That's why the biggest risk factor is usually cleaning out sheds, barns, or cabins that have had mice living in them for a long time, not just walking through your local Walmart or your grocery store.

Medical Prep And Stocking Meds

SPEAKER_00 6:22

Now, whether we're talking about Ebola, Hontavirus, or just the regular flu season, there are a few things that you can do to minimize your risk, and that is being prepared with medications. I've talked about this before. Make sure you've got a solid supply of basic over-the-counter stuff, fever reducers, pain relievers, antidiarrheal meds, antihistamines, and anything you or your family members use on a regular basis or fairly regular basis. Don't wait till you need it to try to stock up on it. You're behind the curve. If you're on prescription meds, talk to your doctor about maybe getting a 90-day supply instead of a 30-day supply. I asked my doc and she said no. All right. I asked, you said no, moving on. Some will do it, some won't. And if your doc won't, you can also look into all these services, Jace Medical, and there's a bunch of others out there that give you long-term emergency antibiotics and medication. Because in a real SHTF situation, having the correct meds on hand gives you a much it gives you a big advantage on being able to treat that. You've got the issue, you've got the illness, you've got the meds. Then you have the other folks who aren't as well prepared as you

Random Violence And Daily Carry

SPEAKER_00 7:36

are. So when I was putting the rough draft together the other night, a headline came across about a shooting right outside the White House. About 6 p.m., a man pulled a gun at a Secret Service checkpoint near 17th in Pennsylvania. He opened fired, Secret Service returned fire, and the suspect was killed. Unfortunately, a bystander was also struck and wounded. So how does this come into play with tonight's podcast? All right, as a retired cop, I've carried a firearm for years. When I first retired nearly 10 years ago, I most certainly carried almost every single day because I put some very bad people behind bars, especially those child predators and pedophiles. But over the last five years that's changed. And now I don't really carry as much for someone I put in prison seeking revenge or their family members coming after me or something like that. Now I carry more just because of random acts of violence. Whether it's the shooting near the White House, I'm sure that person that was hit with that stray round, the last thing they thought that was going to happen that day as they were walking past the White House was that they'd be struck by gunfire. So whether it's a shooting at the White House, grocery store, school, or just going down the highway, it's not just diseases or shootings we have to worry about. You don't have to be driving near an ICE facility like what's going on in Newark, New Jersey. You could be out with your family just running errands, you roll up on one of these protests, these street takeovers, or a riot, or a bunch of people blocking in intersection, jumping on cars, and acting like a bunch of maniacs. Again, we've seen that recently over the past two and a half days at this ice facility in Newark. Antifa has surrounded the facility, and they put up barricades, there was a dumpster, a bunch of trash, a bunch of big orange jersey walls you filled with sand and water, just absolute crazy situation. Now, since then, so as a like Tuesday around lunchtime, ICE has fought back, broken down the barricades, arrested a bunch of people, and I haven't checked in the last five or six hours to really see what the what the current situation there

Vigilance Without Hypervigilance

SPEAKER_00 9:58

is. But the bottom line is this so whether it's a potential disease outbreak on the other side of the world or some random violence outside the White House or chaos just breaking out in your own city or your own neighborhood for no particular reason, and you're caught completely off guard, the world is becoming a less predictable and less stable place. Trust me, it is very unfortunate that this is the current state of society. But you really do have to be prepared for almost anything to happen anywhere at any time. And I think that's the worst part of it. Sometimes I wish I could be just completely ignorant to what's going on in the world and just walk outside and everything's all lollipops and rainbows and puppy dogs and all that good stuff, but it's not. Sometimes I wish I was a little more naive to what's going on, so I wasn't looking at things with a critical eye 99% of the time. Sometimes I wish I wasn't as vigilant as I am, and I wasn't looking around as much as I do, but that's the society we live in. I would rather be vigilant as opposed to hyper-vigilant. Hyper-vigilance is not a good thing. There's a fine line between the two, and maybe we'll talk about that someday. But I would rather be vigilant and be aware of my surroundings and where people are, what they're doing, where they're going, and be less aware of my situation and be put in a position where harm could come to me, my friends, my family members, or what have you. I guess I would rather be a little more, I'll use the word paranoid, a little more paranoid, a little more vigilant than not, because I don't think I could, I don't think I could forgive myself if something was to happen to myself, friends, or family, and I had the opportunity to remove us from the situation, take care of the threat or what have you. I think I'd be a little more, I think I'll err on the side of caution in a sense. So in a nutshell, we have to be prepared for anything to happen anywhere. We stay calm, we stay prepared, we use common sense, we ask questions, we look at things with a critical eye, and I think that's probably the best combination, the best recipe for keeping yourself out of danger.

Wrap Up And Where To Follow

SPEAKER_00 12:27

All right, folks, as always, thank you so much for stopping by.com. I'm on the Twitters, prep underscore podcast. And also all of my podcasts are now up on YouTube. So if you search Common Sense Practical Prepper and scroll down a little bit, you should see the the little icon, the little sign with Common Sense Practical Prepper on it. And it should have all of my episodes, obviously all audio, but at least they're listed under podcast. If I've got them listed correctly, you can see all of them pretty much start to finish. Give that a look. If it's not working for you, let me know. I'll try to figure out the routing because I may have it incorrect. But again, folks, as always, please be careful out there. Take care of one another, and until next time.

SPEAKER_01 13:16

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