What you’re going to need after you have a plan to provide food, shelter and other basic needs for yourself and your family is to make sure that you have what you need to keep from getting the virus.

You’re going to also need a way to protect your personal safety. Whenever a pandemic occurs, there is often a collapse of certain societal norms – such as the ability to get food and water, gas and even money.

When that happens, there can be factions of people who decide that they’re going to walk outside of the boundaries of the law and take what they need. Some people are opportunists who will hunt for other people that they can prey on.

 Safety Items You Need

Because the Ebola virus can spread so quickly and be so devastating when it touches a life, you need to be prepared for all of the ways that the virus can come at you.

The first item that you’re going to need will be a supply of the N95 masks. You’ll need these for every member of your family. You can find these in packages with a few or with plenty at medical supply stores, but since you’re going to want to buy them in bulk, your best bet is to order them online.

Plus, you’ll save money getting them online over the higher cost of buying them at a medical store. Figure that you need at least several months’ worth of masks for every person who will need to wear one.

You’ll want a supply that will last you 3 months at a minimum but planning for longer (a year or two) is better. If a year seems excessive, all you have to do is take a look at the current outbreak.

It actually began in December with the host victim but wasn’t properly recognized as the Ebola virus until March. It’s raged on for an additional five months since then, bringing the total time the virus has run rampant among people to a total of nine months so far – but it’s still not controlled.

This is why getting enough masks for a year minimum is the best way to make sure your family’s safety is taken care of. When you wear the masks, you’ll want to make sure that the areas around the mask seal well to your face.

You don’t want any openings at all because the Ebola virus can get into your body through any mucus membrane area. So if you have to seal around the mask with tape to make sure it’s secure, then do that.

You can also find these masks with filters in them – but they’re more expensive. Whatever kind of mask you get, you want to make sure that you don’t try to fit an adult-sized mask onto a child.

There’s too much room for error that way. There are separate masks made just for children that you can buy, so get them a minimum of a year’s supply as well if you can.

You might have seen articles telling you that you should wear safety glasses in order to protect your eyes from being an entry point for the Ebola virus. But you should only use safety glasses as a last resort.

These are open on the sides and fluid from a contaminated individual can splash up and catch you in the corner of the eye where you’re not protected. Instead of safety glasses, you’ll want to purchase safety goggles.

These come with a rubber seal around the sides of them so they’ll adhere to your face and offer you more protection that a simple pair of safety glasses will. But if you can’t get the goggles, then anything is better than nothing.

Don’t forget to make sure you get some kid-sized ones to protect the children in your family. Outerwear is also paramount to your protection during a pandemic. There are two kinds of outerwear that you can get.

You can buy the disposable kind or the heavy-duty plastic kind, a re-usable kind. You might see these listed as chemical protection suits or training suits. If they have that label, it means that those are the suits that are used in dangerous situations like where there’s been a chemical spill or the rough places where a first responder might need to go to help someone.

These suits can be very expensive, often costing a couple of hundred dollars or more. There are pros and cons to both kinds of suits.  The disposable suits usually have sleeves and pant legs that have strong elastic in them so that they fit pretty snugly against your skin in order to keep out any viruses.

Some of these suits also come with fitted hoods so that you can cover the sides of your face to keep your ears protected. The strength and durability of the disposable hazmat suits depend on the brand that you buy and what the fabric consists of.

Some are more resistant to tears and breakdowns than other brands are. So always choose a brand that has a good track record for being resistant to tears. When you’re done using these, you have to dispose of them properly so that any germs on the suit aren’t carried back with you once you remove the outerwear.

The heavy-duty hazmat suits have to be decontaminated after use and if you’re not set up to deal with a contamination area without accidentally infecting yourself, then you’ll want to go with the disposable suits.

Some of the heavy-duty hazmat suits come with extras already attached – such as the gloves you’ll need to use to protect yourself. You’ll need to have plenty of gloves on hand and these can’t be those flimsy household gloves like the thin cleaning gloves you find at the grocery store.

Those nicks and tear open at the fingertips far too easily. They can’t stand up to long use, either. You don’t want to cover your body with a sturdy hazmat suit and then jeopardize yourself by choosing cheap gloves.

 Protection Is a Must

You’ll need to be aware of any late-breaking news in the event of a pandemic. Since you may not be able to count on society working the way it has, you’ll need to make sure that you have items that don’t rely on an electricity infrastructure to operate.

Emergency broadcasts will still be done – even if society breaks down during a pandemic. So you’ll want to make sure that you have a solar powered radio. You’ll also want to make sure that you have solar-powered flashlights and light sticks so that you can see in the event of blackouts.

You’ll need a means of keeping in contact with others. Even if electricity is down, that doesn’t mean you can’t use your phone. There are solar-powered units that can keep a cell phone charged up so that you can communicate with family members who may not be near you.

You also want to make sure that you have a way to communicate with any medical personnel if you have to. That’s where the cell phone or a two-way radio can come in handy.

You’ll need items that will help you start a fire and you’ll need a backpack that contains first aid equipment and personal hygiene items. Besides what you need to survive, you’ll also need the protection of a different sort.

Having a multi-purpose knife on hand can help you accomplish a variety of tasks you might need to do. It can help you cut twine to string up a thermal blanket as a shelter if you need to in a pinch.

But a knife can also give you protection and even save your life if the need arises. Regardless of how you feel about weapons, you will need a way to take care of your personal safety.

When a pandemic hits, there will always be someone who will be caught without supplies. These people will take yours – and worse – if you don’t have a way to defend yourself.

One of these means can be a knife. You can choose from knives like a tactical knife or a jungle knife. If you’re not sure which kind of knife you want to have on hand, you can search for survival knives and choose the one that’s best for you.

You’ll also need to have at least one gun. More is better – and you’ll need the ammunition to go along with that weapon. Long rifles can be used for protection, but they can also be used to hunt for food so that you can have meat with your food supply in the event that you need it.

You’ll also want to carry a personal handgun on a hip holster with you at all times in the event that lawlessness breaks out. You can get a small gun and some people like to go with a 9mm, a .38, or a .45.

You may never need to use any of the weapons to protect yourself or your loved ones, but you’ll be glad that you have them if an event does occur in which you have to fight back.