Next Thursday, October 15, people nationwide and around the world are encouraged to participate in the “Great ShakeOut,” an international earthquake drill. Participation in the event is simple and entails registering your organization, informing colleagues about the drill, and holding the drill, which involves the steps of “Drop! Cover! Hold On!” Additionally, via the Great ShakeOut website visitors can access other information and resources about earthquake preparedness, including videos, earthquake safety guides, and information on other exercises. Read more at Great ShakeOut.

One of the articles linked to on the Great ShakeOut website is “Preparing for an earthquake during a pandemic,” which discusses how earthquakes affected existing ongoing disease outbreaks or caused new ones to occur. For example, there was a relatively low increase in new COVID-19 cases in Zagreb, Croatia following a magnitude 5.3 earthquake that struck the city in late March, which researchers attributed to few existing cases before the incident and the government’s strict enforcement of regulations. The researchers used this and other cases to create a model to help forecast future scenarios. Among their findings, they noted that if a large earthquake occurred and affected a sizable amount of the population, a rise in COVID-19 cases might be inevitable, despite all efforts. Read the article at Temblor.