After a windstorm, earthquake, or fire, how will you come back from disaster?

To get recovery funds, you may need to prove you owned or rented your home, and you’ll need insurance papers. What about getting medical care and your prescriptions?

These questions are why our July “Prepare in a Year” topic is protecting your precious documents.

It’s important to have copies and backups of important documents. Your backups must be accessible from multiple places in case disaster strikes while you are away or restricts access to your home.

• Keep original documents somewhere that will protect them, such as a waterproof document holder in a water- and fireproof safe in your home or a safe deposit box at a bank.

• Make paper copies to keep somewhere off-site. For example, you could send copies to a trusted family member or keep them in a safe deposit box.

• Make digital copies. If you have a computer and scanner, scan the documents. You can also use the cameras on many cell phones to photograph or scan them.

• There are lots of ways to store digital copies. Collect them in a folder on your computer, then store them in a secure online drive (in “the cloud”), or on a USB flash drive that you can keep in a safe place (ideally password-protected) — or email them to yourself.

• Online backups can be an excellent option. Having access to your documents online can make disaster recovery much smoother. Ensure you have any login information to access the online documents while away from home.

What documents should I back up?

This list might seem daunting at first, so start with a few basic items. Then, each time you handle a new document, make copies to keep building your backup collection. Here’s a snapshot checklist to get started. You can get the detailed checklist on our website: tinyurl.com/VitalDocumentsList.

• Identification & Citizenship: You and your dependents will need identification to access medical care and file insurance claims. Include your driver’s license, passport, green card, birth certificate, marriage/divorce papers, and adoption/custody papers.

• Prescriptions & Health Information: In an emergency, you may need healthcare from providers other than your regular doctor. Medical records will be vital information. Include prescriptions, immunizations, allergies, and chronic conditions. Sign up for access to your provider’s online medical chart service.

• Financial: You will need money, so include banking information. Include insurance policies to help file claims, as well as tax and investment documents.

• Property: Proof of ownership for your car and home will help you reclaim, replace or rebuild after a disaster. Include vehicle titles, real estate deeds, and mortgage papers. Take a video inventory of your home’s contents or use one of the many home inventory smartphone apps.

• Legal: Include copies of legal and estate documents such as wills, living wills, powers of attorney, and instructions for end-of-life care.

• Update & Review: Update your backups whenever an important document is added or changed. Do an annual checkup to verify that your backup system is working.

Caught COVID? Here’s what to do

Given the summer surge of COVID-19, readers have been asking: What’s the current guidance if someone in my household tests positive for COVID? Do we still need to isolate? What if we are exposed but not testing positive for COVID?

Here’s a summary of the latest advice from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC):

• If you test positive for COVID, monitor your symptoms, including fever. You should stay home and away from others until your symptoms improve and the fever has been gone for at least 24 hours without the aid of fever-reducing medicine.

• You are likely to be infectious for at least five days after the onset of symptoms, whether or not you have a fever, so take common sense precautions to help prevent the spread of COVID during this period. Cover coughs and sneezes. Wash or sanitize your hands. Wear a well-fitting mask and keep your distance from others. And especially avoid contact with those at high risk from COVID.

• A positive antigen test between 5 and 10 days after symptom onset highly correlates with shedding of infectious virus, so consider using antigen testing to understand when you are no longer infectious.

• If you have tested positive for COVID and are over 60 years of age or otherwise at high risk from COVID, talk to your doctor or pharmacist about the advisability of Paxlovid treatment, especially if you have not received the most recent COVID vaccine.

• If you have sniffles or any other COVID symptoms, do not assume it is just a cold. Test to be sure so you can take the steps described here if you test positive for COVID.

• If you are exposed to someone with COVID, but have not tested positive, CDC recommends testing with a home antigen test at five and seven days after exposure in the absence of symptoms, or at the first appearance of symptoms.

• Another strategy is to test beginning the third day after exposure and daily through the seventh day. The earlier you test, the sooner you will know if you have contracted COVID. However, do not assume that a single negative test is conclusive. It’s important to test a minimum of twice over a period of 48 hours.

• Keep your vaccinations up to date. There’s a new one coming in the fall, and the CDC recommends everyone ages six months and older get the new formula, which is targeted at the currently circulating variants of the COVID virus.

• Be especially mindful of COVID prevention among Vashon residents. COVID is especially hard on elders, and Vashon Island’s population is twenty years older on average than folks in mainland King County.

It’s worth noting that the CDC guidance is similar for all three of the most common respiratory virus infections: COVID, RSV, and influenza (flu). If you’d like to take a deep dive into the CDC guidance, here’s a detailed online view: tinyurl.com/2024GuidanceCDC.