With the prospect of climate change causing ancient diseases to emit from thawing permafrost,
I'm gonna just roll my eyes and ignore this, but...
now seems like a suitable time to share any advice or strategies on dealing with a pandemic.
The main problem with a pandemic is that by the time you know for sure, it may be too late. If there's an unusually lethal strain of flu going around, it will take a week or two for us to realize, at which point, it will be probably present all over the globe.
I firmly believe that the most important part of pandemic preparedness is money / financial flexibility. You need to react before you know - skip work, cancel travel, take kids out of school, every time there are vague reports about swine flu, bird flu, baboon flu, or whatever that is. And then waiting many days or weeks for 90%+ of these scares to turn out to be nothing, at least once every year.
Beyond that, the only other useful prep is whatever helps you avoid contact with other people, especially in crowded places - both for the initial period, and then possibly for months if the scare turns out to be true. So, mostly food and such. And even then, you're looking at an uncertain future.
Hazmat gear, etc, is probably a waste of money.