Originally Posted by
enemigo
This is an interesting take, but equally makes some pretty massive, and possibly wrong, assumptions.
Finally:
"And yes, you really should prepare to buckle down for a bit. All services and supply chains will be impacted. Why risk the stress of being ill-prepared?
Worst case, I’m massively wrong and you now have a huge bag of rice and black beans to burn through over the next few months and enough Robitussin to trip out."
This statement is really not helpful. In an article arguing about how supplies and supply chains will be hit during this crisis, the author is actively encouraging panic buying. Please folks, don't go and panic buy tons of stuff. It's counter productive to buy 300 cans of black beans. Quote from Prof Stephen Taylor: " We know that washing your hands and practicing coughing hygiene is all you need to do at this point. But for many people, hand-washing seems to be too ordinary. This is a dramatic event, therefore a dramatic response is required, so that leads to people throwing money at things in hopes of protecting themselves.”
It’s really not a choice between do nothing or buy 300 cans of black beans and shouldn’t be presented as such.
As I have mentioned several times over the course of this thread, my preparations are designed to reduce my need to go shopping (or dining out) once the community spread in my area would expose me to risk. I didn’t buy 300 cans of black beans, I bought five. And some packs of red/black beans and rice. We eat that anyway, and having five vs 1 in the pantry is neither an indication of panic buying nor did it put any strains on the supply chain. I also bought some other shelf stable food items. Overall enough for two to comfortably eat for about two weeks, though I fully expect to supplement it with fresh items until/unless it gets really bad.
Here is a (IMO) sensible article from Consumer Reports on what one might want to do to prepare:
https://www.consumerreports.org/coro...tined-at-home/
(ignore the title of the story as it really isn’t about quarantine prep, but about social distancing prep)