Anonymous
03/07/2020 08:25
Subject: Stocking the cupboards in the event of a pandemic in the USA
Made a small Target pickup order to replenish some of the items we went thru during a recent battle with the flu. Ordered 2 small jars of Vick’s, 2 bags cough drops, 4pk tissues, and 3 bags disposable gloves. They canceled everything except 1 jar of Vick’s and the tissues. Not even sure it’s worth the gas to pick it up. Lol
Anonymous
03/07/2020 08:18
Subject: Stocking the cupboards in the event of a pandemic in the USA
Anonymous wrote: I don't understand the bottled water frenzy. Is my faucet going to stop working if I get corona virus?
(if I was on a well, I'd have a generator and some gas, which you should anyways virus or not.)
I think people who typically avoid the faucet and drink bottled water are stocking up to avoid going out later if their area gets hit. Social distancing not a fear of infection through faucets.
Anonymous
03/07/2020 08:09
Subject: Stocking the cupboards in the event of a pandemic in the USA
I don't understand the bottled water frenzy. Is my faucet going to stop working if I get corona virus?
(if I was on a well, I'd have a generator and some gas, which you should anyways virus or not.)
(if I was on a well, I'd have a generator and some gas, which you should anyways virus or not.)
Anonymous
03/07/2020 07:47
Subject: Re:Stocking the cupboards in the event of a pandemic in the USA
Anonymous wrote:So in desperation after finding empty shelves everywhere, I bought the store brand of disinfectant wipes, only to find out later, they are useless with coronavirus.
Not wanting to venture out to only find more empty shelves, I looked online. Amazon price gouging, Target sold out online and in stores, etc. I ended up finding them on Staples and they will be delivered on Monday. Anxiety diverted...at least for now.
How do you know they are useless? Now I’m wondering about the ones I bought.
Anonymous
03/07/2020 07:13
Subject: Stocking the cupboards in the event of a pandemic in the USA
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I have no idea what Spam tastes like, but I now have an eight-pack of it from Costco. Depending on how long we need to stay put avoiding the stores, I expect to donate 11 of them, or maybe 10.
Pan fry the Spam in sluces, then make grilled spam and cheese with it. Delish!
Pan fry slices of spam but then add rice and eggs. Yummy! I love going to Hawaii and going to McDonald's and buying spam and eggs for breakfast. We bought a ton of spam and rice and beans at Costco
Is this serious?
It is seriously delicious! I like to cut the spam into cubes and put it in and/or on top of baked mac and cheese, it just doesn't get much better than that!
https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/246169/spamaroni-and-cheese/
I'd give that a shot
I mean... SPAM is pork shoulder and ham. It's not a marbled ribeye but it's a decent bit of prepared protein. It's been forever since I've had it but I've diced it, pan seared it and tossed with with some peas, rotini and mayo to make a reasonable pasta salad. It works in a pinch.
Anonymous
03/07/2020 03:02
Subject: Re:Stocking the cupboards in the event of a pandemic in the USA
Don’t you just love, to read about US in the British media?.. this is us.....
But not only.. fun piece, on topic
Which one is it??? I think we are just preparing...
https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200304-coronavirus-covid-19-update-why-people-are-stockpiling
Amid the coronavirus outbreak, people are flocking to supermarkets worldwide – but are they simply preparing, or irrationally panicking?
Last Saturday afternoon, Kristina Moy decided to swing by her local supermarket in the US city of Seattle to pick up some weekly groceries and supplies for her son’s upcoming baseball tournament.
What started as a quick errand turned into a three-hour ordeal, navigating checkout lanes packed with hundreds of shoppers stocking up amid the outbreak of coronavirus.
Moy, a resident of Washington state, was well aware Governor Jay Inslee had that day declared a state of emergency following the announcement of the first US death related to Covid-19.
“For the most part, people were understanding and relatively calm. But patience was definitely starting to grow thin,” says Moy, who tweeted images of long queues and people with trolleys loaded with bottled water.
“Toilet paper and milk were flying off the shelves faster than I could count, and carbonated water was just about empty.”
Moy isn’t the only one to experience long queues and empty shelves. Mass demand for rice and instant noodles in Singapore prompted Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong to assure the public there was enough to go around. In Auckland, New Zealand, supermarket spending shot up 40% last Saturday compared to the same day a year ago. And shoppers in Malaysia wanting to pad “pandemic pantries” – grocery hoards to fill people’s kitchens until the crisis dies down – have driven an 800% increase in weekly hand sanitiser sales. (All of those places have confirmed
These are the real-world consequences of panic buying – a phenomenon that happens in the face of a crisis that can drive up prices and take essential goods out of the hands of people who need them most (such as face masks for health workers).
So why do people do it? Experts say the answer lies in a fear of the unknown, and believing that a dramatic event warrants a dramatic response – even though, in this case, the best response is something as mundane as washing your hands.
The downsides of panic buying
With events like looming natural disasters, such as a hurricane or flood, people frequently stock up with emergency supplies.
“It is rational to prepare for something bad that looks like it is likely to occur,” says David Savage, associate professor of behavioural and microeconomics at the University of Newcastle in Australia, who’s written about the rationality behind stocking up in a crisis. However: “It is not rational to buy 500 cans of baked beans for what would likely be a two-week isolation period.”
This type of behaviour can make shortages worse – like, for example, when Hurricane Harvey hit oil-rich Houston, Texas in 2017. Precautions taken by refineries, as well as eventual flooding, temporarily stalled the supply of petrol and diesel in the US. That was expected, but the problem got worse when people flocked to petrol stations and panic-filled their cars, contributing to a two-year high in petrol prices.
Irrational stockpiling can also lead to price gouging, says Steven Taylor, a professor and clinical psychologist at the University of British Columbia, and the author of The Psychology of Pandemics. “If the price of a roll of toilet paper is tripled, that’s seen as a scarcer commodity to acquire, which can lead to anxiety,” he says.
There have been plenty of examples of price gouging in response to Covid-19 – reports have found a 20-pack of face masks costing more than $100 on ecommerce sites such as eBay and Etsy. These high prices have caused companies to put measures in place to stop speculators taking advantage of a spike in demand. On Tuesday, for example, Amazon announced it removed over a million basic-needs products for misleading claims and price gouging. British pharmacy chains Boots and LloydsPharmacy both announced on Tuesday that they would restrict sales of hand sanitiser to just two bottles per customer.
The supply of face masks has also been strained. The US government has recommended people stop buying them – not only because surgical masks aren’t sufficient protection from Covid-19, but because there may not be enough for healthcare professionals who need them to do their jobs.
The fact that supply-chain juggernaut China is at the centre of the spread of coronavirus has exacerbated panic buying, says Ben Oppenheim, senior director at San Francisco-based infectious disease research firm Metabiota.
“A lot of the narrative has focused on the disruption of global production and supply chains. There's uncertainty about whether we'll see shortages in medicines, masks and other consumables, and that uncertainty needs to get clarified and addressed,” he says.
The psychology of panic buying
There’s a clear difference between disaster preparation and panic buying, says Taylor.
In the case of a hurricane or flood, most people have a fair idea of the items they may need in the event of a blackout or a water shortage. But since it’s unclear at this stage just what effects Covid-19 will have, there’s a lot of uncertainty driving this spending.
Panic buying, Taylor says, is fuelled by anxiety, and a willingness to go to lengths to quell those fears: like queueing for hours or buying way more than you need.
We’ve seen this before throughout history. Back in 1962 during the Cuban missile crisis, when nuclear war seemed imminent, American families filled their basements with enough canned goods and bottled water to survive an atomic blast.
Then there was Y2K at the turn of the millennium. Amid fears that a catastrophic glitch when computers’ internal clocks reset to “00” for the year 2000 could crash global markets or send missiles flying, people didn’t just hoard lots of nonperishables and bottled water, but money, too – in 1999, the US Treasury was ordered to print an extra $50bn in the expectation that people would withdraw and stockpile cash.
Panic buying helps people feel in control of the situation, experts say.
“Under circumstances like these, people feel the need to do something that’s proportionate to what they perceive is the level of the crisis,” Taylor says. “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.”
But not only.. fun piece, on topic
Which one is it??? I think we are just preparing...
https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200304-coronavirus-covid-19-update-why-people-are-stockpiling
Amid the coronavirus outbreak, people are flocking to supermarkets worldwide – but are they simply preparing, or irrationally panicking?
Last Saturday afternoon, Kristina Moy decided to swing by her local supermarket in the US city of Seattle to pick up some weekly groceries and supplies for her son’s upcoming baseball tournament.
What started as a quick errand turned into a three-hour ordeal, navigating checkout lanes packed with hundreds of shoppers stocking up amid the outbreak of coronavirus.
Moy, a resident of Washington state, was well aware Governor Jay Inslee had that day declared a state of emergency following the announcement of the first US death related to Covid-19.
“For the most part, people were understanding and relatively calm. But patience was definitely starting to grow thin,” says Moy, who tweeted images of long queues and people with trolleys loaded with bottled water.
“Toilet paper and milk were flying off the shelves faster than I could count, and carbonated water was just about empty.”
Moy isn’t the only one to experience long queues and empty shelves. Mass demand for rice and instant noodles in Singapore prompted Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong to assure the public there was enough to go around. In Auckland, New Zealand, supermarket spending shot up 40% last Saturday compared to the same day a year ago. And shoppers in Malaysia wanting to pad “pandemic pantries” – grocery hoards to fill people’s kitchens until the crisis dies down – have driven an 800% increase in weekly hand sanitiser sales. (All of those places have confirmed
These are the real-world consequences of panic buying – a phenomenon that happens in the face of a crisis that can drive up prices and take essential goods out of the hands of people who need them most (such as face masks for health workers).
So why do people do it? Experts say the answer lies in a fear of the unknown, and believing that a dramatic event warrants a dramatic response – even though, in this case, the best response is something as mundane as washing your hands.
The downsides of panic buying
With events like looming natural disasters, such as a hurricane or flood, people frequently stock up with emergency supplies.
“It is rational to prepare for something bad that looks like it is likely to occur,” says David Savage, associate professor of behavioural and microeconomics at the University of Newcastle in Australia, who’s written about the rationality behind stocking up in a crisis. However: “It is not rational to buy 500 cans of baked beans for what would likely be a two-week isolation period.”
This type of behaviour can make shortages worse – like, for example, when Hurricane Harvey hit oil-rich Houston, Texas in 2017. Precautions taken by refineries, as well as eventual flooding, temporarily stalled the supply of petrol and diesel in the US. That was expected, but the problem got worse when people flocked to petrol stations and panic-filled their cars, contributing to a two-year high in petrol prices.
Irrational stockpiling can also lead to price gouging, says Steven Taylor, a professor and clinical psychologist at the University of British Columbia, and the author of The Psychology of Pandemics. “If the price of a roll of toilet paper is tripled, that’s seen as a scarcer commodity to acquire, which can lead to anxiety,” he says.
There have been plenty of examples of price gouging in response to Covid-19 – reports have found a 20-pack of face masks costing more than $100 on ecommerce sites such as eBay and Etsy. These high prices have caused companies to put measures in place to stop speculators taking advantage of a spike in demand. On Tuesday, for example, Amazon announced it removed over a million basic-needs products for misleading claims and price gouging. British pharmacy chains Boots and LloydsPharmacy both announced on Tuesday that they would restrict sales of hand sanitiser to just two bottles per customer.
The supply of face masks has also been strained. The US government has recommended people stop buying them – not only because surgical masks aren’t sufficient protection from Covid-19, but because there may not be enough for healthcare professionals who need them to do their jobs.
The fact that supply-chain juggernaut China is at the centre of the spread of coronavirus has exacerbated panic buying, says Ben Oppenheim, senior director at San Francisco-based infectious disease research firm Metabiota.
“A lot of the narrative has focused on the disruption of global production and supply chains. There's uncertainty about whether we'll see shortages in medicines, masks and other consumables, and that uncertainty needs to get clarified and addressed,” he says.
The psychology of panic buying
There’s a clear difference between disaster preparation and panic buying, says Taylor.
In the case of a hurricane or flood, most people have a fair idea of the items they may need in the event of a blackout or a water shortage. But since it’s unclear at this stage just what effects Covid-19 will have, there’s a lot of uncertainty driving this spending.
Panic buying, Taylor says, is fuelled by anxiety, and a willingness to go to lengths to quell those fears: like queueing for hours or buying way more than you need.
We’ve seen this before throughout history. Back in 1962 during the Cuban missile crisis, when nuclear war seemed imminent, American families filled their basements with enough canned goods and bottled water to survive an atomic blast.
Then there was Y2K at the turn of the millennium. Amid fears that a catastrophic glitch when computers’ internal clocks reset to “00” for the year 2000 could crash global markets or send missiles flying, people didn’t just hoard lots of nonperishables and bottled water, but money, too – in 1999, the US Treasury was ordered to print an extra $50bn in the expectation that people would withdraw and stockpile cash.
Panic buying helps people feel in control of the situation, experts say.
“Under circumstances like these, people feel the need to do something that’s proportionate to what they perceive is the level of the crisis,” Taylor says. “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.”
Anonymous
03/07/2020 02:53
Subject: Stocking the cupboards in the event of a pandemic in the USA
Anonymous wrote:So now that most/all of us here have stocked up, can you share how you’ll handle life? Are you (1) living off your stockpile so as to avoid stores altogether; (2) holding your stockpile for when it’s necessary but in the meantime still grocery shopping weekly or whenever while it you’re still going to work/kids to school; or (3) planning to use the stockpile exclusively once there is some event signaling things are bad enough that you don’t want to go out — i.e. confirmed cases near you; or your work says no one in the office etc.
My goal in buying ahead was to be able to avoid going to the store and being elbow to elbow w others once bad news hit. But right now I kind of feel — if we’re allowed to go to work, what’s one more stop at the store? (Though even still I want to go as little as possible, at non peak times etc just to have some distance.) How will you handle?
Mostly avoiding any unnecessary trip to the store. The key word ... unnecessary.
Even if you have to leave home for work this is not a choice. However having a choice one can risk more or less. With every contact odds grow. It takes one time, one person.. one sneeze.. one touch.. so logically speaking the more people we see a day the more chances to get it because people we see ... see other people...
With food.. going first through normal stuff until it ends and then moving to resourcess.
Anonymous
03/07/2020 02:27
Subject: Stocking the cupboards in the event of a pandemic in the USA
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I have no idea what Spam tastes like, but I now have an eight-pack of it from Costco. Depending on how long we need to stay put avoiding the stores, I expect to donate 11 of them, or maybe 10.
Pan fry the Spam in sluces, then make grilled spam and cheese with it. Delish!
Pan fry slices of spam but then add rice and eggs. Yummy! I love going to Hawaii and going to McDonald's and buying spam and eggs for breakfast. We bought a ton of spam and rice and beans at Costco
Is this serious?
It is seriously delicious! I like to cut the spam into cubes and put it in and/or on top of baked mac and cheese, it just doesn't get much better than that!
https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/246169/spamaroni-and-cheese/
Anonymous
03/07/2020 02:00
Subject: Stocking the cupboards in the event of a pandemic in the USA
So now that most/all of us here have stocked up, can you share how you’ll handle life? Are you (1) living off your stockpile so as to avoid stores altogether; (2) holding your stockpile for when it’s necessary but in the meantime still grocery shopping weekly or whenever while it you’re still going to work/kids to school; or (3) planning to use the stockpile exclusively once there is some event signaling things are bad enough that you don’t want to go out — i.e. confirmed cases near you; or your work says no one in the office etc.
My goal in buying ahead was to be able to avoid going to the store and being elbow to elbow w others once bad news hit. But right now I kind of feel — if we’re allowed to go to work, what’s one more stop at the store? (Though even still I want to go as little as possible, at non peak times etc just to have some distance.) How will you handle?
My goal in buying ahead was to be able to avoid going to the store and being elbow to elbow w others once bad news hit. But right now I kind of feel — if we’re allowed to go to work, what’s one more stop at the store? (Though even still I want to go as little as possible, at non peak times etc just to have some distance.) How will you handle?
Anonymous
03/07/2020 01:55
Subject: Stocking the cupboards in the event of a pandemic in the USA
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I’m so glad I stoked up on stuff a few weeks ago when it was just beginning. We are set to last two three months.
You plan on quarantining for 2-3 months?
You people are insane and excessive.
Meh.. wait till we start gathering wood in the forests and building smokehouses... then we got a case..
For now this is just safety shopping.
Anonymous
03/07/2020 01:53
Subject: Stocking the cupboards in the event of a pandemic in the USA
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I have no idea what Spam tastes like, but I now have an eight-pack of it from Costco. Depending on how long we need to stay put avoiding the stores, I expect to donate 11 of them, or maybe 10.
Pan fry the Spam in sluces, then make grilled spam and cheese with it. Delish!
Pan fry slices of spam but then add rice and eggs. Yummy! I love going to Hawaii and going to McDonald's and buying spam and eggs for breakfast. We bought a ton of spam and rice and beans at Costco
Is this serious?
Do you think spam company trolls are peddling goods? I am getting noseous...
Anonymous
03/07/2020 01:51
Subject: Stocking the cupboards in the event of a pandemic in the USA
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I’m so glad I stoked up on stuff a few weeks ago when it was just beginning. We are set to last two three months.
You plan on quarantining for 2-3 months?
You people are insane and excessive.
Avoiding buying food at the stores full of potentially sick people for a good while is not the same as quarantining.
It is just strategizing for minimal exposure. Simple risk assessment. People don't Want to buy possibly contaminated products... protecting family. Nothing to ridicule here, nobody mandated this or forces you. We let you do your think if you let us do our okay?
Anonymous
03/07/2020 01:05
Subject: Stocking the cupboards in the event of a pandemic in the USA
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I have no idea what Spam tastes like, but I now have an eight-pack of it from Costco. Depending on how long we need to stay put avoiding the stores, I expect to donate 11 of them, or maybe 10.
Pan fry the Spam in sluces, then make grilled spam and cheese with it. Delish!
Pan fry slices of spam but then add rice and eggs. Yummy! I love going to Hawaii and going to McDonald's and buying spam and eggs for breakfast. We bought a ton of spam and rice and beans at Costco
Is this serious?
Anonymous
03/07/2020 01:05
Subject: Re:Stocking the cupboards in the event of a pandemic in the USA
Anonymous wrote:When this is all said and done, I am going to really enjoy reading an analysis of all the companies that made money off of the mass hoarding, and all of the donation centers that received a glut of donations.
Every time I see a new product recommended on any site I wonder if someone is trying to shill their product or a local food bank is hoping for a certain item to come their way. (And then I give into my panic and order random product #287. Because of course I need ____ if quarantine happens)
+1
I’ve been thinking about these two things as well.
Anonymous
03/07/2020 01:01
Subject: Stocking the cupboards in the event of a pandemic in the USA
Anonymous wrote:I’m so glad I stoked up on stuff a few weeks ago when it was just beginning. We are set to last two three months.
You plan on quarantining for 2-3 months?
You people are insane and excessive.