We have been fortunate not to have experienced a global pandemic before in our lifetimes. The previous global epidemics that threatened to become one, (SARS, MERS, swine flu (aka H1N1), and bird flu) did not pan out (Ha!) so it is hard to know what would constitute a normal state of events during one. So I am not surprised to find that things seem to me to feel a little strange.
I went to the supermarket today to buy a couple of potatoes for a recipe but there were no potatoes. It is a very large supermarket so at first I thought that they had moved it to another location, something they do from time to time but no, they were out of potatoes, something that had never happened before. I then realized that there had been a run on potatoes because people were stocking up on food. Why potatoes? I don’t know. I was about to leave when I thought I would wander around a few aisles to see what else was gone. The shelves were mostly full and by no means bare, unlike in the Latvian town where Andreas Avester lives, but some shelf sections were empty, especially those that should have had cleaning products. [Update: See correction from Andreas.] This article describes what people are NOT buying, as evidenced by the things still on the shelves of denuded grocery stores: pasta made from chick peas, chocolate hummus, Dasani brand bottled water while all other brands are gone, pork, kidney beans, vegan food, and obscure canned vegetables.
It had never struck me to go out and stock up on supplies at the beginning of this pandemic, maybe because things seem so normal otherwise, but this shopping experience made me wonder if I should have. But I could not think of anything that I absolutely must have so in the end, I left the store without anything.
There is something weird about this situation. In the case of a major natural disaster like an earthquake or hurricane, you know that it is a disaster because there are visible signs of disruption such as loss of electricity, water, building collapse, and so on. The resulting breakdown of transportation resulting in the lack of supplies is understandable. But in this case things seem so calm and normal that panic buying seems unnecessary. After all, there is no reason why the normal supplies of most products to stores should be disrupted since the basic infrastructure has not been destroyed. Food is still presumably being grown, most factories are functioning, and transportation is still running
On the one hand, I go for a walk as usual around the neighborhood, chat with my neighbors, run a few errands, and so on, just like before. Yet on the other hand, the news informs me that all major sporting events are canceled as are many theaters, concerts, schools, and any event where large numbers of people gather. TV shows have dispensed with live audiences. This could be quite disorienting for people who go to such events or watch such shows. Maybe because I am retired and live a very quiet life, quite happy to be at home alone just reading and writing, and do not like crowds and thus avoid big events, the sense of life having changed quite dramatically has not hit home, as would be the case with people who have more active lives. The only change that has affected me is a very minor one in that the local bridge club where I play a couple of times a week has suspended its activities.
In France, the government has taken even more drastic action, ordering the shutting down of almost all commercial activity
PM of France: Starting at midnight tonight all restaurants, bars, retail stores, cinemas, gathering places CLOSED. Food stores & pharmacies open. Because # of people on respirators is rising dramatically. #COVID19 pic.twitter.com/4Y3QmfojTF
— Rachel Donadio (@RachelDonadio) March 14, 2020
This weird situation may make some people confused as to what they should do. One thing they should not do is listen to Donald Trump who is worse than useless. This article by E. J. Dickson and Andy Kroll provides some common sense answers to many of the questions that people may have for how to deal with the pandemic. They say that rather than depending on various news sites, the websites set up by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) are the best sources of reliable information, such as: “avoid large crowds and non-essential travel, and stay indoors” and “Wash your hands for 20 to 30 seconds, with soap, ideally every hour. Don’t touch your face.” (I assume that one should wash every hour only if one is away from one’s home and in constant contact with other people.)
An important point is that while people under the age of 70 have much better chances of not suffering any major ill effects even if they do get the virus, that could result in them unknowingly being carriers of it and so they should adopt these same precautions too so as not to spread it to the more vulnerable elements of the population.
Meanwhile we have to learn to not panic and live with the seemingly contradictory situation that while the situation may seem quite normal on a small scale around each of us locally, it is definitely not normal on a large scale.
Incidentally, the second cartoon is yet another example of what I have written about before, that cartoonists, comedians, and comedy writers seem to find that the name ‘Bob’, especially when applied to a doofus character, makes the joke funnier. It does for me but I don’t know why.
I was dragged to Costco yesterday by wife to buy a few needed things. The panic buying is full speed on, with a number of people inventing ingenious ways to circumvent the 1-bundle-per-membership limit on toilet paper. As Mano noted, somethings are hard to get (toilet paper, paper towels, cleaning liquids, liquid soap, for example) flying off the shelf, while most are not.
Daughter’s school is closed for 3 weeks, and my employer has instructed me to work from home and not partake in the 2-mile commute ‘unless absolutely necessary’. So, we are pretty much forced to stay indoors (except for morning bike ride weather-permitting) and it is going to be hard.
Hope common-sense prevails and the society doesn’t breakdown during this pandemic.
The panic buying of toilet paper was one which really puzzled me. The coronavirus is not known to cause diarrhea, so why would we need extra TP?
Since you mention H1N1, it was probably a bigger deal than you remembered. As of October 17, 2010 (7 months after the start), there were an estimated 22 million cases, about 98,000 hospitalizations, and 3,900 deaths (I’ve quoted the mid-range of the estimates). From the CDC website: https://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/estimates/April_October_17.htm
And here’s a timeline: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/2009-pandemic-timeline.html
They had first vaccines by October and started testing. By December, anybody who wanted a vaccine could get it.
There’s a sitcom called Bob (Hearts) Abishola where the original advertising centered around people saying his name and how much Bob liked how Abishola, who is from Nigeria, pronounces his name unless the Americans he knows who pronounce it more like “Baaab”.
It’s a horrible show. I watched the pilot and he was an outright stalker, doing things like paying Abishola’s co-worker for her address then just showing up at her apartment, and getting on a bus and sitting beside her despite not actually needing to go where the bus was heading. Based on the most recent ad I’ve seen, it looks like it worked for him. Anyway, this is off the subject but you did bring up Bob as a funny name. Also funny names -- Doug and Gary.
ahcua, it probably helps that the US had a competent administration in 2010 that didn’t slash the CDC or any other relevant department, and didn’t lie about numbers, worry more about the Dow Jones, and never called it a hoax.
johnson catman @#2,
I too was puzzled by the demand for toilet paper and asked some friends about it. They said the it was because of the fear that they would be stuck in the house for a long time and eventually run out of it.
I grew up in a country and a time when we did not use toilet paper but instead used water, unless we were somewhere where there was no water, though on my recent visits back there, I noticed an increased availability of toilet paper in homes. Most homes of Sri Lankans (even in the US) always have a bowl or other water container that can be used for this purpose if required. So it never occurred to me to stock up on toilet paper since I know how to use water as a backup.
This article says that bidets have become popular recently and there are versions that you can easily attach to your current toilet.
Mya Gosling has a new cartoon appropriate for the date: Cov-ides of March
But you can find lots of pictures online of people all over the country overfilling their shopping carts with many large packs of toilet paper … easily 80-100 rolls in many cases. It’s ridiculous. There’s no way a person’s going through that much TP, even if they do have to self-quarantine for a while. (Maybe only a few weeks until they recover and won’t infect others.) It’s hard to estimate, but I doubt I’d go through that much in six months or more.
So … if tons of people really were preparing to not step foot in a store for the next few months (hard to believe this is really their plan), then why are most other aisles in the grocery store still fairly well stocked in most locations? You don’t see all sorts of perishable or non-perishable foods, medicines, etc., running out at nearly the same rate, except perhaps in some very dense urban areas where a few stores were hit very hard. So do none of these panic-buyers realize they would starve way before they run out of their precious ass wipes?
Also, all of those stores are responsible for the shortage too. They should have put a limit on the number of purchases, as some are finally starting to do. They were just watching it happen and doing nothing but raking in profit. This shows how much they give a shit about their “valued customers.”
Taiwan also had an initial panicked run on TP, but that passed, so to speak. Some public events are closed (e.g. no speech contests this year, yay!) but for the most part life has gone on as normal -- except for everyone wearing disposable masks. Still only 50 infections and one death as of this weekend.
Pure speculation on my part: Aside from requiring petroleum, Taiwan likely could close off entry for four months and nothing would change. The island is 95% self sufficient for food, and has much of its own manufacturing. With few exceptions (e.g. tourism, travel) few things will be affected. Most exports are tech (home to ASUS, HTC, Acer, etc.) who could continue manufacturing until things get back to normal.
Here’s a thought: In the first three days after the 2001/09/11 attacks, the US’s air quality improved and pollution dropped. What environmental effect will there be after a billion people stop consuming fossil fuels and natural resources for a month or two?
Re toilet paper: Totally irrational panic response? Following the news.
@ 10 Intransitive
The problem with Taiwan is it has a rational, apparently competent, government, and an incredibly efficient public health service.
Hard to generate a decent panic.
Grocery stores are not empty in Latvia. It’s only some shelves that have been emptied by panicking shoppers. Rice, pasta, buckwheat, rolled oats etc. grain foods with long shelf life are mostly sold out. Shelves with some canned foods were also partially emptied. But other than that, most other foods are still available, and majority of shop shelves look perfectly normal. Today I went grocery shopping. I bought ice cream, frozen cherries, butter, and yoghurt. All of these foods were still there, and these shelves didn’t look emptied at all.
Here’s how I thought about this topic. In case I got sick, I’d probably have mild symptoms (I’m young and healthy), thus I’d have to simply sit at home for two weeks in order to not infect other people. This means I need enough food, toothpaste, soap, shampoo, toilet paper, laundry detergent, etc. stuff to be able to comfortably survive without leaving my home for two weeks.
On the other hand, if I stockpiled too much food, there’s a risk that I would end up throwing it out later once it spoils. For example, I normally don’t eat canned foods, because I prefer fresh/home cooked stuff. If I knew for sure that I will get sick, I would buy some canned foods in order to have a more varied diet. Since I cannot be certain, I am better off not buying foods that I wouldn’t want to eat otherwise.
By the way, if I will actually have to sit at home for two weeks, I will have a really weird diet, consisting of ice cream, walnuts, pumpkin seeds, dried fruits and various other snacks with long shelf life.
johnson catman @#2
Some people use toilet paper for blowing their noses.
Other people buy it, because they don’t want to run out of it and they fear that at some point they won’t be able to freely buy more.
Toilet paper? In an emergency there is always the constitution or the bible.
Marcus: sounds like a safe plan. Many will judiciously save the part about the second amendment, and from the bible, some passages about the zombie apocalypse presumably. (Long lines at gun shops) So I guess a few copies going down the drain won’t hurt.
Marcus Ranum @13
I hope you’re not suggesting that those two documents are equivalent.
The U.S. constitution is mostly a reasonable way to set up a government that actually works. It’s imperfect, as are H. sapiens generally; but some of the amendments and Supreme Court decisions have made it better. (A few have made it worse.)
A large part of the bible, on the other hand is downright disgusting. (Shorter Joshua: the Isrealites move in, massacre everyone in sight, and destroy all the cultural artifacts. Although they do spare the lives of girls who are virgins (wink, wink). Their god is totally on-board with that.) It’s also rather remarkably boring IMO.
In Ontario
Yesterday I noticed a little bit of panic buying the local grocery store and our local small Oriental Market. One of the owners in the Oriental Market said they have been selling out of instant noodles but they also have been selling a lot of bags of rice. Note: the store is very close to the university and we have a fairly large Chinese population of students.
At the grocery store, across the street from the Oriental Market, it seem to have had a run on toilet paper and various pulses. It is comforting to see that our panic buyers are buying beans not canned beans so obviously some of them know how to cook. There were lots of canned chickpeas but the dried ones were gone.
Other than that we don’t seem to be in total panic mode yet.
Marcus Ranum @13
Toilet paper? In an emergency there is always the constitution or the bible.
I hope you’re not suggesting that those two documents are equivalent.
Most people in the USA do not seem to be able to distinguish between them.
As an 18th century constitution condoning slavery it is probably not that bad though I believe France outlawed slavery in the 14th C in the metropole.
I had hoped that when corvid-19 had spread everywhere people would realise it had become a fact of life and act appropriately. Instead people are doubling down on their panic and unreason.
Over here in NZ, the government has stipulated that new entrants must self-isolate for two weeks. So much for the tourist industry. As NZ is so dependent on this, economists are now speculating that even some banks here may fail, due to some large client companies failing.
So we have panic-closed our borders. I hope it turns out to be worth it. Nobody seems to have given much thought as to how long this will need to be in effect for. Corvid-19 is not going away, not even after the holy grail of a vaccine eventually appears.
Was it not possible to organise a combination of border testing together with a governmentally backed all-inclusive travel insurance specifically for people who develop the virus while in the country? And otherwise act on the assumption that we will get it eventually? I realise that testing everyone at the border would be expensive and logistically difficult, but surely -- well, it doesn’t matter now; the decision has been made.
@ 18 file thirteen
some banks here may fail,
Do we care? A few failed banks might improve things.
Your gov”t seems to be taking some drastic steps that may pay off. You have an island nation that can control movement as I heard your PM say today. She may well be right.
We have the problem that on a normal day there are 400,000 border crossings between Canada and the USA every day and the USA seems totally [language censored].
Stocking up for 2-3 weeks is normal for us. We always have large bags of rice, several kinds of legumes, and flour around. We have had 2 instances in the past when we were snowed in for a while and managed with no problems.
Why potatoes?
Because if you think you need to stockpile food, potatoes are an excellent choice; they keep and are very nutritious.
fentex,
See, I have never had much success in keeping potatoes for any length of time, so they would not be my choice for stockpiling. They seem to sprout quickly. I must not be storing them properly.
@15
Snerk. As someone who has worked in a constitutional law department, this is far from the consensus of constitutional law scholars. We have a comparatively poor and vague constitution compared to almost every modern country.
The Bible comparison is salient -- it’s a bunch of antiquated nonsense that was fair for it’s day but should have been discarded a century ago.
Yeah, my potatoes always end up sprouting.
My mother told me how it was for her some years ago when her bank ran into trouble. Her savings account was frozen for ten years, couldn’t get money out. However she still had to pay the mortgage.
billseymour #15
don’t quit your day job
California produces a large percentage of the United States’ fruits and vegetables and we’re almost exclusive for about ten of them, but we’re only something like tenth-ranked in potatoes.
Mormons stockpile food as a matter of routine.
“We have been fortunate not to have experienced a global pandemic before in our lifetimes.”
We’re currently entering the 4th decade of the AIDS global pandemic, and the 2009 swine flu also reached pandemic levels (by any reasonable definition), albeit with a much lower lethality than our current bug.
As far as using water to clean your butt, that requires too much thinking for most Americans, especially if it’s thinking outside the box. If they run out of food, they can always eat some of that toilet paper that they have way too much of.
My wife went to the store the other day, and while waiting in line at the checkout, the woman in front of her had 9 cans of Lysol. My wife politely asked her why she needed 9 cans of Lysol, and the woman replied huffily, “I’m very clean!”. Good thing nobody else needed any.
Mano @#22
Store them in a cool dark place. For more info see — https://www.wikihow.com/Store-Potatoes
Some other vegetables like carrots and pumpkins also can be stored for at least several months. Assuming you have a root cellar or something like that.
I know I probably shouldn’t need to say this, but it is not good to flush most paper down the toilet. Whether you’re on a city system or a septic system, most paper does not decompose very well and can clog pipes or jam valves. Tissues are fine, they are designed to dissolve, but you’d be better off using burdock than pages from a book. If you run out, just wash like Mano suggested.
As for stockpiling… I grew up in the country where a trip to the store took an hour one way. So I learned to always keep spares. There is the package to toilet paper in the bathroom, and another in the closet. There is a bottle of shampoo in the bathroom, and another in the closet. There is rice in the kitchen counter container, and a bag of rice in the pantry. Etc. It took my wife a little while to get used to this because she grew up in the suburbs where the store was on the way to work. So when something ran out she could stop that day to pick up a replacement. I think a lot of people shop like my wife used to, i.e. only as needed. So there may only be 2 rolls of toilet paper in the house, and they don’t know if they use one roll a day or one a week, they just get more when they are low. But if stores may run out, then better get all you can when it is available. Never mind that the reason the stores are running out is because everyone thinks the stores are going to run out.
The problem with storing shop-bought potatoes is that you don’t know how long they’ve been stored already… I have no problem storing home-grown potatoes for months, but shop-bought ones often sprout quickly. I suspect they’ve often already been in storage for many months by the time you buy them, and the move to the warm, bright conditions of the shop is enough to jolt them out of dormancy.
For those with sprouting potato troubles: Have you tried sweet potatoes? The conventionally grown ones (ie non-‘organic’) don’t sprout even if you try to get them to sprout deliberately. No idea what kind of treatment does that. Organically-grown sweet potatoes do end up sprouting after a long enough while, but can keep for a couple of months before they do.
Dunc @#33
In general, potatoes have been stored in some warehouse since the last autumn. For example, it is March now, which means that the potatoes I now buy have been stored for half a year.
I get my potatoes in a farmers’ market. No bright lights there, the seller gives me potatoes straight from a non-transparent bag that they use here for storing their vegetables.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure potatoes from the farmer’s market would last as long as the ones I grow myself, it’s the ones from the supermarket that sprout within weeks (or even days). I don’t know what they do to them, but there’s definitely something odd going on there.
Porivil Sorrens @23
I’ve already said that I suspect that it’s imperfect. I’d be interested to hear what the scholars you mention would change.
“Repeal and replace”? What would you replace it with?
chigau (違う) @25
Well, I still like my job, and as far as I know, the boss still thinks I’m good at it. 😎
I might retire in about a year and a half though. I’ll be 75 then. We’ll see.
@Mano
My friend who has a backyard , just plants them . That may be a decent idea in these times.
Since I now live in an apartment and have no yard, would it help to just keep them in a paper bag so that it is in the dark? How about in the fridge?
Yeah, cold (but not freezing) and dark is the way to go for storing potatoes.