Yes, but the shelves don't empty from only people who have been diagnosed (those are the ones who are being told to self-quarantine, right?) -- there's only a few thousand of those. Empty shelves is everyone in town buying the same thing, something presumably everyone already has at least some of.
How much TP does a household go through in two weeks? Not multiple big bricks.
Well in my case, I am planning on going on lockdown pretty soon. TOTAL LOCKDOWN. The fly in this ointment is that Connie is waiting on some bridgework for her teeth to be made so the dentist can fit it in her mouth. This is expected to be around the 23rd of this month. To say I am not real keen on the dentist and his assistant sticking their gloved fingers in her mouth is quite an understatement. They seem to be pretty good about sanitation, but still, this is apparently a very highly contagious organism we are dealing with.
Florida is now showing 115 confirmed infections of COVID-19. Fortunately none in our immediate vicinity. Luckily I live in an area that just doesn't wind up on very many people's list of travel destinations. But I feel like we are playing Beat The Clock. Just because there are no
confirmed infections in my area doesn't mean there are guaranteed
no infections here. Sporing break for FSU is March 16—March 20. So after March 20, those students will be coming back, perhaps from some areas that there are active infections present.
I have read that someone becoming infected with this coronavirus becomes infectious in about 12 hours, but might not exhibit any symptoms for an average of 14 days, and as many as 28 days. The virus itself can live in open air for 3 hours. And on some surfaces for several days. Both Connie and I are over 65 years old. Put that all together and you have a pretty alarming picture.
So our goal with going into lockdown is to try to AVOID becoming infected. The question with an unknowable answer is: How long will that have to be?
I suspect that many other people are doing the same thing, hence their plans on purchasing now stocks of items that they may need in the upcoming MONTHS of being in self imposed isolation. Think they won't be needing toilet paper? Well think this through. Because unless they have a much different idea about person hygiene and cleanliness than I do, yes, they will. If they are locked down for months, that means no running out to the grocery store to get more until it looks like things have gotten much better and the chances of becoming infected have been greatly reduced.
If this gets bad enough, it won't just be a matter of grocery stores running out of product until the deliveries can catch up with demand. Truck drivers will get sick too, and the rest might justifiably be fearful enough of becoming infected to just quit their jobs and go into lockdown themselves. Which means the shelves in grocery stores could STAY empty for quite a while. Once any employee at a grocery store becomes infected, pretty much that store will be closed and sealed. Maybe temporarily to be disinfected, perhaps much longer since employees will likely leave, and supply trucks aren't showing up anyway. If you have not prepared, what are you going to do then?
Yeah, I know, a lot of people think this isn't possible in a country like the USA. I hope they are right. I would much rather be wrong myself about the potential, but the risk TO ME of them being wrong is a whole lot greater than the risk of me being wrong instead. When you catch a virus, you keep a virus.
Yeah, I sure would like to think that other countries like China, Iran, Italy, etc. have just been kidding us all along about their battle with this virus. But how likely is that? And this is only the first introduction to a *new* pathogen that is highly capable of frequent and unpredictable mutations. One that, as best I can tell, is going to be around for a long damn time now that it is here. There are already at least two strains running now, with one being worse than the other. Are there more today? Going to be more tomorrow?
Find and try to understand technical papers from people who have been studying this virus. You may find some of them damn eye opening. Try to make your decisions about what to do now based on as many facts as you can gather around yourself. Doesn't sound too bad to you? That is fine. But don't condemn others who might come to a different conclusion and are taking what they believe are sensible precautions.
Hope for the best, but dammit, don't you think it might be wise to plan for the worst? At least a little bit? Just figure out your own personal cost of being wrong either way and act accordingly.
IMHO.
