COVID-19 (Coronavirus)

[Feallan]

That's because they just closed the schools here locally (and in many other places in the US) and that changed the game for people. Made them view it with a new seriousness. Now people are set with thought of being home for 30+ days with their kids and they are beginning to lose their minds.

This is how we had it here a couple days ago. The day they announced closing of schools and universities was the day people stormed supermarkets (but interestingly, small local stores still had stuff supermarkets quickly ran out of). When I was shopping on Friday it was almost normal again, the only things you couldn't buy were toast bread and rice.

A lot of businesses are allowing teleworking like mine but sadly many small business have already began to suffer. There is going to be a bad spat of people getting laid off after this.

This is what I fear the most. The virus is dangerous, especially for people who are old or have existing conditions, but everyone knows that. Nobody talks about the economic consequences of this thing, and they will be severe, especially for small businesses. Services from big corpos will be mostlu=y fine since almost everyone has a laptop, VPN etc, big industries can probably count on some big $ from government once this is over, but what about small production facilities, online vendors? Barbers, small store owners, restaurants, hotels? This is going to be ugly with a lot of bankruptcies and layoffs.

My perspective is a bit limited because I was frequenting some online forums where this stuff was discussed a long long time ago, so I already stocked up on food weeks ago and barely went outside since, so I can't say much about the current situation outside of my own home, but back when I was stocking up, things seemed fine and normal and almost everything was in stock at the stores.

Hah, good call. Not much stocking up will be possible now. I doubt any country will have food supply shortages, but the more you go outside the bigger the chance for catching this shit.

Personally I hesitate to call these things a panic. When I went to the store to stock up, I wasn't frantic or in panic, I was just being cautious, I think this is what it is for most people, but when such a change in behavior happens on a large scale, it appears "panick-y" I think. One sees empty shelves in stores and has an image in one's mind of panicking people jumping all over the wares, but I think - with some exceptions - that's not how it goes down in most cases.

That's true, "panic buying" is mostly just an expression, but we had plenty of incidents here caught on video, probably the same in Germany. However I can't really understand some decisions, like why buy 200 rolls of toilet paper at once? I mean if things get so bad such a basic resource won't be available, not having TP will be the least of your concerns

[Feallan]

Now the problem is, as an indie, I'm out of work. Can't sell shit on ebay anymore, and no money is coming in and will come for the next 6 months.

For what it's worth, if you have enough currently at stock I think you will be back in business much sooner. I think things will get worse in a week or two when hospitals start to be seriously overburdened, and some more intrusive quarantine measures are implemented. But once we break some yet unknown magic number of cases, and some unspecified amount of time passes, people will just accept the temporary change in their lifestyles and move on. And once they do, most if not all of their shopping will be online, and once everyone is stocked up on food they will get back to buying luxury items. I can't see food shortages or anything like that happening, and when people sit around their house all day every you can be sure they will be buying more stuff online than usual. No virus can abolish boredom

[deleted user]

That's true, "panic buying" is mostly just an expression, but we had plenty of incidents here caught on video, probably the same in Germany. However I can't really understand some decisions, like why buy 200 rolls of toilet paper at once? I mean if things get so bad such a basic resource won't be available, not having TP will be the least of your concerns

Oh I see. Here the newspapers call it "Hamsterkauf", and there's a word called "hamstern", aka to "hamster" something, like food, basically meaning to hoard something. I don't actually know why it's called that, maybe hamsters build up resources for the winter underground or something like that.

Why toilet paper, I'm not sure. Maybe people just underestimate how much food they actually need to come through a month. I've seen some people's stocks of food that they bought and it looked like it would barely last a week, but they intended it for a month.

Maybe because the perception of food weight is probably not linear but exponential or something? Aka 20kg of food may only be 4 times 5kg, but may feel a lot more than 4 times as heavy to carry. So you might feel like you bought more food than you actually have. You look at that pile of cans and think "that's gonna last a while", but it's actually just 15 cans, and each one covers maybe a third of your daily caloric needs.

Another theory is that having a full shopping cart of food is something that is seen as normal but having a shopping cart full of toilet paper looks like "hamstern". And it makes sense, because probably 90% of each supermarket is dedicated to food, while toilet paper may only take up 1% of the space. So maybe people are actually hoarding everything, but since toilet paper is such a small part of the store, the shelves start looking empty way sooner. After all, food is a daily need for most people and the stores expect regular food purchases, but toilet paper is something you buy once every month or two usually, so the supplies aren't meant for short-term large-quantity purchases. I've also seen images of canned food being sold out and canned food is pretty much your best bet for the most part. It's possible that this will be mitigated however by people not knowing what types of foods they should stock up. So maybe most people won't realize that buying toast is pointless because it doesn't actually last long at all. Same goes for bread. However crispbread is excellent, presumably since there's no moisture. However since most people might not be aware of what food lasts long, the hoarding could be spread out more evenly over all types of food, resulting in less apparent shelf emptying.

Damn, I apologize for this long textblock of inconsequential theorizing about food hoarding. I'm just kinda passionate about the topic because living on a low budget has kinda taught me a little bit about this kind of stuff.

[Feallan]

That's actually interesting. You'll probably be the one who'll survive the upcoming apocalypse and repopulate the world. When I was shopping I bought some cans, but not that much because just "normal" weekly supplies already filled up the entire cart over the top. I think I currently have about 10 days in food at most, but at this point it's just too late to build a real stockpile that would last for months. You managed to do it early, but most people didn't and to be honest, I don't think we don't have to fear hunger. The one thing that can topple any government is food shortage, so you can be sure they will bend over backwards to make sure that won't happen.

[Stamper]

Thanks, hopefully yeah online sellers get through!

The reason they buy toilet paper is they bought tons of food in a can. The kind of food that goes straight to the bottom.

In 007 words, "throw it in the toilet, cut off the middle man" LOL

[deleted user]

That's actually interesting. You'll probably be the one who'll survive the upcoming apocalypse and repopulate the world. When I was shopping I bought some cans, but not that much because just "normal" weekly supplies already filled up the entire cart over the top. I think I currently have about 10 days in food at most, but at this point it's just too late to build a real stockpile that would last for months. You managed to do it early, but most people didn't and to be honest, I don't think we don't have to fear hunger. The one thing that can topple any government is food shortage, so you can be sure they will bend over backwards to make sure that won't happen.

Hah! Glad it's interesting, I'll continue to indulge then. But, well I won't survive either because I'm so poor that I could only buy enough for 1-2 months. But maybe I can increase my pile next month a little bit.

Basically, you want small cheap cans and rice. Like hacked tomatoes, beans, and such. You don't want those big heavy "meals" in a can, which are 99% water anyway, like those soups and stuff like that, because for example rice gains a lot of volume when you cook it, so if you have one of those "rice meals" in a can, it's using up way more space than necessary (plus usually the rice/noodle/energy amount is very tiny). Besides, those "meals" also taste like shit anyway. So imo best is to buy lots of rice for energy - uses up little space, is very cheap and reasonably healthy. A beginner's mistake of mine was to buy noodles/pasta; it's extremely cheap but you'll feel like shit after a short time of eating it. Then, tuna in oil is also nice. Tuna has some decent nutrients and protein and the oil has of course energy. Canned tuna + hacked tomatoes + canned beans + rice = very decent meal, and the ingredients are very cheap and last for months and don't take up too much space. 1 kg (1 EUR here) of rice lasts for about 5 meals. Let's say 2 per day, that makes 2 packs of rice for 5 days. So 12x 1kg packs of rice (=12 EUR) is enough for an entire month. So for 72 EUR you could have 6 months of supply of at least basic carbohydrates, and then layer some nice things on top so it's not too bland, like the tuna, hacked tomatoes and beans. Also, buying meat at good prices on offer (here you get 30% price reduction 2 days before expiration date, sometimes earlier) and freezing is excellent, you can get enough meat for an entire month (not big portions, but okayish ones) for some 20 EUR or so. If tuna is too expensive (it used to be 1 EUR but now it's sadly 1.20), I discovered sardines, great alternative for about half the price (0.59 I think). Sardines go fantastic with crispbread. Make sure to get the ones without bones in them, if there's a choice. Pack of crispbread is around 0.70 EUR, lots of energy (they use it in military portions too sometimes). Can of hacked tomatoes is 0.33 EUR here, can of beans is 0.60 or so I think. Beans also have a small amount of protein, which is nice. Oh yeah and don't forget some oil to add to your sauces and roast meat and stuff; oil's super cheap anyway, shame to forget that.

Dunno if its of any use at this point, but those are some of my personal strategies, heh. Maybe someone out there has even better ones, always happy to improve!

[Feallan]

It's a bit too late now, rice is the only thing that's missing from stores everywhere. Just for the sake of not going crazy from too much rice, I would add some buckwheat or millet to your set, it should last many months when properly stored. Potatoes are also cheap, filling and good for a couple of months at least, but they may take too much space for you.

[deleted user]

Ah damnit haha! Might try those but they sound like they are expensive bio-food stuff, heh.

Potatoes are really awesome, I love some freshly cooked potatoes, but sadly they don't last long at all in my experience. After a week or so they start to sprout and a week after that the sprout has spread so much they are basically inedible because the green stuff around the sprout is toxic to my knowledge. I think the limit is 1cm of the sprouting stuff before you shouldn't eat them anymore. But maybe they last a bit longer with some special kind of storage.

[MrBrown]

Normally we had potatoes over the whole winter in our cellar... They last months, if stored cool and dry..

Edit: and DARK.

[deleted user]

Must be the temperature then. I have no way to store them cooled sadly. Dark and dry I think I did, but room temperature is the best I can do.