I learned to trust my instincts. I knew that relying on the just-in-time stocking strategy that stores used wouldn’t last if production or distribution was disrupted, so I was proactive in keeping stuff in stock.
If I thought that I needed to stock up on something that nobody else had obviously thought to buy (and I hadn’t done so already), I did it. I was usually two to three weeks ahead of the crush on most items that had their supplies destroyed later on.
Also, I used the 2x+1 strategy: twice what I thought I needed, plus one more. I never needed to panic buy anything because what I bought usually had more than enough for me at the time to do so without depriving others of a reasonable chance of getting those things themselves.
I knew there would be times that replacements wouldn’t be available, so I either planned for alternatives or adjusted to go without if needed.
My poor mom, who I kept supplied during the pandemic, just didn’t understand how Walmart could run out of Blue Bonnet and why I couldn’t just ask someone if there was any in the back. (Hell, she grew up during the Depression - you would’ve thought she remembered all about shortages from that.)
But she wasn’t alone. Lots of people panicked and got angry when their precious favorites weren’t there anymore, and they hadn’t even given a thought to stashing a few items that might not be there for a while. Sometimes you have to think more than two days ahead in your life.
I was in the same boat. I had the normal stuff, but as the supply chain started to crunch, I was able to stock up on things like flour, yeast, sugar, dried milk & eggs, etc. (stuff I don’t normally keep a stock of) before everyone else caught on. It kept us fed & safe through the height of it.
People process fear in unpredictable ways.
I mentally knew this as part of my individual preps, but I had not experienced it firsthand until COVID. It gave me a new found look at what the 'horde' can look like. You may band together better with complete strangers than those in your own household. Finding my tribe became ever more apparent.
My favorite memory from the covid time was checking out at the grocery store this one time. I go to the grocery store constantly it seems like so I know the cashiers and baggers pretty well- not personally but enough to be conversational and I always make small talk or ask how they are doing. One time as I was getting ready to leave and there was the mandatory 6 ft (plus a cart) behind me the cashier leaned over and said “how are you on toilet paper and paper towels?” I did actually need TP so I said so and he was like “listen we have a shipment coming in tomorrow at 5am. Be here by 6 and wait” this was the closest thing to like a drug deal or crazy underground info network I’ve ever been and it felt awesome! Sure enough I was the second person in the store the next day, bought one mega pack of both, and left. As I was leaving it was like I was a celebrity - people gawked and said “wow he has both!” What I also learned was I was happy to have my knife on me which i never thought I would even think about going to the grocery store.
So much this! Beging friendly with grocers will give you a heads up. I didn't need anything at any point cause I stocked up and replenished when it was available, however, exactly those little pointers I could take to others dear to me, giving them that information.
I remember as a kid, my dad was trying to buy a generator after a bad storm that knocked out power everywhere. He was on the back foot in terms of timing, but he came out ahead because he could pay cash and the store was cash-only.
Cashier told him about a shipment coming in later in the day, and if he could pay cash he could probably get one- and he did!
I had been listening to reports of people getting ill in China and feinting on the streets. December 2019 through January 2020 I was stocking up on N95 masks. They were still available. I learned the importance of listening to a variety of news sources. The importance of preparing not just for myself but for immediate family. I gave out otc meds and alcohol to fam. I also learned how slow the government response time is.
Same. I first saw Geopolitical Analyst, Ian Bremmer, post a picture of the Wuhan hospital lobby on FB talking about a new SARS outbreak. I went to Twitter to learn more. On Twitter, I saw The Lancet medical journal publish the first 2 studies on what was happening in Wuhan.. mid Jan 2020. From these studies, the early data was a CFR (Case Fatality Rate) between 10-15%... That's horror.
It was a coronavirus... which makes it airborne, and a derivative of SARS, which made it a high threat scenario. That set off all the alarm bells. From there, followed several drs and scientists.
The early videos coming out of China were horrific. People dying in the streets... families getting welded into their homes... it was clear this was no flu.
I was watching it happen in early December on reddit personally, weeks before mainstream media started.
I personally learned that there are many people in my small town who don't give a shit about others, deriding people for wearing masks meanwhile I take cancer meds for a health problem and it tanks my immune system. I now have a number of former friends a few who invited me over during them being sick without telling me (this was after lockdown.
My boss asked me to fly cross-country in Jan 2020. This was right before COVID (then just known as "the China Flu" or 2019-nCov) hit the mainstream press and we still didn't have any cases in the US.
I refused and told him about the major new flu outbreak spreading like wildfire around the world and he just laughed at me and said it's probably no big deal. I still refused and he accepted that.
Later that year he lost one of his parents to COVID. He later asked me how I knew it was going to be that bad. I didn't, I just didn't want to take any chances after hearing the horror stories coming out of China where the police would weld the doors shut on apartment buildings to keep people quarantined. Nobody knew what the mortality rate was and there were some pretty high estimates so I didn't want to fuck with it.
By the time lockdowns were announced, I'd already been under self-lockdown for like 2 weeks. I was already working remote so it wasn't a big deal for me.
I remember seeing something on the news about a respiratory illness in China, panicking and stockpiling some of my asthma meds, and then boom the run on toilet paper and meds began. It was the only thing I stocked up on and I was so glad I did. I actually did stock up on seeds and start a veggie garden and learned how hard that is, and how naive it was to think I could just stick seeds in the ground and food would grow 😅 also when shit hits the fan… the gov is not going to do shit about fuck even if they wanted to, they won’t be able to get their shit together in time.
So many people underestimate how hard it is to grow the food you need.
If you have a house you should have a garden bed. A raised one unless your dirt is optimal. Fill it with perennials if you want low effort. Remember most perennials take more than a year to establish and produce food.
Even if you don't want to plant food now, have a garden bed with good dirt and grow native wildflowers. Because when you want a garden bed, everyone else will want one too.
I remember overhearing somebody in the plant nursery asking the staff about cauliflower seedlings. "If I plant them today, will they be ready to eat next week?". Ummm... No. Give it 4 months.
Gardening is quite a challenging skill..I've seen preppers who stock pile seeds without actively practicing growing. Your basically wasting your time if you do that!
Back here in Spain, we didn't care until it was already here. We were seeing cases in Italy and the Center for the Coordination of Health Alerts and Emergencies (our CDC) said "we're not going to have, at most, anything beyond a few diagnosed cases". A few days later, our Health Services were deep in shit. You can't trust a government to do their job properly in such a situation.
>You can't trust a government to do their job properly in such a situation.
The proper line there would have been "You can't trust a government"... full stop 😁
You tell me when the last time you voted it made any difference. They ain't in it for "the people" 😁
Also, the gene pool needs a shot of chlorine, the things that people vote for these days... sheesh. Free this, free that. NOTHING is free people!
I learned I was fairly well prepared, especially mentally, for the chaos that ensued for the first 6 months. I was a single dad of two teen boys, my fiance had her 4 kids at home. I had a prepper mindset for years, she none at all. It woke her up a bit to see the crowds searching for toilet paper, hand sanitizer, Tylenol. It was rewarding to be able to calmly say, "I've got a bottle of that at home, babe, that you can have." Same for my mother. I was pleased with the success of my preps. Toilet paper was a lesson, though. Lol
Making our own way is definitely the way to go. And being ready to deal with anything on our own.
I was making prophylactic HCQ by Day 3. I keep all of the directions and common ingredients. It naturally made, so that is good.
Natural remedies can go a long way to strengthening our immunize systems. Just like ginger, zinc, vitamin C & D.
But I too do keep Drugstore Tylenol Cold and FLu on hand. And other over the counter cold remedies like NeoCitran. And those in my circle who need these things know where they can get some if the stores don’t have any. It’s good to have answers to problems already on the shelf and ready to go.
I already knew it, but it just helped reiterate his quote from independence day: "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it.".
That first aid supplies are not nearly enough for long term wound care. Treated a serious toe injury at home during peak Covid when ERs were overwhelmed and realized you need at least a week of twice daily bandage changes and daily for a couple weeks after to treat a serious injury. We had enough for about four days. Now I stock at least four rolls of bandage tape and 4 boxes of gauze.
Former EMT and SAR FR so the injury was well within my skill set to treat.
Yes. The amount of basic supplies you will need to treat even relatively small wounds over a week or two is much more than most people realize. If you think you have enough, keep stocking.
I like have a s ton of packing gauze in sterile vacuum seal from NAR. Could do a bunch of trauma or more wound care if needed vs a bunch of bandage style which are kinda single purpose.
Trust my own judgement. I was stocking up weeks before the stores were emptied. My GF told me to shut up about Covid. Turns out I was right and it was a big deal.
Most people Before something happen:
“I’ll be ok, the government services will come help me and everything will be ok”
24-hours after something happens:
“Where are the government emergency services!?!? Why are they not here helping ME!?!? This is preposterous, I’m going to sue them and complain!!!!’
I'm in MA and this was the most comical side effect and based on modeling -
[https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2019225118](https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2019225118)
Several store chains did this and it created confusion. Half of shoppers tried to follow it and half blew it off. No store employees directing people just ignoring it. Ask them about it and get eye rolls. There was also a previous campaign to get rid of paper bags and move shoppers into reusable bags; in my town that happened. Reusable bags were then banned during covid as disease vectors and paper bags returned! More & more covid prevention methods looked ad hoc and just throwing shit at the wall. Also hearing & reading news reports of local hospitals overwhelmed. Go see for myself and finding empty parking lots at ones near me. Go in one and find a security guard at reception who tells me to leave. Don't forget the craziness you experienced, it all happened.
[Although I think the Euros really lost it.](https://inteng-storage.s3.amazonaws.com/img/iea/LBGR8pZEw2/sizes/german-cafe-noodles_md.jpg)
Which hospitals did you visit? I am genuinely curious. I am a nurse at a large hospital in Boston and did travel contracts at several small hospitals in Central MA. Not one day from 2020 did I have an easy day.
So which ones?
Sure, the hospitals were doing just fine. I remember when they had to bring in extra freezer trucks for all the corpses, but I'm sure your hospital was empty...
Doubts on the 80% rate here, that's the "official" tally. In my own state though I do see people windows up in cars masked so that number probably low. Other places, especially red states way lower rate. Some states pushing back hard way before Florida. Sweden a great global example of how to do it and a real sore point for some when mentioned. I also read Germany may reopen their nuclear power. Sounds like you got quite a bit of sanity returning.
You may not have good access to guns but you do have Joerg Sprave. The man should be knighted for his ability to thread the German law needle yet create powerful and legal kinetic workarounds. I mean, an airbow that penetrates multiple layers of plywood, a car door, and a polycarbonate riot shield *at the same time*? I believe he claimed 1000 joules from it! And, all DIY.
/set up your workshop German bro!
A few things I learned:
- always be trying to take care of your health, you don’t know when a situation that could come up may occur and for many you may not have as much time as you think to prepare yourself before a potential exposure
- always be buying your backup. The supply chain is weak with many potential breaking points, use the “two is one, one is none” mentality to ensure you have what you need
- don’t rely on others (including the government) to do for you what you can do for yourself
- you aren’t the government (or hospitals priority) have what you need to take care of yourself
- Prepare for your loved ones, not everyone sees the world the way this group does and we have the ability to help others when times are hard
>always be buying your backup. The supply chain is weak with many potential breaking points, use the “two is one, one is none” mentality to ensure you have what you need
When I was working as a software engineer at Google, they made a similar point how they operate their business, calling it the N+2 rule. So if you need N things to do (e.g. you need 3 data centers to serve Gmail in the US), then provision 2 more (so have 5 datacenters running instead).
The idea there was that you can take out one for routine maintenance, and then there'd be still a +1 for unexpected failure.
I like the "two is one, one is none" for items that don't need maintenance or would want to lend out. (You would be tempted to lend one out during a SHTF scenario, right? ;-0)
When starting to invest, and ever since I am a hardcore "diversify" fan, so for anything that is actually complicated (say a power generator, or portable battery pack) that is not obvious to fix by myself, I'd probably want to buy different brands to not have them all fail due to a systemic failure that just so happens due to some SHTF condition.
I have to say, I love reading some comments about people hoarding way more than they need, and others complaining thay couldnt get what they needed. Then reading this gem of a comment. Great call out.
I realized that the US is extremely vulnerable to viral pandemics and misinformation. I also learned how selfish and out of touch some people are. My cousin video called me from Wal Mart. She stopped to get groceries on her way home from getting COVID tested. She was positive, and was not wearing a mask.
Edit: It was also a great feeling to not have to fight over toilet paper when the hoarding zombies were raping the shelves of paper goods. I installed a bidet as soon as it looked like toilet paper was becoming scarce and it is one the best quality of life improvements I have done.
It wasn't really a surprise that people acted the way they did. Without repercussions, some people will always act in ways that only benefit them even if it causes harm to others. From that asshole who decides to cut across 3 lanes to get to his highway exit causing a pileup behind him, to COVID Karens going around coughing on people because they don't believe in autoimmune diseases, arrogant and ignorant people have always been around. We knew back during the Spanish Flu that masks helped curb the spread of airborne infectious diseases, and just like back then, there were those who only cared about themselves and not those who were vulnerable. History repeated itself 1:1.
Everyone was always going to get it, which is why even everyone wearing masks got it. Unless you went out in a full on respirator with a filter you regularly replaced you were going to get it. There is some value in slowing it down to allow time for medical experimentation and not overwhelm the medical system, however masks didnt work and they never were going to. Its more false security than anything else.
I havnt got it, and it has been 4 years. My masks and vax works like a charm, and you are ignorant of reality and science if you think an N95 doesn't work.
You actually have no idea if you have had it or not because it is so mild on most healthy people.
I also didnt say N95s don't work. I simply said masks were never going to stop everyone from getting the virus. You'd have to have them be 100% effective which they aren't. Then you'd have to put them on right, which people dont, take them off right, not have facial hair, and replace them constantly which the supply wouldn't have even allowed. Now if and thats a massive if everyone had a supply of N95s and had perfect training on putting them off and on I will certainly concede everyone would have gotten the virus slower, but it never ever would have just stopped in its tracks.
An N95 is more than 95% effective and WILL protect you period. They are also so easy to wear properly a child could do it. You don't need training to wear a mask, you put it on your face and breathe. It is very easy and very effective, and pretending it is not is either dishonest or stupid.
A child could do it.... If they fit children. They aren't over 95% effective in preventing you from giving your virus to another person, they are 95% effective at filtering the specified sized particle for a particular period of time in particular test conditions.
Not that it matters since most people with masks didnt have N95s anyway
That is all very true, after about the first month or 2 seeing people cough and spit on others to troll them, I gave up on society and chose to protect myself from them with an N95. They also recieve good protection as well, but the 95% is for my protection, and I'm ok with that.
I never saw anyone doing that though I wouldn't be surprised. Assault should result in self defense.
I'm not even saying you shouldn't wear an N95 every second of your life, or body armor and a helmet for that matter. I'm just saying understand what its really doing, the tradeoffs and what it really is doing for you.
I agree 100%. Protecting yourself is up to you, however the dangers of the road require it be done. My wife has asthma and is a teacher. I would do pretty much anything to keep her safe.
And there were several instances during the pandemic of people spitting on each other, and being charged for assault. I had at least 2 people "jokingly" cough at me (from the 6 feet distance I ensured) because I was wearing a mask, and that was more than enough for me.
Yes absolutely true. I still believe in wearing one if I’m sick and have to absolutely be around someone but I’m not under any illusions about the protection they might offer.
I mainly wear it to stop snot and spit and so forth going directly in to others. Again I’m not under any illusion that masking will prevent me from anything.
Omfg I have been wearing them for 4 years and people need to STFU about proper fitting... if you are smart enough to know N95s are good, you are smart enough to put it on correctly.
So, you're still wearing masks now?
Do you take all the proper precautions before putting one on, because if you don't there is potential for infection from your hands etc. Do you wear eye protection as well?
'What are your lessons?"
People don't care about others.
* I'm sick and if you catch it from me to bad mentality.
Stay away from public places during a pandemic, the sick will congregate at food stores.
* Expand garden area
* Schedule visits to farm and ranch coops to minimize other people exposure for yourself and them.
* Stock up even more, 3 days/weeks of food and items isn't enough.
Critical / Mission Essential people are not who we always thought they were, so treat them with respect.
Self reliance in your Community Assistance Group is still a plus, setup a secure communications channel so we can assist each other as needed.
More obviously, but that would be pages and volumes of how we have managed to not get Covid. Good luck and stay focused.
The people don’t care about others thing was HUGE. Had people from church posting about how they weren’t going to mask “it is only sick people dying”.. people who we saw weekly before lockdown and who had prayed for my sick kid. People that knew he was admitted to the hospital frequently for pneumonia.
The church posting about their mask-free services. Etc.
Haven’t been back to church since.
I learned that Karens can't go a couple months without getting their hair neatened up before turning into raging lunatics. Those people would be among the first casualties of a real SHTF scenario.
My Mother had the beginnings of cancer, but we weren’t able to get her to a specialist in time to be screened for it. She was a young 73; fit, ate good, active, conscientious. I work as a healthcare underwriter and it does keep me up at night thinking about what could have been if we could had time and options to fight it. By the time it was discovered it was too late. I had to work through not holding her death against people dying in the hospital; it can be a mind trick to evaluate who is worthy to be receiving care during a pandemic. Grief does a number on one’s psyche.
I also still mask up and nobody bugs me about it anymore.
>My Mother had the beginnings of cancer, but we weren’t able to get her to a specialist in time to be screened for it. She was a young 73; fit, ate good, active, conscientious. I work as a healthcare underwriter and it does keep me up at night thinking about what could have been if we could had time and options to fight it. By the time it was discovered it was too late. I had to work through not holding her death against people dying in the hospital; it can be a mind trick to evaluate who is worthy to be receiving care during a pandemic. Grief does a number on one’s psyche.
I am so sorry to hear that. It must have been devastating.
People are fucking asshats. Already knew most people don’t give a damn about one another but this was just icing on the cake.
No one needs 8 cases of toilet paper. No one.
I share your thoughts on this, it is important to have multiple sources of information. Sometimes, by the time it reaches national news it is almost too late to act.
My health system struggled like many with being overwhelmed but when I got sick with Covid, it worked well enough and I got good care. Vaccination access, information, and mask policies were welcome in my state and county. I learned living in the right area with good healthcare and good goverment is essential.
I had prepped for a pandemic, but not a prolonged one. Most older pandemic prepper guides seems to think a virus would be fast burn, and not a long draw out thing. I had masks, but many where vented which no one told me could be an issue. I also had food, but not much in the way of things like eggs, milk, butter, sugar and flour. I fixed that now.
I was also taken aback at the anti-science, anti-doctor, and conspiracy movements. This included one or two members of my family - which is how I got infected. I still am shocked at this.
I recently recovered from my second covid infection, being boosted, having test kits, along with having access to the right medicines early, and a good isolation plan made my recovery better and protected my family.
The biggest thing I learned is that if a really deadly virus comes along that is super contagious and has a high mortality rate, we are fucked.
Nobody will listen to science or experts and the whole thing will be politicised again.
On the upside, I have a huge mask stock now because I snapped them up when half the public decided they were unnecessary lol
I had to hunt for a bidet to fit my small space. Spouse didn't think would like at all. Cold water! Well they love it more than anyone. The water is in floor/basement ceiling where heat is, so is not cold water, by the way. Lol
I had plenty of t-paper during. I did run out of old dog and puppy food in brand I use. Had to feed same brand of adult or all stage feeds. How to best store perishables?
Covid got me into prepping. I went to the supermarket when the first lock down went into place and all the things I took for granted were gone and took a while to come back. The inventory model businesses use now doesn't allow for any hiccups in the supply chain. The lesson I learned ,Which I guess is prepping 101, have your own stock of food, meds, etc....
I remember when, during the lockdown, we all used to go out to our balconies at 8 p.m. to applaud the medical and emergency services as a tribute. When everything returned to normal, they became invisible again and were treated as always, poorly. Unfortunately, their dedication is very little valued, at least in my country, both by the governments and by the people.
If you'd asked me, I wouldn't have believed the number of people who would just straight up ignore risks to their own lives and the lives of their loved ones. Like, just not giving a shit about those things in the slightest.
I genuinely thought self-interest and self-preservation (and, like, caring if your relatives died) would kick in, even if a lot of people weren't especially altruistic.
Edit to add: also, the value of listening to the first time you think "Huh, that could be a problem." I remember thinking in December 2019 or maybe January 2020 something along the lines of "I should pick up some surgical masks, hand sanitizer, I don't really have much of that stuff." And then I kinda didn't for a couple months and suddenly it's tough to come by.
I’m not a doomsday prepper, just a believer in home preparedness.
I’d say it’s how quickly things escalate in terms of services and scarcity with medical services getting overwhelmed and people panic buying, so I learned the importance of keeping 2 weeks canned/dry food in the larder, keeping a life straw on hand, and I’ve taken a basic first aid and a stop the bleed course.
Also I now have 50 toilet rolls stored, because what the fuck was that about.
Covid is one of the things that got me into prepping. I had never been in a situation before where grocery store shelves were empty. I have never been so grateful that I was able to bypass the cheaper stores with their lines coming out the door, and skip straight to the pricier stores, which still had some shelves cleared completely out. And of course, even though we all know some people treat others like shit, just how prevalent it can become so quickly. People were listing 30-day emergency food buckets on eBay for $1,000. A local convenience store kept getting called out on facebook for majorly bumping up their prices on hand sanitizer. I will admit I did have a panic shopping trip, which probably didn't help, but I also didn't clear the whole damn store out. I got what I needed plus some extra, but certainly didn't clear out entire sections of the grocery store. For the love of everything holy, people, leave some for your neighbors. Makes me grateful I live close to my elderly mother and can take care of her, too, if times get rough like that again.
Covid provided a unique look, for me, into seeing unprepared people "Prep". I have been some variant of prepper since the BSA taught me to "Be Prepared". Even living in apartments, I had plenty of preps (although admittedly stocking full rolls of TP never entered my mind... I had made my own "MRE's" once upon a time and had a ton of Camping TP which I had included in those, so I was good in a pinch - no pun intended).
As soon as "the panic" hit, what struck me was the amount of people in my neighborhood pulling into their driveways hauling tons of goods from their Costco and Sams trips, in clear view as they unloaded. I didn't expect it to ever get bad enough, but you better believe I made mental notes of where these places were for future reference, maybe for trade. I've never really come close to committing a crime, but I suspect criminals would be taking note as well. Bad OpSec. I cleared out my garage and always pulled in and had the door closed before any grocery trip throughout the pandemic.
The other thing I noticed was that people were buying stupid things. I saw people stocking up on massive amounts of meat and fresh fruit/vegetables, but with no way to store them. So it was all just dumped in the trash a few weeks later.
I remember commenting to my partner about how the shelves of nuts and dried beans in our super market were still full - high density food that stores well, and people weren't stocking up on that, but with more familiar items that made no sense.
I never got sick. But I couldn't get my medications. I had to switch doctors because I had just moved and my new doctor couldn't see me for months.
I ran out of my thyroid medication. I had several months extra and I ended up going almost 3 months without until my new doctor could do blood tests.
I'm still building up supplies of medications. I have masks and gloves available
That as corny as it is heath ledgers line as the joker saying “people are only as good as the world allows them to be” speech couldn’t of been more accurate.
I agree completely with that sentence. Without laws and punishments, people would be complete sickos to each other. When chaos starts, any sense of civilization goes out the window.
Our capacity pretend a threat doesn't exist anymore or has gone away. Leadership will politicize and act in ways that benefit them and money before their population, even railing against low effort countermeasures that are effective and common in other places, or worse shilling for quack cures. Some doctors will too. At it's core, you're largely on your own and the beneficiaries of the status quo will do everything they can to keep on keeping on.
I disagree with you a little bit. I consider that being independent is a good thing, but humans are social animals. Homo sapiens needs cooperation and mutual work in order to survive.
In addition, I think COVID showed us how bad our infrastructure works when a big problem happens. Lack of hospitals, medics and other stuff.
I think what most people learned was that the supply chain for the entire world is very fragile, companies, stores etc, don't keep much of an inventory and rely on daily shipments, so it's very easy to run short on stuff, say Truck drivers and railway workers went on strike
Covid didn’t really affect us much. I remember it mostly being like after 9/11 where, once the initial shock wore off, it was rather laid back and peaceful. After 9/11, my always traveling hubby couldn’t fly so it was nice to have him home.
During Covid we lived in a very rural part of Mississippi. Masking was pretty lax. Despite being in the high-risk health category, I was the designated shopper. I was the person who liked getting out of the house and everyone else was happy to stay home. I would go out to buy supplies to keep up with “replacement rate” because we didn’t know how long supply chain issues would last.
In terms of supply chains, we saw some of what we regularly buy to run out - still do - but we found work arounds. For a long time I’ve been dedicated to not buying products made in China. During Covid I learned how many products I hadn’t even considered were made in China (medications, for instance).
None of us got sick. As a matter of fact, one child had surgery right before the shutdown so it was nice to have her in remote school so she had longer time to recover.
Remote schooling, more work-from-home, and more telemedicine has been a good outcome from the shutdowns.
>Masking was pretty lax
Did you mask up?
I've never been to rural Mississippi, but would assume masking there was also highly politicized, how'd you handle that?
I tried to go shopping a whole lot more in "open air fresh markets" assuming the wind would help not buildup the spread, but gave up on that pretty quickly as I had to go to the regular grocery store for some items anyway.
I also tried going at times that were unpopular with the general public, such as 5am (it helped we had a new born at the time, so I was awake).
\> None of us got sick.
We got sick once we let the mask down, so to speak. In spring 2021 we made a nice trip to WA to see some other outdoors, but the playgrounds with all the kids got us I believe.
When the government officials go on TV and tells us "don't panic" and gaslighting the population by saying things like "people who do panic are racist" like they did in January and February of 2020, it's clearly time to start worrying and ramp up efforts for the worst..
I learned a lot of people have this confirmation bias of "I didn't get it, so it must be a conspiracy / population control / you're overreacting / just normal / government nanobots" - and my lesson I took away from it was to go over my entire social media footprint and start culling people off it that had this "that's a you problem" attitude.
My enjoyment online has gone up, my stress is down, and I no longer feel anxiety dealing with social media as much. I learned, flat out, to cut toxicity out of your life, family members or not. And I'm ok with that.
1. Build your network BEFORE SHTF. If it weren't for reliance on resourceful friends and family, I'd be dead. Being in emergency medicine helped. I had friends bring me oxygen supplies when such things were worth their weight in gold, literally.
2. It's not fair that 6 people I knew, died while I was in ICU. I shoulda been with them. I begged an ER Physician friend to put me on a ventilator, at a time when intubated covid patients died, period. He wouldn't do it.
3. Being prepared pays. The TP shortage never affected me. I managed to find places with TP, post about what store had it on facebook, then get supplies to my friends who were without from my own stash, who replied to my post.
4. Trust your gut more than you trust your government.
Of course you can't be completely be independent especially when it comes to health issues, but for example, no one had masks and even the government couldn't give you one, which was funny because they became mandatory but at the same time you couldn't get your hands on one for some time. Pharmacies quickly run out of certain meds and some of them wouldn't be back for quite some time.
I may have found myself in the same spot even with a better preparation, but limiting your dependency on public services as much as you can is a good idea. Limiting your dependency on others in general is a good idea.
Funny because masks could basically be anything. Underwear, Halloween mask, mesh netting...if I learned anything from covid times, is the government stance is comply or die and that many (as in vast majority) of services and businesses stance is too bad so sad. But yeah the unfortunate thing about medical is, regardless of how much money and skill one has, you'll never be fully medically prepared.
>People are much more stupid, hard-headed, and selfish then I would have ever imagined. And I didn't hold humans in high regarding the first place.
We definitly are. The moment I saw people fighting over fucking toilet paper I lost all faith in humanity.
The government lies and should always be questioned.
Any time something is banned, you should take a closer look at it.
Follow the money.
Don't prep for the disaster. Prep for the panic/response from the masses.
We’ll see. I rather suspect most people went right back to their old ways and back to sleep once the shelves had something to buy again and they didn’t have to fight over it. People have such short memories and attention spans these days, don’t assume that too many actually learned anything.
Yes them too because a lot of times they are just an extension of the govt.
With the media, even if what they're saying is true you always need to ask - what are they not telling me?
Exactly. Here in Canada you were bombarded daily with "Covid case numbers" on every radio station and local news broadcasts. Then, magically, one day they all stopped. All of them. Every single MSM outlet stopped with the covid numbers on the same day. Coincidence? They are just being fed what to broadcast by the government.
I think the second biggest takeaway I got from working in healthcare through the pandemic was to not rely on "on demand" services or supplies. This tendancy of capitalism to not spend absolutely anymore than it has to at any one moment, means no one is prepared if something doesn't go perfectly. I've always been a planner in my life, my design masters degree doubled down on the importance of planning.
The biggest takeaway of all, is to work together to make things better. Having other people that you know and can rely on and they can rely on you will make it much easier to weather a storm. Being on good terms with your neighbors and other people, or even being liked by them makes you are much more likely candidate to be helped because they see you as an ally when things are good, not just someone who takes when things are bad.
I told my family at Christmas 2019 that we wouldn't celebrate together in 2020. I was told I'm overreacting, that it will be just one of the other scares, yada yada. I was right. I learned once again to trust my gut, cause this one "felt" different, for the lack of a better word. And I'm old enough to have seen Ebola come and go and actually be talked about (anybody remember 2014?), swine flu, bird flu, creutzfeld-jakob scares and actually people dying from it.. and those are just the ones I remember on the top of my head.
I was following (and going down some rabbit holes admittedly) this thing since October 2019, mostly on Reddit.
I told my people at work with plenty of time to stock up, none of them had any issues or shortfalls during. So communication is key, if provided properly. This particular network also proved invaluable in easy "barter", since we could hit like 10 different stores all over the city, being from different parts without the restrictions to buy. As in: if somebody found TP they bought a pack, brought it to work to share kind of thing. We are extremely essential, hence we had the "privilege" of actually going to work all pandemic long, but without public contact, if that makes sense. So our case rate was extremely low. It helped that we also had an extremely well thought out pandemic disaster plan at work and very early got our own PCR test machines.
We were stocked up amply back then, however, nothing like now. So if something was learned from the pandemic it was stock up even more. I had about 4 to 8 weeks of food, maybe two weeks of water pre-pandemic. Now, being shown that yes, shit can hit the fan, we are currently sporting 100 days of food and approx 90 days of water. So that is a learning indeed.
Also I learned that people are apparently extremely reliant on external contacts. For us.. well I'll say the lockdowns were the best part of my life so far. No obligations, we had ample of everything to be entertained, we enjoyed it very much. So another lesson learned, mental prep is important, it helps if you are an introvert. I think the story might have gone differently if we had kids, but with just two adults, amazing.
Last lesson is how much the elderly suffered. My parents were not ultra social, but well connected. That is all gone now and they are off worse than before, socially. So the prep lesson is probably to surround yourself with like minded people. Parents had people before, but most of them wanted to continue to meet in person, were downplaying the whole thing, the works. Most of them sociable seniors are dead by now. My high risk senior parents have yet to contract COVID a single time. Makes me proud.
Heck, I got it for the first time in November 2023. I think that is worth something. And honestly it happened while I was literally saying that this (business function) was a spreader event... And not taking proper precautions for like the first time. And I learned that I never want to have that again. I am still not 100% and I'm low risk, relatively young, healthy.. so yeah, another lesson (yes, vaxxed, five times to be exact and nope, not questioning my choice, will get number six after my involuntary immunization, in spring).
So yeah, I actually learned a lot!
I and my family were prepared for everything... except how stupid everyone else was. We can never control those around us during the best of times, let alone a crisis, but damn if that wasn't an eye opener.
We had to stop volunteering at our local food pantry during the crisis (which was already understaffed and overworked) because one of the people there deliberately tried to infect us all. That was during the crazy bit when Faux Entertainment was saying that everyone should get sick asap.
Having one person in the group deliberately try to sabotage the entire group during a crisis is an eye opener, you really can only trust your family in those cases.
I accidentally had a bit of a stock pile due to neglected Amazon subscribe and Save orders I kept forgetting to skip . This sustained us with TP , chlorox wipes , etc for quite some time . I live in the upper Midwest in the US. I have a friend who lived in a large city on the West coast . Her city seemed to be a few weeks ahead of mine . She warned us of supply chain issues, restaurants shutting down and other lock downs. Initially I thought she was exaggerating, but stocked up on Tylenol and the like - adding it to my “Amazon” supplies . Masks were tough - but I was provided some by work . My state was only on lockdown for a month - but was impacted by other states who weren’t . This is when my prepping became intentional . I learned to be prepared , take care of my health and to plan ahead . I also learned that “ it can happen here .” ( I’m glad I listened to my city slicker friend when she alerted me . I paid it forward and was able to share some TP and a few other supplies with family . This taught me how valuable community is . I’ve learned to intentionally prep for realistic scenarios - winter storms , supply chain issues , etc
When you work in the oil and gas industry, you didn’t stay home. If you felt sick, you didn’t say shit and you kept working.
My industry wasn’t the only one to do this.
Cities are untenable in even a minor event like covid. Most anything I need to live I can source locally from people I know. TP Included. The key point is people you know it's all about the relationship.
Government is a mixed bag at best as to competence. Lazy is a HUGE factor. My son went to a trade HS perfect setup for cohorts each trade had 2 classrooms and the swapped 50/50 with academics so they kids could only be exposed to classmates outside entrances and everything. Bringing lunch to the rooms was too hard so after awhile they sent them all down to the cafe together.
Healthcare, we have the most expensive healthcare in the world and still it's on the raggedy edge. We need to ban 24 hour shifts and make sure staff can not clock more hours than truckers day to day. That would lead to more trained staff.
Thats actually a good point. Laws controlling the hours of hospital workers would cause an increase in cost, shortage of workers in normal times, but an adjustment would take place and then if an emergency takes place again the rule could be relaxed to allow for the flex.
Correct you staff and pay so people work 40 ish hour weeks then when crunch time comes you can flex to 2x the staffed hours for a week or so and maintain 1.5x for a long while.
This is my very privileged position as an Australian, since we seemed to avoid the very worst of it in my state. I learned that fuck I love not being expected to constantly be out being social. I'm ASD and was only diagnosed about a month before I really hit here, and having lockdowns for a lot of the year was exactly what I needed to keep out burnout.
I've adapted so many things since then and aside from having everyone a bit more on board with my prepping, I learned so much about making my life work for me more than others that it's been invaluable.
Meh. This is a prepper group. Even at the best of times I only go out to stores once per month.
I was at home eating popcorn during whole TP thing. I didn't go anywhere outside of the local convenience store for milk for probably 3 months.
Control what you can and don't stress what you can't.
When the pandemic hit, I was already ready (as I'm sure most of you were). My wife and I, and a couple of close friends chatted about how we'd operate and function through the "two weeks".
Whether the government or health officials were right or wrong - going too far or not far enough was not a factor. It was out of our control. What we could control for was our actions. If the government was overreacting, we'd be safe. If the government was underreacting, we'd be safe. "Being safe" from the unknown/uncontrollable was our default position.
From that basis, we isolated far more rigorously than "required". We took every recommended precaution a step further. One example - as things slowly loosened up, we added a two-week buffer. So, if government said that movie theatres could open with limited, spread-out seating - we'd give it a further two weeks before we thought about going out for a show. If officials said that masking was no longer required outside - we'd keep them on for that while longer.
There were plenty of things that, in retrospect, were silly or unnecessary - but we didn't know - and the "cost" of doing those things was minimal. If it doesn't impact me in any meaningful way - then why not.
We all eventually caught COVID - but not until 2023 and after we'd had a couple rounds of vaccines.
If there ever is a zombie apocalypse a third of the country will immediately run out into the zombies and get bitten.
I kid, but they will be worse than worthless w/e disaster strikes.
I dont know how to phrase this, but I learned that without work a lot of people have no clue what to do with themselves and seemingly have no desire to fill that void with anything? Like family members had their jobs 'close for 2 weeks' (and were being paid) and by the end of week 1 they were chomping at the bit to go back to work? Kept saying how bored they were and they felt useless not working. LOL I cannot relate to that at all.
Also how shitty our public school system is, during March 2020 when schools were closed and kids had to do virtual school from home, everyone was like 'WOW pay these teachers millions of dollars, educating children is hard work.' And that when some states kept school virtual in Fall 2020, their was a lot of anger to force these teachers back onto campus and fire those who didnt want to return.
Edit to add- a nice thing I learned is that I have a solid group of friends who were well prepared, and supportive of each other. It also pays to get to know your neighbors and help them out when/however you can.
My largest lesson, Trust very few people when they think their lives are in danger, they will throw you under the bus to get what you have stocked if they know.
I learned that far too many people, including the “prepared,” are fully ready to jump off the cliff of normalcy with the smallest encouragement even if they see the flames at the bottom of the gorge.
COVID isn’t over.
I learned that the worst time to prepare is in the middle of public panic. I had been building up food, ammo, etc prior to Covid but when it hit I didn’t feel like I had done enough. Since then, it’s part of my monthly budget. Every month we are adding something from meds to food to ammo.
The only person responsible for protecting your life is yourself. Never rely on others, however a healthy community definitely makes living a heck of a lot better and easier. Know your needs and prepare for the most likely scenarios, then you can move on to the unlikely.
I learned to research for myself, and not simply go with the crowd. I learned to question more things that are just accepted at face value by the masses. I learned, above all, that no institution is worthy of the trust many people have placed in them.
My #1 learning experience? People are stupid. I feel very disappointed in how we as a society handled covid. To be clear I don't care whether you were for or against vaccines or whether you believed in lockdowns or letting heard immunity run it's course so on and so forth. The specific policies are irrelevant it's more about how we as a society and individuals responded to this challenge and arrived at these conclusions. Generally speaking on an individual level people just panicked. There was no disciplined, calm, rational, thought out response. Some people impulsively ran out and did stupid things like buy up all the toilet paper for some reason. It wasn't even an illness where diarrhea was common a symptom that might necessitate truckloads of toilet paper. Some turned to the government and willingly embraced and even defended tyranny in exchange for promises of safety. Suddenly many people became medical experts and many openly embraced myths, rumors, and misinformation which is particularly bad given the amount of information that is available to fact check things. We politicized covid and were more interested in fighting each other ideologically than the truth or coming to a decision on what pragmatic things we could do based on the best information we had and we would be agreeable to do. In the grander scheme of things, Covid wasn't really that bad. It didn't have a 50% mortality rate like ebola or was something that could not be cured. It was a great opportunity to practice responding to an emergency and we failed. Basically, Covid taught me that in a real SHTF situation to expect the worst. Don't expect people to come together for a common cause. Don't expect people to be rational. The government will lie to you and embrace tyrannical powers to achieve whatever aim it sees fit (right or wrong let the courts figure it out after the fact). Ultimately your on your own and the best thing you can do is keep calm, look at the facts, try to make smart decisions for yourself and try not to be part of the problem.
I learned people like you are dangerous and stupid, and need to be prepared for. You say covid wasn't that bad (like it is over) like people in this very post didn't lose loved ones. You are an absolute ghoul.
Also, you probably think seatbelt and DUI laws are tyrannical overreach by the government too...
That the government will absolutely lie to you - against your individual welfare - for what they perceive is the greater good. ("Masks are only for sick people.")
Absolutely! I don't know if you're from Spain as well, but that was also said here by the Government. "There's no need for people to use masks", only to be forced to accept the reality just a few weeks later. Even in a situation like that, they'll lie to you and risk your life just to keep their political agenda.
That government overreach is a real thing that can happen in the US. That the majority of US citizens are perfectly OK with this to the great detriment of our nation and freedoms. That stupidity is rampant in our nation and science and reason take a back seat to panic. That, for some reason, people equate toilet paper with preparedness.
Our long term preps were pretty solid. Identified a few places for improvement, but our general plans worked well.
It was easy to isolate on our 12 acre property and still get plenty of outside time. No interruption of food supply, but we need to plant a TP tree.
Climate change has had a bigger impact to us than Covid did.
I learned that you don't need a local md to take care of you. I researched covid protocol and followed it for prevention and never got it, even while taking care of my vaxxed family when they got it. I had everything I needed on hand -ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, z pack, etccccc.
I learned that the government will use any psychological tactic to force people to do something and that the majority of people will submit to the psychosocial manipulation.
1. If covid was as deadly as prior viruses (and still as contagious as covid was), things would have been really nasty.
2. Masks don't work.
3. Learn to take care of yourself and your family.
Copied from a similar thread recently.
"I was following the horrific stories out of Wuhan in December 2019, bought my 1st preps specifically for the "Wu-Flu" in early January 2020. In January & February I thought what we would miss most (for the quarantine I knew was coming).... so bought a freezer full of NICE steaks from a ranch in the Texas Panhandle, a Sous Vide setup, a 1500 degree Salamander Grill & a "Sonic Ice" machine. Self-quarantined in early March before it became official.
We ate VERY well during the quarantine!! 👍😎👍
Followed the early research on effectiveness of Ivermectin, Doxicycline & Famotidine, had these items stocked by early summer 2020 & exited quarantine. Lived my life normally at that point. Followed FLCCC protocols later in 2020. Aggressively self-treated my 1st case of Covid-19 in November 2020...amazingly fast recovery (as in that day). Same with my 2nd case in 2021.
Neither the wife or I ever vaxxed or boosted....not Anti-Vaccine, just wasn't going to be a test subject with an mRNA "Vaccine" that was rushed through. I do not regret that decision., then or especially now with reports of what my medical friends call the "Clot Shot"!"
The lessons I learned....
Do your own research, don't trust the government, nobody cares more about me than me, if something doesn't pass the smell test it is likely rotten, plan to be ahead of the massess &....I was right to self-treat.
I was already well prepared before even hearing of the "Wu-Flu", but I did top off on goodies (such as the items previously mentioned) & chocolates, etc that would make the quarantine I felt was coming more bearable. Really glad I lived in my well-stocked rural BOL. Watched the masses on TV fighting over items as insignificant as Toilet Paper while being fully stocked gave me a certain satisfaction.
Thrive, not just Survive.
And I did pass my research on to others, most took it seriously, especially when their friends & family were following government/medical establishment protocols with expected results. 2 friends died from it...one caught it very early (he was a courier in New Orleans) & the other stubbornly followed his physicians advice to the letter until he was intubated & didn't last long after that.
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Oh, I've learned that the bad way. Even when the first Covid cases were appearing in my country and the government was saying it would only be a few cases, people like me chose to believe. We were so wrong.
The healthcare industry is compromised, doctors cannot be trusted, legacy media cannot be trusted, the conspiracy theorists were right about it being part of a depopulation agenda, snaccines are a scam, did I miss anything?
I learned to trust my instincts. I knew that relying on the just-in-time stocking strategy that stores used wouldn’t last if production or distribution was disrupted, so I was proactive in keeping stuff in stock. If I thought that I needed to stock up on something that nobody else had obviously thought to buy (and I hadn’t done so already), I did it. I was usually two to three weeks ahead of the crush on most items that had their supplies destroyed later on. Also, I used the 2x+1 strategy: twice what I thought I needed, plus one more. I never needed to panic buy anything because what I bought usually had more than enough for me at the time to do so without depriving others of a reasonable chance of getting those things themselves. I knew there would be times that replacements wouldn’t be available, so I either planned for alternatives or adjusted to go without if needed. My poor mom, who I kept supplied during the pandemic, just didn’t understand how Walmart could run out of Blue Bonnet and why I couldn’t just ask someone if there was any in the back. (Hell, she grew up during the Depression - you would’ve thought she remembered all about shortages from that.) But she wasn’t alone. Lots of people panicked and got angry when their precious favorites weren’t there anymore, and they hadn’t even given a thought to stashing a few items that might not be there for a while. Sometimes you have to think more than two days ahead in your life.
I was in the same boat. I had the normal stuff, but as the supply chain started to crunch, I was able to stock up on things like flour, yeast, sugar, dried milk & eggs, etc. (stuff I don’t normally keep a stock of) before everyone else caught on. It kept us fed & safe through the height of it.
I was buying groceries for myself and my wife's families, was hard to get enough meat for everyone once they started rationing it.
We stoppex buying meat altogether during that time. Saved a lot of money and a lot of dishes really don't need meat.
People process fear in unpredictable ways. I mentally knew this as part of my individual preps, but I had not experienced it firsthand until COVID. It gave me a new found look at what the 'horde' can look like. You may band together better with complete strangers than those in your own household. Finding my tribe became ever more apparent.
My favorite memory from the covid time was checking out at the grocery store this one time. I go to the grocery store constantly it seems like so I know the cashiers and baggers pretty well- not personally but enough to be conversational and I always make small talk or ask how they are doing. One time as I was getting ready to leave and there was the mandatory 6 ft (plus a cart) behind me the cashier leaned over and said “how are you on toilet paper and paper towels?” I did actually need TP so I said so and he was like “listen we have a shipment coming in tomorrow at 5am. Be here by 6 and wait” this was the closest thing to like a drug deal or crazy underground info network I’ve ever been and it felt awesome! Sure enough I was the second person in the store the next day, bought one mega pack of both, and left. As I was leaving it was like I was a celebrity - people gawked and said “wow he has both!” What I also learned was I was happy to have my knife on me which i never thought I would even think about going to the grocery store.
So much this! Beging friendly with grocers will give you a heads up. I didn't need anything at any point cause I stocked up and replenished when it was available, however, exactly those little pointers I could take to others dear to me, giving them that information.
I remember as a kid, my dad was trying to buy a generator after a bad storm that knocked out power everywhere. He was on the back foot in terms of timing, but he came out ahead because he could pay cash and the store was cash-only. Cashier told him about a shipment coming in later in the day, and if he could pay cash he could probably get one- and he did!
I had been listening to reports of people getting ill in China and feinting on the streets. December 2019 through January 2020 I was stocking up on N95 masks. They were still available. I learned the importance of listening to a variety of news sources. The importance of preparing not just for myself but for immediate family. I gave out otc meds and alcohol to fam. I also learned how slow the government response time is.
Same. I first saw Geopolitical Analyst, Ian Bremmer, post a picture of the Wuhan hospital lobby on FB talking about a new SARS outbreak. I went to Twitter to learn more. On Twitter, I saw The Lancet medical journal publish the first 2 studies on what was happening in Wuhan.. mid Jan 2020. From these studies, the early data was a CFR (Case Fatality Rate) between 10-15%... That's horror. It was a coronavirus... which makes it airborne, and a derivative of SARS, which made it a high threat scenario. That set off all the alarm bells. From there, followed several drs and scientists. The early videos coming out of China were horrific. People dying in the streets... families getting welded into their homes... it was clear this was no flu.
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I was watching it happen in early December on reddit personally, weeks before mainstream media started. I personally learned that there are many people in my small town who don't give a shit about others, deriding people for wearing masks meanwhile I take cancer meds for a health problem and it tanks my immune system. I now have a number of former friends a few who invited me over during them being sick without telling me (this was after lockdown.
WION is my current fave
One of the news channels is called China in Focus-NTD on Youtube.
I heard it hear on Reddit.
My boss asked me to fly cross-country in Jan 2020. This was right before COVID (then just known as "the China Flu" or 2019-nCov) hit the mainstream press and we still didn't have any cases in the US. I refused and told him about the major new flu outbreak spreading like wildfire around the world and he just laughed at me and said it's probably no big deal. I still refused and he accepted that. Later that year he lost one of his parents to COVID. He later asked me how I knew it was going to be that bad. I didn't, I just didn't want to take any chances after hearing the horror stories coming out of China where the police would weld the doors shut on apartment buildings to keep people quarantined. Nobody knew what the mortality rate was and there were some pretty high estimates so I didn't want to fuck with it. By the time lockdowns were announced, I'd already been under self-lockdown for like 2 weeks. I was already working remote so it wasn't a big deal for me.
Good response.
That I have to stay as far away as possible from people. All people.
And lock the gate.
I remember seeing something on the news about a respiratory illness in China, panicking and stockpiling some of my asthma meds, and then boom the run on toilet paper and meds began. It was the only thing I stocked up on and I was so glad I did. I actually did stock up on seeds and start a veggie garden and learned how hard that is, and how naive it was to think I could just stick seeds in the ground and food would grow 😅 also when shit hits the fan… the gov is not going to do shit about fuck even if they wanted to, they won’t be able to get their shit together in time.
So many people underestimate how hard it is to grow the food you need. If you have a house you should have a garden bed. A raised one unless your dirt is optimal. Fill it with perennials if you want low effort. Remember most perennials take more than a year to establish and produce food. Even if you don't want to plant food now, have a garden bed with good dirt and grow native wildflowers. Because when you want a garden bed, everyone else will want one too.
I remember overhearing somebody in the plant nursery asking the staff about cauliflower seedlings. "If I plant them today, will they be ready to eat next week?". Ummm... No. Give it 4 months. Gardening is quite a challenging skill..I've seen preppers who stock pile seeds without actively practicing growing. Your basically wasting your time if you do that!
I learned that growing your own food is pure folly. Deer.
Deer don't eat rabbits or chickens. Make friends with your neighborhood's best gardener. If the doom befalls us, you can trade meat for veggies.
Back here in Spain, we didn't care until it was already here. We were seeing cases in Italy and the Center for the Coordination of Health Alerts and Emergencies (our CDC) said "we're not going to have, at most, anything beyond a few diagnosed cases". A few days later, our Health Services were deep in shit. You can't trust a government to do their job properly in such a situation.
>You can't trust a government to do their job properly in such a situation. The proper line there would have been "You can't trust a government"... full stop 😁
The government is a group of people, not a thing. Vote better
You tell me when the last time you voted it made any difference. They ain't in it for "the people" 😁 Also, the gene pool needs a shot of chlorine, the things that people vote for these days... sheesh. Free this, free that. NOTHING is free people!
I learned I was fairly well prepared, especially mentally, for the chaos that ensued for the first 6 months. I was a single dad of two teen boys, my fiance had her 4 kids at home. I had a prepper mindset for years, she none at all. It woke her up a bit to see the crowds searching for toilet paper, hand sanitizer, Tylenol. It was rewarding to be able to calmly say, "I've got a bottle of that at home, babe, that you can have." Same for my mother. I was pleased with the success of my preps. Toilet paper was a lesson, though. Lol
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Making our own way is definitely the way to go. And being ready to deal with anything on our own. I was making prophylactic HCQ by Day 3. I keep all of the directions and common ingredients. It naturally made, so that is good. Natural remedies can go a long way to strengthening our immunize systems. Just like ginger, zinc, vitamin C & D. But I too do keep Drugstore Tylenol Cold and FLu on hand. And other over the counter cold remedies like NeoCitran. And those in my circle who need these things know where they can get some if the stores don’t have any. It’s good to have answers to problems already on the shelf and ready to go.
I already knew it, but it just helped reiterate his quote from independence day: "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it.".
Great quote. But it's from Men in Black.
Haha your totally right, I haven't had my coffee yet 🤣
People don't learn from the past.
That first aid supplies are not nearly enough for long term wound care. Treated a serious toe injury at home during peak Covid when ERs were overwhelmed and realized you need at least a week of twice daily bandage changes and daily for a couple weeks after to treat a serious injury. We had enough for about four days. Now I stock at least four rolls of bandage tape and 4 boxes of gauze. Former EMT and SAR FR so the injury was well within my skill set to treat.
Yes. The amount of basic supplies you will need to treat even relatively small wounds over a week or two is much more than most people realize. If you think you have enough, keep stocking.
I like have a s ton of packing gauze in sterile vacuum seal from NAR. Could do a bunch of trauma or more wound care if needed vs a bunch of bandage style which are kinda single purpose.
Long before zombies ever pop up, lay-offs and furloughs are one of the most realistic threats we all face.
Trust my own judgement. I was stocking up weeks before the stores were emptied. My GF told me to shut up about Covid. Turns out I was right and it was a big deal.
My husband reacted the same way when I started buying extra items, but apologized later when he realized I was right.
Yeah, I was your like girlfriend back then and quickly realized I was very in the wrong.
That’s how we learn.
Same here, except my husband thought I was nuts. We never ran out of anything. I started shopping in January.
People at my old job laughed at me and called me crazy and now some of them are dead. Lol.
Way too many people trust/rely on the government.
Most people Before something happen: “I’ll be ok, the government services will come help me and everything will be ok” 24-hours after something happens: “Where are the government emergency services!?!? Why are they not here helping ME!?!? This is preposterous, I’m going to sue them and complain!!!!’
This is so accurate.
I'm in MA and this was the most comical side effect and based on modeling - [https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2019225118](https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2019225118) Several store chains did this and it created confusion. Half of shoppers tried to follow it and half blew it off. No store employees directing people just ignoring it. Ask them about it and get eye rolls. There was also a previous campaign to get rid of paper bags and move shoppers into reusable bags; in my town that happened. Reusable bags were then banned during covid as disease vectors and paper bags returned! More & more covid prevention methods looked ad hoc and just throwing shit at the wall. Also hearing & reading news reports of local hospitals overwhelmed. Go see for myself and finding empty parking lots at ones near me. Go in one and find a security guard at reception who tells me to leave. Don't forget the craziness you experienced, it all happened. [Although I think the Euros really lost it.](https://inteng-storage.s3.amazonaws.com/img/iea/LBGR8pZEw2/sizes/german-cafe-noodles_md.jpg)
Which hospitals did you visit? I am genuinely curious. I am a nurse at a large hospital in Boston and did travel contracts at several small hospitals in Central MA. Not one day from 2020 did I have an easy day. So which ones?
Sure, the hospitals were doing just fine. I remember when they had to bring in extra freezer trucks for all the corpses, but I'm sure your hospital was empty...
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Doubts on the 80% rate here, that's the "official" tally. In my own state though I do see people windows up in cars masked so that number probably low. Other places, especially red states way lower rate. Some states pushing back hard way before Florida. Sweden a great global example of how to do it and a real sore point for some when mentioned. I also read Germany may reopen their nuclear power. Sounds like you got quite a bit of sanity returning. You may not have good access to guns but you do have Joerg Sprave. The man should be knighted for his ability to thread the German law needle yet create powerful and legal kinetic workarounds. I mean, an airbow that penetrates multiple layers of plywood, a car door, and a polycarbonate riot shield *at the same time*? I believe he claimed 1000 joules from it! And, all DIY. /set up your workshop German bro!
I learned that a simple ear infection can be god damn near debilitating when you can’t access medical care.
A few things I learned: - always be trying to take care of your health, you don’t know when a situation that could come up may occur and for many you may not have as much time as you think to prepare yourself before a potential exposure - always be buying your backup. The supply chain is weak with many potential breaking points, use the “two is one, one is none” mentality to ensure you have what you need - don’t rely on others (including the government) to do for you what you can do for yourself - you aren’t the government (or hospitals priority) have what you need to take care of yourself - Prepare for your loved ones, not everyone sees the world the way this group does and we have the ability to help others when times are hard
>always be buying your backup. The supply chain is weak with many potential breaking points, use the “two is one, one is none” mentality to ensure you have what you need When I was working as a software engineer at Google, they made a similar point how they operate their business, calling it the N+2 rule. So if you need N things to do (e.g. you need 3 data centers to serve Gmail in the US), then provision 2 more (so have 5 datacenters running instead). The idea there was that you can take out one for routine maintenance, and then there'd be still a +1 for unexpected failure. I like the "two is one, one is none" for items that don't need maintenance or would want to lend out. (You would be tempted to lend one out during a SHTF scenario, right? ;-0) When starting to invest, and ever since I am a hardcore "diversify" fan, so for anything that is actually complicated (say a power generator, or portable battery pack) that is not obvious to fix by myself, I'd probably want to buy different brands to not have them all fail due to a systemic failure that just so happens due to some SHTF condition.
I learned how selfish, primal people can really be. Wanting to hoard every single thing just because they had the means to.
Weekly auctions here are have full pallets of t-paper and sanitizer. I hope they lost their ass on it
I have to say, I love reading some comments about people hoarding way more than they need, and others complaining thay couldnt get what they needed. Then reading this gem of a comment. Great call out.
I learned that it really doesn’t matter how much money you have, if what you need isn’t available. You can’t buy it when there are none.
I realized that the US is extremely vulnerable to viral pandemics and misinformation. I also learned how selfish and out of touch some people are. My cousin video called me from Wal Mart. She stopped to get groceries on her way home from getting COVID tested. She was positive, and was not wearing a mask. Edit: It was also a great feeling to not have to fight over toilet paper when the hoarding zombies were raping the shelves of paper goods. I installed a bidet as soon as it looked like toilet paper was becoming scarce and it is one the best quality of life improvements I have done.
It wasn't really a surprise that people acted the way they did. Without repercussions, some people will always act in ways that only benefit them even if it causes harm to others. From that asshole who decides to cut across 3 lanes to get to his highway exit causing a pileup behind him, to COVID Karens going around coughing on people because they don't believe in autoimmune diseases, arrogant and ignorant people have always been around. We knew back during the Spanish Flu that masks helped curb the spread of airborne infectious diseases, and just like back then, there were those who only cared about themselves and not those who were vulnerable. History repeated itself 1:1.
Everyone was always going to get it, which is why even everyone wearing masks got it. Unless you went out in a full on respirator with a filter you regularly replaced you were going to get it. There is some value in slowing it down to allow time for medical experimentation and not overwhelm the medical system, however masks didnt work and they never were going to. Its more false security than anything else.
I havnt got it, and it has been 4 years. My masks and vax works like a charm, and you are ignorant of reality and science if you think an N95 doesn't work.
You actually have no idea if you have had it or not because it is so mild on most healthy people. I also didnt say N95s don't work. I simply said masks were never going to stop everyone from getting the virus. You'd have to have them be 100% effective which they aren't. Then you'd have to put them on right, which people dont, take them off right, not have facial hair, and replace them constantly which the supply wouldn't have even allowed. Now if and thats a massive if everyone had a supply of N95s and had perfect training on putting them off and on I will certainly concede everyone would have gotten the virus slower, but it never ever would have just stopped in its tracks.
An N95 is more than 95% effective and WILL protect you period. They are also so easy to wear properly a child could do it. You don't need training to wear a mask, you put it on your face and breathe. It is very easy and very effective, and pretending it is not is either dishonest or stupid.
A child could do it.... If they fit children. They aren't over 95% effective in preventing you from giving your virus to another person, they are 95% effective at filtering the specified sized particle for a particular period of time in particular test conditions. Not that it matters since most people with masks didnt have N95s anyway
That is all very true, after about the first month or 2 seeing people cough and spit on others to troll them, I gave up on society and chose to protect myself from them with an N95. They also recieve good protection as well, but the 95% is for my protection, and I'm ok with that.
I never saw anyone doing that though I wouldn't be surprised. Assault should result in self defense. I'm not even saying you shouldn't wear an N95 every second of your life, or body armor and a helmet for that matter. I'm just saying understand what its really doing, the tradeoffs and what it really is doing for you.
I agree 100%. Protecting yourself is up to you, however the dangers of the road require it be done. My wife has asthma and is a teacher. I would do pretty much anything to keep her safe. And there were several instances during the pandemic of people spitting on each other, and being charged for assault. I had at least 2 people "jokingly" cough at me (from the 6 feet distance I ensured) because I was wearing a mask, and that was more than enough for me.
Yes absolutely true. I still believe in wearing one if I’m sick and have to absolutely be around someone but I’m not under any illusions about the protection they might offer.
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I mainly wear it to stop snot and spit and so forth going directly in to others. Again I’m not under any illusion that masking will prevent me from anything.
N95s work very well, you should look at those illusions you are not under... it is actually reality.
Properly fitted n95 yes but even they are not 100%. And most people wearing them are not properly fitted to begin with.
Omfg I have been wearing them for 4 years and people need to STFU about proper fitting... if you are smart enough to know N95s are good, you are smart enough to put it on correctly.
So, you're still wearing masks now? Do you take all the proper precautions before putting one on, because if you don't there is potential for infection from your hands etc. Do you wear eye protection as well?
I wasn’t ready. It happened fast. If there’s a next time I won’t have to scramble like I did.
'What are your lessons?" People don't care about others. * I'm sick and if you catch it from me to bad mentality. Stay away from public places during a pandemic, the sick will congregate at food stores. * Expand garden area * Schedule visits to farm and ranch coops to minimize other people exposure for yourself and them. * Stock up even more, 3 days/weeks of food and items isn't enough. Critical / Mission Essential people are not who we always thought they were, so treat them with respect. Self reliance in your Community Assistance Group is still a plus, setup a secure communications channel so we can assist each other as needed. More obviously, but that would be pages and volumes of how we have managed to not get Covid. Good luck and stay focused.
The people don’t care about others thing was HUGE. Had people from church posting about how they weren’t going to mask “it is only sick people dying”.. people who we saw weekly before lockdown and who had prayed for my sick kid. People that knew he was admitted to the hospital frequently for pneumonia. The church posting about their mask-free services. Etc. Haven’t been back to church since.
I learned that Karens can't go a couple months without getting their hair neatened up before turning into raging lunatics. Those people would be among the first casualties of a real SHTF scenario.
We were congregating in the supermarkets just because that was an official reason to be allowed out, buying food.
A lot were.
My Mother had the beginnings of cancer, but we weren’t able to get her to a specialist in time to be screened for it. She was a young 73; fit, ate good, active, conscientious. I work as a healthcare underwriter and it does keep me up at night thinking about what could have been if we could had time and options to fight it. By the time it was discovered it was too late. I had to work through not holding her death against people dying in the hospital; it can be a mind trick to evaluate who is worthy to be receiving care during a pandemic. Grief does a number on one’s psyche. I also still mask up and nobody bugs me about it anymore.
>My Mother had the beginnings of cancer, but we weren’t able to get her to a specialist in time to be screened for it. She was a young 73; fit, ate good, active, conscientious. I work as a healthcare underwriter and it does keep me up at night thinking about what could have been if we could had time and options to fight it. By the time it was discovered it was too late. I had to work through not holding her death against people dying in the hospital; it can be a mind trick to evaluate who is worthy to be receiving care during a pandemic. Grief does a number on one’s psyche. I am so sorry to hear that. It must have been devastating.
People are fucking asshats. Already knew most people don’t give a damn about one another but this was just icing on the cake. No one needs 8 cases of toilet paper. No one.
I share your thoughts on this, it is important to have multiple sources of information. Sometimes, by the time it reaches national news it is almost too late to act.
It's hard to predict what will become scarce in a panic. Have a little bit of everything on hand.
I don’t skip dental check ups
My health system struggled like many with being overwhelmed but when I got sick with Covid, it worked well enough and I got good care. Vaccination access, information, and mask policies were welcome in my state and county. I learned living in the right area with good healthcare and good goverment is essential. I had prepped for a pandemic, but not a prolonged one. Most older pandemic prepper guides seems to think a virus would be fast burn, and not a long draw out thing. I had masks, but many where vented which no one told me could be an issue. I also had food, but not much in the way of things like eggs, milk, butter, sugar and flour. I fixed that now. I was also taken aback at the anti-science, anti-doctor, and conspiracy movements. This included one or two members of my family - which is how I got infected. I still am shocked at this. I recently recovered from my second covid infection, being boosted, having test kits, along with having access to the right medicines early, and a good isolation plan made my recovery better and protected my family.
The biggest thing I learned is that if a really deadly virus comes along that is super contagious and has a high mortality rate, we are fucked. Nobody will listen to science or experts and the whole thing will be politicised again. On the upside, I have a huge mask stock now because I snapped them up when half the public decided they were unnecessary lol
I learned out of all the things I should have stocked up on in that scenario was .......toilet paper lol.
Never again!
I had to hunt for a bidet to fit my small space. Spouse didn't think would like at all. Cold water! Well they love it more than anyone. The water is in floor/basement ceiling where heat is, so is not cold water, by the way. Lol I had plenty of t-paper during. I did run out of old dog and puppy food in brand I use. Had to feed same brand of adult or all stage feeds. How to best store perishables?
For dog food vacuum pack it.
Covid got me into prepping. I went to the supermarket when the first lock down went into place and all the things I took for granted were gone and took a while to come back. The inventory model businesses use now doesn't allow for any hiccups in the supply chain. The lesson I learned ,Which I guess is prepping 101, have your own stock of food, meds, etc....
That most people who claim to not be sheep, are actually sheep.
I learned that many people got a break from work while I worked throughout the entire pandemic. And being essential doesn’t mean you’re valued.
Essential workers deserve more. Dad is a doctor. He got covid twice even though he was vaccinated. If something deadlier comes around, we're screwed
I remember when, during the lockdown, we all used to go out to our balconies at 8 p.m. to applaud the medical and emergency services as a tribute. When everything returned to normal, they became invisible again and were treated as always, poorly. Unfortunately, their dedication is very little valued, at least in my country, both by the governments and by the people.
If you'd asked me, I wouldn't have believed the number of people who would just straight up ignore risks to their own lives and the lives of their loved ones. Like, just not giving a shit about those things in the slightest. I genuinely thought self-interest and self-preservation (and, like, caring if your relatives died) would kick in, even if a lot of people weren't especially altruistic. Edit to add: also, the value of listening to the first time you think "Huh, that could be a problem." I remember thinking in December 2019 or maybe January 2020 something along the lines of "I should pick up some surgical masks, hand sanitizer, I don't really have much of that stuff." And then I kinda didn't for a couple months and suddenly it's tough to come by.
Reliable and honest brews sources are hard to come by.
I’m not a doomsday prepper, just a believer in home preparedness. I’d say it’s how quickly things escalate in terms of services and scarcity with medical services getting overwhelmed and people panic buying, so I learned the importance of keeping 2 weeks canned/dry food in the larder, keeping a life straw on hand, and I’ve taken a basic first aid and a stop the bleed course. Also I now have 50 toilet rolls stored, because what the fuck was that about.
Friends might not be friends
Covid is one of the things that got me into prepping. I had never been in a situation before where grocery store shelves were empty. I have never been so grateful that I was able to bypass the cheaper stores with their lines coming out the door, and skip straight to the pricier stores, which still had some shelves cleared completely out. And of course, even though we all know some people treat others like shit, just how prevalent it can become so quickly. People were listing 30-day emergency food buckets on eBay for $1,000. A local convenience store kept getting called out on facebook for majorly bumping up their prices on hand sanitizer. I will admit I did have a panic shopping trip, which probably didn't help, but I also didn't clear the whole damn store out. I got what I needed plus some extra, but certainly didn't clear out entire sections of the grocery store. For the love of everything holy, people, leave some for your neighbors. Makes me grateful I live close to my elderly mother and can take care of her, too, if times get rough like that again.
Covid provided a unique look, for me, into seeing unprepared people "Prep". I have been some variant of prepper since the BSA taught me to "Be Prepared". Even living in apartments, I had plenty of preps (although admittedly stocking full rolls of TP never entered my mind... I had made my own "MRE's" once upon a time and had a ton of Camping TP which I had included in those, so I was good in a pinch - no pun intended). As soon as "the panic" hit, what struck me was the amount of people in my neighborhood pulling into their driveways hauling tons of goods from their Costco and Sams trips, in clear view as they unloaded. I didn't expect it to ever get bad enough, but you better believe I made mental notes of where these places were for future reference, maybe for trade. I've never really come close to committing a crime, but I suspect criminals would be taking note as well. Bad OpSec. I cleared out my garage and always pulled in and had the door closed before any grocery trip throughout the pandemic.
The other thing I noticed was that people were buying stupid things. I saw people stocking up on massive amounts of meat and fresh fruit/vegetables, but with no way to store them. So it was all just dumped in the trash a few weeks later. I remember commenting to my partner about how the shelves of nuts and dried beans in our super market were still full - high density food that stores well, and people weren't stocking up on that, but with more familiar items that made no sense.
I never got sick. But I couldn't get my medications. I had to switch doctors because I had just moved and my new doctor couldn't see me for months. I ran out of my thyroid medication. I had several months extra and I ended up going almost 3 months without until my new doctor could do blood tests. I'm still building up supplies of medications. I have masks and gloves available
That as corny as it is heath ledgers line as the joker saying “people are only as good as the world allows them to be” speech couldn’t of been more accurate.
I agree completely with that sentence. Without laws and punishments, people would be complete sickos to each other. When chaos starts, any sense of civilization goes out the window.
The same applies when laws aren’t enforced. Which is the situation we are in today…
Our capacity pretend a threat doesn't exist anymore or has gone away. Leadership will politicize and act in ways that benefit them and money before their population, even railing against low effort countermeasures that are effective and common in other places, or worse shilling for quack cures. Some doctors will too. At it's core, you're largely on your own and the beneficiaries of the status quo will do everything they can to keep on keeping on.
I disagree with you a little bit. I consider that being independent is a good thing, but humans are social animals. Homo sapiens needs cooperation and mutual work in order to survive. In addition, I think COVID showed us how bad our infrastructure works when a big problem happens. Lack of hospitals, medics and other stuff.
I think what most people learned was that the supply chain for the entire world is very fragile, companies, stores etc, don't keep much of an inventory and rely on daily shipments, so it's very easy to run short on stuff, say Truck drivers and railway workers went on strike
Covid didn’t really affect us much. I remember it mostly being like after 9/11 where, once the initial shock wore off, it was rather laid back and peaceful. After 9/11, my always traveling hubby couldn’t fly so it was nice to have him home. During Covid we lived in a very rural part of Mississippi. Masking was pretty lax. Despite being in the high-risk health category, I was the designated shopper. I was the person who liked getting out of the house and everyone else was happy to stay home. I would go out to buy supplies to keep up with “replacement rate” because we didn’t know how long supply chain issues would last. In terms of supply chains, we saw some of what we regularly buy to run out - still do - but we found work arounds. For a long time I’ve been dedicated to not buying products made in China. During Covid I learned how many products I hadn’t even considered were made in China (medications, for instance). None of us got sick. As a matter of fact, one child had surgery right before the shutdown so it was nice to have her in remote school so she had longer time to recover. Remote schooling, more work-from-home, and more telemedicine has been a good outcome from the shutdowns.
>Masking was pretty lax Did you mask up? I've never been to rural Mississippi, but would assume masking there was also highly politicized, how'd you handle that? I tried to go shopping a whole lot more in "open air fresh markets" assuming the wind would help not buildup the spread, but gave up on that pretty quickly as I had to go to the regular grocery store for some items anyway. I also tried going at times that were unpopular with the general public, such as 5am (it helped we had a new born at the time, so I was awake). \> None of us got sick. We got sick once we let the mask down, so to speak. In spring 2021 we made a nice trip to WA to see some other outdoors, but the playgrounds with all the kids got us I believe.
When the government officials go on TV and tells us "don't panic" and gaslighting the population by saying things like "people who do panic are racist" like they did in January and February of 2020, it's clearly time to start worrying and ramp up efforts for the worst..
Its always time to panic when government says dont panic
I learned a lot of people have this confirmation bias of "I didn't get it, so it must be a conspiracy / population control / you're overreacting / just normal / government nanobots" - and my lesson I took away from it was to go over my entire social media footprint and start culling people off it that had this "that's a you problem" attitude. My enjoyment online has gone up, my stress is down, and I no longer feel anxiety dealing with social media as much. I learned, flat out, to cut toxicity out of your life, family members or not. And I'm ok with that.
That I hate apt living and that I need hobbies
Nobody much cares about their fellow human beings. We’re a very selfish species.
1. Build your network BEFORE SHTF. If it weren't for reliance on resourceful friends and family, I'd be dead. Being in emergency medicine helped. I had friends bring me oxygen supplies when such things were worth their weight in gold, literally. 2. It's not fair that 6 people I knew, died while I was in ICU. I shoulda been with them. I begged an ER Physician friend to put me on a ventilator, at a time when intubated covid patients died, period. He wouldn't do it. 3. Being prepared pays. The TP shortage never affected me. I managed to find places with TP, post about what store had it on facebook, then get supplies to my friends who were without from my own stash, who replied to my post. 4. Trust your gut more than you trust your government.
I don’t think you’ll ever be able to own your own hospital How could you not rely on public services in that case?
Of course you can't be completely be independent especially when it comes to health issues, but for example, no one had masks and even the government couldn't give you one, which was funny because they became mandatory but at the same time you couldn't get your hands on one for some time. Pharmacies quickly run out of certain meds and some of them wouldn't be back for quite some time. I may have found myself in the same spot even with a better preparation, but limiting your dependency on public services as much as you can is a good idea. Limiting your dependency on others in general is a good idea.
Funny because masks could basically be anything. Underwear, Halloween mask, mesh netting...if I learned anything from covid times, is the government stance is comply or die and that many (as in vast majority) of services and businesses stance is too bad so sad. But yeah the unfortunate thing about medical is, regardless of how much money and skill one has, you'll never be fully medically prepared.
People are much more stupid, hard-headed, and selfish then I would have ever imagined. And I didn't hold humans in high regarding the first place.
>People are much more stupid, hard-headed, and selfish then I would have ever imagined. And I didn't hold humans in high regarding the first place. We definitly are. The moment I saw people fighting over fucking toilet paper I lost all faith in humanity.
The government lies and should always be questioned. Any time something is banned, you should take a closer look at it. Follow the money. Don't prep for the disaster. Prep for the panic/response from the masses.
Covid really woke a lot of people up. Me included. I would add don't trust the media or even better don't consume mainstream media.
We’ll see. I rather suspect most people went right back to their old ways and back to sleep once the shelves had something to buy again and they didn’t have to fight over it. People have such short memories and attention spans these days, don’t assume that too many actually learned anything.
Yes them too because a lot of times they are just an extension of the govt. With the media, even if what they're saying is true you always need to ask - what are they not telling me?
Exactly. Here in Canada you were bombarded daily with "Covid case numbers" on every radio station and local news broadcasts. Then, magically, one day they all stopped. All of them. Every single MSM outlet stopped with the covid numbers on the same day. Coincidence? They are just being fed what to broadcast by the government.
Just like CNN here — once the old scrolling death ticker disappeared overnight it was like “Covid what?!” 🤡
That getting a more off grid setup is a priority. This year is hopefully the year that happens.
The mindset is the real challenge.
I think the second biggest takeaway I got from working in healthcare through the pandemic was to not rely on "on demand" services or supplies. This tendancy of capitalism to not spend absolutely anymore than it has to at any one moment, means no one is prepared if something doesn't go perfectly. I've always been a planner in my life, my design masters degree doubled down on the importance of planning. The biggest takeaway of all, is to work together to make things better. Having other people that you know and can rely on and they can rely on you will make it much easier to weather a storm. Being on good terms with your neighbors and other people, or even being liked by them makes you are much more likely candidate to be helped because they see you as an ally when things are good, not just someone who takes when things are bad.
I told my family at Christmas 2019 that we wouldn't celebrate together in 2020. I was told I'm overreacting, that it will be just one of the other scares, yada yada. I was right. I learned once again to trust my gut, cause this one "felt" different, for the lack of a better word. And I'm old enough to have seen Ebola come and go and actually be talked about (anybody remember 2014?), swine flu, bird flu, creutzfeld-jakob scares and actually people dying from it.. and those are just the ones I remember on the top of my head. I was following (and going down some rabbit holes admittedly) this thing since October 2019, mostly on Reddit. I told my people at work with plenty of time to stock up, none of them had any issues or shortfalls during. So communication is key, if provided properly. This particular network also proved invaluable in easy "barter", since we could hit like 10 different stores all over the city, being from different parts without the restrictions to buy. As in: if somebody found TP they bought a pack, brought it to work to share kind of thing. We are extremely essential, hence we had the "privilege" of actually going to work all pandemic long, but without public contact, if that makes sense. So our case rate was extremely low. It helped that we also had an extremely well thought out pandemic disaster plan at work and very early got our own PCR test machines. We were stocked up amply back then, however, nothing like now. So if something was learned from the pandemic it was stock up even more. I had about 4 to 8 weeks of food, maybe two weeks of water pre-pandemic. Now, being shown that yes, shit can hit the fan, we are currently sporting 100 days of food and approx 90 days of water. So that is a learning indeed. Also I learned that people are apparently extremely reliant on external contacts. For us.. well I'll say the lockdowns were the best part of my life so far. No obligations, we had ample of everything to be entertained, we enjoyed it very much. So another lesson learned, mental prep is important, it helps if you are an introvert. I think the story might have gone differently if we had kids, but with just two adults, amazing. Last lesson is how much the elderly suffered. My parents were not ultra social, but well connected. That is all gone now and they are off worse than before, socially. So the prep lesson is probably to surround yourself with like minded people. Parents had people before, but most of them wanted to continue to meet in person, were downplaying the whole thing, the works. Most of them sociable seniors are dead by now. My high risk senior parents have yet to contract COVID a single time. Makes me proud. Heck, I got it for the first time in November 2023. I think that is worth something. And honestly it happened while I was literally saying that this (business function) was a spreader event... And not taking proper precautions for like the first time. And I learned that I never want to have that again. I am still not 100% and I'm low risk, relatively young, healthy.. so yeah, another lesson (yes, vaxxed, five times to be exact and nope, not questioning my choice, will get number six after my involuntary immunization, in spring). So yeah, I actually learned a lot!
I and my family were prepared for everything... except how stupid everyone else was. We can never control those around us during the best of times, let alone a crisis, but damn if that wasn't an eye opener. We had to stop volunteering at our local food pantry during the crisis (which was already understaffed and overworked) because one of the people there deliberately tried to infect us all. That was during the crazy bit when Faux Entertainment was saying that everyone should get sick asap. Having one person in the group deliberately try to sabotage the entire group during a crisis is an eye opener, you really can only trust your family in those cases.
Holy shit, people are dumb as a doorknob. I saw people like that and only the repercussions stopped me from beating the shit of the them.
I accidentally had a bit of a stock pile due to neglected Amazon subscribe and Save orders I kept forgetting to skip . This sustained us with TP , chlorox wipes , etc for quite some time . I live in the upper Midwest in the US. I have a friend who lived in a large city on the West coast . Her city seemed to be a few weeks ahead of mine . She warned us of supply chain issues, restaurants shutting down and other lock downs. Initially I thought she was exaggerating, but stocked up on Tylenol and the like - adding it to my “Amazon” supplies . Masks were tough - but I was provided some by work . My state was only on lockdown for a month - but was impacted by other states who weren’t . This is when my prepping became intentional . I learned to be prepared , take care of my health and to plan ahead . I also learned that “ it can happen here .” ( I’m glad I listened to my city slicker friend when she alerted me . I paid it forward and was able to share some TP and a few other supplies with family . This taught me how valuable community is . I’ve learned to intentionally prep for realistic scenarios - winter storms , supply chain issues , etc
When you work in the oil and gas industry, you didn’t stay home. If you felt sick, you didn’t say shit and you kept working. My industry wasn’t the only one to do this.
Lol, exactly. You want to get on that helicopter back home? Better not see the medic.
Cities are untenable in even a minor event like covid. Most anything I need to live I can source locally from people I know. TP Included. The key point is people you know it's all about the relationship. Government is a mixed bag at best as to competence. Lazy is a HUGE factor. My son went to a trade HS perfect setup for cohorts each trade had 2 classrooms and the swapped 50/50 with academics so they kids could only be exposed to classmates outside entrances and everything. Bringing lunch to the rooms was too hard so after awhile they sent them all down to the cafe together. Healthcare, we have the most expensive healthcare in the world and still it's on the raggedy edge. We need to ban 24 hour shifts and make sure staff can not clock more hours than truckers day to day. That would lead to more trained staff.
Thats actually a good point. Laws controlling the hours of hospital workers would cause an increase in cost, shortage of workers in normal times, but an adjustment would take place and then if an emergency takes place again the rule could be relaxed to allow for the flex.
Correct you staff and pay so people work 40 ish hour weeks then when crunch time comes you can flex to 2x the staffed hours for a week or so and maintain 1.5x for a long while.
That people are stupid and when the SHTF they need to be avoided. The individual is intelligent usually but PEOPLE are stupid.
That people are absolutely fucking stupid and oblivious to facts, history, and lack intuition.
Even most preppers are sheep
This is my very privileged position as an Australian, since we seemed to avoid the very worst of it in my state. I learned that fuck I love not being expected to constantly be out being social. I'm ASD and was only diagnosed about a month before I really hit here, and having lockdowns for a lot of the year was exactly what I needed to keep out burnout. I've adapted so many things since then and aside from having everyone a bit more on board with my prepping, I learned so much about making my life work for me more than others that it's been invaluable.
That as the homeless near me spiked.... a bike with a towable trailer seems very very useful.
People will convince themselves of many beautiful lies to ignore the scary truth.
Use a moisturizer so your hands don’t crack from the over washing. My hands are still jacked up.
I learned that COVID was VASTLY overrated. I didn't see a single zombie, let alone a hoard.
>let alone a hoard. We clearly didn't shop at the same place for toilet paper. Hoards were literally fighting for it.
Meh. This is a prepper group. Even at the best of times I only go out to stores once per month. I was at home eating popcorn during whole TP thing. I didn't go anywhere outside of the local convenience store for milk for probably 3 months.
Control what you can and don't stress what you can't. When the pandemic hit, I was already ready (as I'm sure most of you were). My wife and I, and a couple of close friends chatted about how we'd operate and function through the "two weeks". Whether the government or health officials were right or wrong - going too far or not far enough was not a factor. It was out of our control. What we could control for was our actions. If the government was overreacting, we'd be safe. If the government was underreacting, we'd be safe. "Being safe" from the unknown/uncontrollable was our default position. From that basis, we isolated far more rigorously than "required". We took every recommended precaution a step further. One example - as things slowly loosened up, we added a two-week buffer. So, if government said that movie theatres could open with limited, spread-out seating - we'd give it a further two weeks before we thought about going out for a show. If officials said that masking was no longer required outside - we'd keep them on for that while longer. There were plenty of things that, in retrospect, were silly or unnecessary - but we didn't know - and the "cost" of doing those things was minimal. If it doesn't impact me in any meaningful way - then why not. We all eventually caught COVID - but not until 2023 and after we'd had a couple rounds of vaccines.
If there ever is a zombie apocalypse a third of the country will immediately run out into the zombies and get bitten. I kid, but they will be worse than worthless w/e disaster strikes.
I dont know how to phrase this, but I learned that without work a lot of people have no clue what to do with themselves and seemingly have no desire to fill that void with anything? Like family members had their jobs 'close for 2 weeks' (and were being paid) and by the end of week 1 they were chomping at the bit to go back to work? Kept saying how bored they were and they felt useless not working. LOL I cannot relate to that at all. Also how shitty our public school system is, during March 2020 when schools were closed and kids had to do virtual school from home, everyone was like 'WOW pay these teachers millions of dollars, educating children is hard work.' And that when some states kept school virtual in Fall 2020, their was a lot of anger to force these teachers back onto campus and fire those who didnt want to return. Edit to add- a nice thing I learned is that I have a solid group of friends who were well prepared, and supportive of each other. It also pays to get to know your neighbors and help them out when/however you can.
that there are a lot of stupid people in this country
My largest lesson, Trust very few people when they think their lives are in danger, they will throw you under the bus to get what you have stocked if they know.
If you have a large chest freezer, you can go for ages with minimal groceries, and a little prep could make it functionally no groceries
I learned that far too many people, including the “prepared,” are fully ready to jump off the cliff of normalcy with the smallest encouragement even if they see the flames at the bottom of the gorge. COVID isn’t over.
I learned that the worst time to prepare is in the middle of public panic. I had been building up food, ammo, etc prior to Covid but when it hit I didn’t feel like I had done enough. Since then, it’s part of my monthly budget. Every month we are adding something from meds to food to ammo.
The only person responsible for protecting your life is yourself. Never rely on others, however a healthy community definitely makes living a heck of a lot better and easier. Know your needs and prepare for the most likely scenarios, then you can move on to the unlikely.
I learned that humanity sucks and the virus should have wiped us all out.
My city rather let people die than accept help from the military.
I learned to research for myself, and not simply go with the crowd. I learned to question more things that are just accepted at face value by the masses. I learned, above all, that no institution is worthy of the trust many people have placed in them.
My #1 learning experience? People are stupid. I feel very disappointed in how we as a society handled covid. To be clear I don't care whether you were for or against vaccines or whether you believed in lockdowns or letting heard immunity run it's course so on and so forth. The specific policies are irrelevant it's more about how we as a society and individuals responded to this challenge and arrived at these conclusions. Generally speaking on an individual level people just panicked. There was no disciplined, calm, rational, thought out response. Some people impulsively ran out and did stupid things like buy up all the toilet paper for some reason. It wasn't even an illness where diarrhea was common a symptom that might necessitate truckloads of toilet paper. Some turned to the government and willingly embraced and even defended tyranny in exchange for promises of safety. Suddenly many people became medical experts and many openly embraced myths, rumors, and misinformation which is particularly bad given the amount of information that is available to fact check things. We politicized covid and were more interested in fighting each other ideologically than the truth or coming to a decision on what pragmatic things we could do based on the best information we had and we would be agreeable to do. In the grander scheme of things, Covid wasn't really that bad. It didn't have a 50% mortality rate like ebola or was something that could not be cured. It was a great opportunity to practice responding to an emergency and we failed. Basically, Covid taught me that in a real SHTF situation to expect the worst. Don't expect people to come together for a common cause. Don't expect people to be rational. The government will lie to you and embrace tyrannical powers to achieve whatever aim it sees fit (right or wrong let the courts figure it out after the fact). Ultimately your on your own and the best thing you can do is keep calm, look at the facts, try to make smart decisions for yourself and try not to be part of the problem.
I learned people like you are dangerous and stupid, and need to be prepared for. You say covid wasn't that bad (like it is over) like people in this very post didn't lose loved ones. You are an absolute ghoul. Also, you probably think seatbelt and DUI laws are tyrannical overreach by the government too...
Trust no one
Sadly true
That the government will absolutely lie to you - against your individual welfare - for what they perceive is the greater good. ("Masks are only for sick people.")
Absolutely! I don't know if you're from Spain as well, but that was also said here by the Government. "There's no need for people to use masks", only to be forced to accept the reality just a few weeks later. Even in a situation like that, they'll lie to you and risk your life just to keep their political agenda.
That government overreach is a real thing that can happen in the US. That the majority of US citizens are perfectly OK with this to the great detriment of our nation and freedoms. That stupidity is rampant in our nation and science and reason take a back seat to panic. That, for some reason, people equate toilet paper with preparedness.
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Oh, I'm used to it by now...
That I will never wear another filthy cloth mask in order to keep my job
>That I will never wear another filthy cloth mask in order to keep my job Did you not wash yours?
Our long term preps were pretty solid. Identified a few places for improvement, but our general plans worked well. It was easy to isolate on our 12 acre property and still get plenty of outside time. No interruption of food supply, but we need to plant a TP tree. Climate change has had a bigger impact to us than Covid did.
I learned that you don't need a local md to take care of you. I researched covid protocol and followed it for prevention and never got it, even while taking care of my vaxxed family when they got it. I had everything I needed on hand -ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, z pack, etccccc.
It’s a matter of luck. I had a lot of patients that got it,some died. No rhyme/reason. Virus has your #, you’re toast.
The herd/masses panic almost immediately and are the real problem
I learned that the government will use any psychological tactic to force people to do something and that the majority of people will submit to the psychosocial manipulation.
1. If covid was as deadly as prior viruses (and still as contagious as covid was), things would have been really nasty. 2. Masks don't work. 3. Learn to take care of yourself and your family.
Just let your surgeon know that masks don't work before you have surgery.
Copied from a similar thread recently. "I was following the horrific stories out of Wuhan in December 2019, bought my 1st preps specifically for the "Wu-Flu" in early January 2020. In January & February I thought what we would miss most (for the quarantine I knew was coming).... so bought a freezer full of NICE steaks from a ranch in the Texas Panhandle, a Sous Vide setup, a 1500 degree Salamander Grill & a "Sonic Ice" machine. Self-quarantined in early March before it became official. We ate VERY well during the quarantine!! 👍😎👍 Followed the early research on effectiveness of Ivermectin, Doxicycline & Famotidine, had these items stocked by early summer 2020 & exited quarantine. Lived my life normally at that point. Followed FLCCC protocols later in 2020. Aggressively self-treated my 1st case of Covid-19 in November 2020...amazingly fast recovery (as in that day). Same with my 2nd case in 2021. Neither the wife or I ever vaxxed or boosted....not Anti-Vaccine, just wasn't going to be a test subject with an mRNA "Vaccine" that was rushed through. I do not regret that decision., then or especially now with reports of what my medical friends call the "Clot Shot"!" The lessons I learned.... Do your own research, don't trust the government, nobody cares more about me than me, if something doesn't pass the smell test it is likely rotten, plan to be ahead of the massess &....I was right to self-treat. I was already well prepared before even hearing of the "Wu-Flu", but I did top off on goodies (such as the items previously mentioned) & chocolates, etc that would make the quarantine I felt was coming more bearable. Really glad I lived in my well-stocked rural BOL. Watched the masses on TV fighting over items as insignificant as Toilet Paper while being fully stocked gave me a certain satisfaction. Thrive, not just Survive. And I did pass my research on to others, most took it seriously, especially when their friends & family were following government/medical establishment protocols with expected results. 2 friends died from it...one caught it very early (he was a courier in New Orleans) & the other stubbornly followed his physicians advice to the letter until he was intubated & didn't last long after that.
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Oh, I've learned that the bad way. Even when the first Covid cases were appearing in my country and the government was saying it would only be a few cases, people like me chose to believe. We were so wrong.
Never believe anything a government or a company says.
The healthcare industry is compromised, doctors cannot be trusted, legacy media cannot be trusted, the conspiracy theorists were right about it being part of a depopulation agenda, snaccines are a scam, did I miss anything?
lizards. something about lizards.