Do these people think coronavirus is going to cause enough unrest to destabilize civic services and affect our municipal water supplies?
Or do these people just parrot this stuff without critical review?
Here's one hypothetical scenario that might be intuitive, not from the article... Say, you live in a dense part of the city, and there's suddenly a lot of confirmed cases around you, so your family decides to stay home for a week, to wait&see how this plays out and what government help arrives. All your city utilities work, but much of the city water utility workers can't afford to live in the city, or otherwise have to stay home, and the remaining workers can't keep up with the ordinary day-to-day level of repairs and maintenance. A pipe fractures, brown water comes out your faucet, and now you have to decide whether to venture out to try to find a store open that has bottled water, and possibly bring the virus back to your family, or stay in and hope water will be fixed and known-safe within 3 days. Ordinary bottle water is $1-$2 a gallon, off-the-shelf from the local store, and some insurance and peace of mind against a very bad and not-too-unlikely situation.
I think we'd do a disservice to people by discouraging them from having a modest backup plan for water during a possible pandemic quarantine. Remember the rough "3" rule: 3 minutes without air, 3 days without water, 3 weeks without food.
A natural disaster or pipe break that forces a water boil alert could happen any time.
Again, I am trying to understand if there is any elevated need to have bottled water at home during pandemic fear vs any other time when run-of-the-mill water boil alerts are issued.
Ultimately, it's your call to make.
For the past year or so, my electricity goes out at least half a day every 2-3 weeks. Once, it was out from the moment I woke on a Saturday at 7am until 3-4pm or so. I live in the Mission, San Francisco. Sometimes I get a heads up by text from PG&E a few hours before, sometimes not.
My gut wants to agree with what you wrote, but I feel like re-evaluating my priors is appropriate here.
My sense is a pandemic is not equivalent to a natural disaster. But a lot of the “be prepared” content seems to conflate the two, which I’d argue is not helping matters.
You can tell because no where in the article does the author advocate the single most powerful thing that you can do to improve you and your families chances of survival in any disaster situation.
Make friends with your neighbors, invite them for a meal, know their first name and get them to know yours. Especially they should know things like "oh, yeah, miss williams is a diabetic"
It is recommended everywhere because it is useful, not because people are 'parroting this stuff'. I think any real critical review of the data would conclude with a suggestion that bulk bottled water is a good idea for people to stock up on.
> Do these people think coronavirus is going to cause enough unrest to destabilize civic services and affect our municipal water supplies?
No, I don't think anyone is worried about that. This is the first suggestion of that nature I've seen, I think you are arguing a straw man here. The primary reason for bottled water is to help prevent the spread of germs by reducing shared water sources. A secondary reason would be general risk-reduction: having your own clean safe water is a calming factor and reduces/eliminates at least a few possible contamination sources.
It is a logical move, not some hare-brained silly idea that people are 'parroting'.
On the other hand if you spend money and time gathering in a resource that is easily and continually available then you are not taking the action that really will help you.
Gathering supplies of water is sensible in case of natural disaster and war - for this one, not so much. Spend the money on food and entertainment instead.
a) tap water is going through decontamination procedures
b) there is no evidence that tap water can transmit virus
c) if you don't trust tap water you can boil it easily
d) even in single household people are not really drinking from shared pool of water
It can be argued that it's better to have water and not need it rather not having it in the need, but on the other hand if you're at the point where basic needs like water and electricity are not provided anymore lack of stockpiled water is unlikely your biggest problem.
Of course, that's the case with seasonal flu as well, which is why it's a good idea to keep water on-hand to start with.
A natural disaster or pipe break that forces a water boil alert could happen any time.
Again, I am trying to understand if there is any elevated need to have bottled water at home during pandemic fear vs any other time when run-of-the-mill water boil alerts are issued.
But on the other hand, while you're stocking up on other stuff, why not include water at the same time? It's always handy to have it for other emergency situations.