I personally find it comforting to know that no matter how bad this virus gets, it’s essentially nothing when placed within the context of human history.
So while the millennial and gen x have a 0.2% chance of death from coronavirus which of course all precautions should be taken, this is nowhere near the hazards our parents and grandparents faced in ww2/Korea/Vietnam.
It's not panic buying when you are basically told to stay in your home for weeks on end. You say two weeks- but in Washington here our schools are closed for SIX WEEKS. People want to be prepared. I have kids, they eat like adults. Do you realize how big of food shopping trips people normally do every 1-2 weeks anyway with full families? And we simply don't know if production is going to slow down, how fast stores with be able to resupply various items. Might be no big deal or might be a problem.
So I think you really confuse panic buying with being prepared.. having to go to the store every few days because you don't stock up pretty much defeats the purpose of what we are doing.
>markets down in historic marker
And why should it not be? The markets were already pushing themselves to the limits.. you add a simple normal reversal on top of this mess and you get exactly what we are seeing. Plus, there is no modern equivalent for the economic impact this will have. It's going to spiral and seep into every aspect of the economy. Why shouldn't the market plummet? The uncertainty is almost unfathomable.
>everybody acts like they can't make the next payment
Well.. you have tons of people who simply cannot work right now. Enough people in the country/world live essentially paycheck to paycheck anyway- now suddenly we take away potentially weeks/months of income? What do you expect?
>We are so under-prepared for anything really serious.
Yes and no. This situation just shows how utterly fragile all parts of the economy depend on each other, how much supply chains are linked, and how much we take it for granted that everything is always working as usual.
I think this shift of buying could be called preparedness, but in another way it’s a panic because it’s a serious change in behavior.
A nuclear attack without any warning would be unprecedented. Usually there is some build up before you wipe out entire cities. That build up let’s people get prepared.
A deadlier Ebola by the way would be less serious than actual Ebola. Ebola is already too deadly to make use of its infectiousness. In my view, the most deadly virus would be a variant of coronavirus that will regularly send healthy young adults into the ICU, and have a longer period of being asymptomatic.
> Usually there is some build up before you wipe out entire cities. That build up let’s people get prepared.
Yes. We have runs on toilet paper and lunch meats now. What then, when people are preparing for a nuclear strike.
Initially, I got irritated with it too. But there seems to be no hurry from the govt in creating a vaccine, testing kits aren't widely available. When they do become available, it will most likely not be free of charge. There is no clear, coherent messaging from the govt. No clear instructions other than the basic "stay home, don't shake hands". The president is trying to buy the vaccine only for his countrymen from Germany...
How hard can it be to release accurate numbers, have consistent/clear messaging on the status, on what to do and what not to do, set up testing centers for free etc?
If this is the level of response for this, what can we expect in the case of much severe scenarios like the one you describe?
People are panic buying because they don't know what else to do.