I don't think prepping is silly, but I can't understand why this pandemic would increase people's perceived value of prepping. The whole world shut down, and there were basically no serious shortages.
The whole world did not shut down. It voluntarily reduced non-essential in-person activities as a preemptive measure. It was the easiest possible test, and the shelves were still empty of toilet paper and grains for a month.
Against the ToS from their TP vendor? Who knows? But, there was TP out there, just not on shelves at the local grocer.
White collar work shut down.
All the people that actually make the supply chain function got labeled "essential" and got to go to work anyway.
Those companies typically have done some serious preparation such as segregating workers into different shifts or even having them live on site but the pandemic reminded (some) people that our modern living standards are held up by millions of people working for utilities, farms, waste disposal companies, etc. If a significant number of those people are unable to work you do need to be prepared to survive without power, running water, and fresh produce for a good amount of time. Typically middle/upper class Americans haven't had to contend with that fact but the pandemic has made it more clear that they won't always be able to just pop down to the store for whatever they need at a whim.
Honestly waste disposal is one of the more frightening ones. I shudder at the thought of my area if the waste disposal companies stopped for any length of time. Those people who are willing to work in that job should be treated as heroes and paid much better than those of us who sit in front of computers typing relatively useless code all day.
It didn't. The essential people/work still had to show up for work. Butchers, farmers, supermarket workers, truckers, cops, medical workers, etc.
The less essential workers either had to close shop ( barbers, restaurants, etc ) or WFM ( software developers, sales people, etc ).
> and there were basically no serious shortages.
Because the whole world didn't shut down. Just the non-essential stuff were shut down.
I imagine people who experinced delays in their staple foods (or TP) that impacted them negatively are going to build a larger buffer for the future.
I actually think this showed a robustness to our system overall.
Most people could benefit from basic disaster preparation. This could be some extra food/fuel, to having a bag in case you need to evacuate, etc.