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The latter extreme ("Flu / falling off ladders is worse!") is a dangerously misguided line of thinking. Inconvenience is always better than dead, and lest anyon

The latter extreme ("Flu / falling off ladders is worse!") is a dangerously misguided line of thinking. Inconvenience is always better than dead, and lest anyone think "dead" is an abstract/unlikely outcome, collapse of supply chains (medical or otherwise), overloaded health systems, lack of hospital/ICU beds, etc can all contribute to death-rates-in-a-pandemic, even if those folks never got infected in the first place. So the smart money is to be cautiously prepared -- have 1-2 weeks of "stay-at-home" supplies, that is food, water, and self-medicating items. You do not want to dependent on being out and about if this gets worse. Best case, you can have a canned food party once this clears.

Allower 7y ago
1-2 weeks? That seems dangerously optimistic to me.
- droithomme 7y ago
  Yes. But more than that and you run into space issues. FWIW, Mormons are experts at having enough for a full year for a family that might be 12 members, but they have special things they get like gallon sized cans of unground wheatberries, for making flour by grinding it. US Government is currently recommending citizens have enough food and water for 2 weeks for every member: https://www.ready.gov/pandemic https://www.ready.gov/pandemic This isn't a new page it's their advice for being prepared in general for a pandemic. Here's a similar page put together by the CDC: https://cchealth.org/pandemic-flu/pdf/individuals_and_families_checklist.pdf https://cchealth.org/pandemic-flu/pdf/individuals_and_famili...
  - ryanmercer 7y ago
    > FWIW, Mormons are experts at having enough for a full year for a family that might be 12 members, but they have special things they get like gallon sized cans of unground wheatberries, for making flour by grinding it. Latter-day Saint here. This indeed was a teaching of the Church for quite some time, not so much anymore as it has shifted to general emergency preparedness [1][2][3][etc]. Some indeed still keep decent food stores though, we can order cases of #10 cans for varying things from the Church online [4] (the general public can too). Some people keep a lot of freeze dried stuff, some can their excess that they grow, others just keep a lot of staples on hand that they rotate through. Personally I can feed myself for a few months on freeze dried stuff and 10-30 year canned staples then another 1-2 months on stuff I rotate through and eat daily (beans, oats). [1] - https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics/emergency-preparedness?lang=eng https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topi... [2] - https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/preparedness https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/preparednes... [3] - https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/church/news/church-announces-updates-to-food-storage-emergency-preparedness?lang=eng https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/church/news/church-annou... [4] - https://store.churchofjesuschrist.org/ https://store.churchofjesuschrist.org/ click all categories, food storage (direct linking to the page will often generate errors)
  - Allower 7y ago
    Neat resources, thanks for sharing.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- anonuser123456 7y ago
  The average American adult has a good 40+ days with of food stored in body fat. Americans are well prepared... Even if they haven't tried to be.
tenpies 7y ago
Exactly. You can be prepared and be wrong every time and be okay. You can ignore preparations just once and that's the end of you and your family. I am not sure why people are so reluctant to see the risk asymmetry in this.
- bcrosby95 7y ago
  Canned food lasts forever too. Just get a huge supply and slowly eat/replace it for some meals.
liability 7y ago
Having a cabinet of canned food is good policy even without a potential pandemic to worry about.
GhostVII 7y ago
Yes, you should be prepared for things like pandemics, because it is not that difficult to have a small amount of preparation. But if you are not in China, you have no reason to prepare for coronavirus specifically. Saying things like "the flu is more dangerous" seems like a perfectly reasonable line of thinking - if you are in North America you should not be preparing for coronavirus any more than you already do for things like the flu. If you do not feel prepared for a coronavirus outbreak, it just means your preparation for the far more serious existing threats was lacking.
- selectiveshift 7y ago
  > But if you are not in China, you have no reason to prepare for coronavirus specifically. Tell that to people in Italy or South Korea.
- bestnameever 7y ago
  I think you are underestimating how quickly things can change. At this time, I really believe the best time to prepare for the Coronavirus is now while other people aren't paying that much attention. It will become more difficult to stock up if it becomes apparent to the masses that they need to prepare.
flukus 7y ago
> Best case, you can have a canned food party once this clears Also frozen food. Even in worst case scenarios it's hard to see the grid going down for long periods, assuming raw coal/gas can keep arriving or your country has a lot of renewable energy.
- bosie 7y ago
  What's the maximum time the grid can go down until the frozen food is unthawed/inedible? 1 Day or less probably?
  - bryanlarsen 7y ago
    4 days after a tornado, the food in our chest freezer was still half frozen. We cooked up a good fraction of it and tossed the rest. But only because refreezing it would have caused freezer burn. In an emergency, freezer burnt food is better than no food. The key was that we never opened the freezer while power was out. Regularly opening an unplugged freezer would have melted things a lot faster. Chest freezers also do much better than fridge freezers.
    - bosie 7y ago
      Thank you very much, was really not sure how long a frozen but unplugged freezer would last.
      - scrumbledober 7y ago
        The bigger the freezer, and the more full of frozen stuff, the longer it will last. Bigger freezer because the volume to surface area ratio is larger, and more full because there's just more thermal mass at a low temperature to buffer any heat leaking in.
  - flukus 7y ago
    Let's say 12 hours? I've had it last longer than that but in the scenario I'm thinking about there would be rolling blackouts on the order of hours, not days.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

Allower 7y ago

1-2 weeks? That seems dangerously optimistic to me.

droithomme 7y ago
Yes. But more than that and you run into space issues. FWIW, Mormons are experts at having enough for a full year for a family that might be 12 members, but they have special things they get like gallon sized cans of unground wheatberries, for making flour by grinding it. US Government is currently recommending citizens have enough food and water for 2 weeks for every member: https://www.ready.gov/pandemic https://www.ready.gov/pandemic This isn't a new page it's their advice for being prepared in general for a pandemic. Here's a similar page put together by the CDC: https://cchealth.org/pandemic-flu/pdf/individuals_and_families_checklist.pdf https://cchealth.org/pandemic-flu/pdf/individuals_and_famili...
- ryanmercer 7y ago
  > FWIW, Mormons are experts at having enough for a full year for a family that might be 12 members, but they have special things they get like gallon sized cans of unground wheatberries, for making flour by grinding it. Latter-day Saint here. This indeed was a teaching of the Church for quite some time, not so much anymore as it has shifted to general emergency preparedness [1][2][3][etc]. Some indeed still keep decent food stores though, we can order cases of #10 cans for varying things from the Church online [4] (the general public can too). Some people keep a lot of freeze dried stuff, some can their excess that they grow, others just keep a lot of staples on hand that they rotate through. Personally I can feed myself for a few months on freeze dried stuff and 10-30 year canned staples then another 1-2 months on stuff I rotate through and eat daily (beans, oats). [1] - https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics/emergency-preparedness?lang=eng https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topi... [2] - https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/preparedness https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/preparednes... [3] - https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/church/news/church-announces-updates-to-food-storage-emergency-preparedness?lang=eng https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/church/news/church-annou... [4] - https://store.churchofjesuschrist.org/ https://store.churchofjesuschrist.org/ click all categories, food storage (direct linking to the page will often generate errors)
- Allower 7y ago
  Neat resources, thanks for sharing.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
anonuser123456 7y ago
The average American adult has a good 40+ days with of food stored in body fat. Americans are well prepared... Even if they haven't tried to be.

tenpies 7y ago

Exactly. You can be prepared and be wrong every time and be okay. You can ignore preparations just once and that's the end of you and your family. I am not sure why people are so reluctant to see the risk asymmetry in this.

bcrosby95 7y ago
Canned food lasts forever too. Just get a huge supply and slowly eat/replace it for some meals.

liability 7y ago

Having a cabinet of canned food is good policy even without a potential pandemic to worry about.

GhostVII 7y ago

Yes, you should be prepared for things like pandemics, because it is not that difficult to have a small amount of preparation. But if you are not in China, you have no reason to prepare for coronavirus specifically. Saying things like "the flu is more dangerous" seems like a perfectly reasonable line of thinking - if you are in North America you should not be preparing for coronavirus any more than you already do for things like the flu. If you do not feel prepared for a coronavirus outbreak, it just means your preparation for the far more serious existing threats was lacking.

selectiveshift 7y ago
> But if you are not in China, you have no reason to prepare for coronavirus specifically. Tell that to people in Italy or South Korea.
bestnameever 7y ago
I think you are underestimating how quickly things can change. At this time, I really believe the best time to prepare for the Coronavirus is now while other people aren't paying that much attention. It will become more difficult to stock up if it becomes apparent to the masses that they need to prepare.

flukus 7y ago

> Best case, you can have a canned food party once this clears Also frozen food. Even in worst case scenarios it's hard to see the grid going down for long periods, assuming raw coal/gas can keep arriving or your country has a lot of renewable energy.

bosie 7y ago
What's the maximum time the grid can go down until the frozen food is unthawed/inedible? 1 Day or less probably?
- bryanlarsen 7y ago
  4 days after a tornado, the food in our chest freezer was still half frozen. We cooked up a good fraction of it and tossed the rest. But only because refreezing it would have caused freezer burn. In an emergency, freezer burnt food is better than no food. The key was that we never opened the freezer while power was out. Regularly opening an unplugged freezer would have melted things a lot faster. Chest freezers also do much better than fridge freezers.
  - bosie 7y ago
    Thank you very much, was really not sure how long a frozen but unplugged freezer would last.
    - scrumbledober 7y ago
      The bigger the freezer, and the more full of frozen stuff, the longer it will last. Bigger freezer because the volume to surface area ratio is larger, and more full because there's just more thermal mass at a low temperature to buffer any heat leaking in.
- flukus 7y ago
  Let's say 12 hours? I've had it last longer than that but in the scenario I'm thinking about there would be rolling blackouts on the order of hours, not days.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]