3 ms·

I'm not concerned about the food supply, I am a bit concerned about logistical problems of getting food to grocers if we have massive infection rates. This woul

I'm not concerned about the food supply, I am a bit concerned about logistical problems of getting food to grocers if we have massive infection rates. This would hopefully be short lived though, as workers out could be back at work within 2-3 weeks. We'd just have to hope they don't all get it at once. I hope grocers are taking measures to prevent vendors from interacting with each other, and making sure their loading docks are sterile as can be.

jerf 7y ago
Given that for the most part, our food supply chain is not composed entirely of 70+ year old people who will all simultaneously get the virus, while it's certainly not just "another day at the office" to keep food supplies running, it's not necessarily going to be as hard as your intuition may say, either. Especially if social distancing works and slows the infection rate, even the worst case scenario here is far from the metaphorical bodies in the streets and everyone lying at home in their beds, sick. On a day-to-day basis, it's more like a really bad flu season than "one day, the entire town just died". The non-essential economy is looking at a kick in the face, but I'm not too worried about the essential economy. In the long run, I think we're going to individually remember this as an annoyance, not a catastrophe. There are some other social changes that may occur, but they're mostly going to be accounted as "social changes that were pretty much on track to happen anyhow, the Coronavirus just precipitated them a bit earlier and more suddenly".
- core-questions 7y ago
  Honestly, in a worst-case scenario, I would hope for the government to be rounding up able-bodied people who aren't sick and draft them into the Grocery Corps or similar to keep things moving. I really don't think it's going to come to that, but I pray that if it does, the people in charge are ready for that kind of task. Damn knows I'll happily stop coding and go work wherever I am told to help with this.
  - xur17 7y ago
    I imagine a fair number of people would voluntarily agree to do that if it really came down to it. That said, I imagine nation guard, etc would be mobilized first.
    - sudosysgen 7y ago
      I would certainly be up for it, at least.
klhutchins 7y ago
That brings up the question, Should we be cleaning products/ food brought home? I mean, normally I will wash produce but what about everything else?
- francisofascii 7y ago
  From a BI article, "In general, because of poor survivability of these coronaviruses on surfaces, there is likely very low risk of spread from products or packaging that are shipped over a period of days or weeks at ambient temperatures," the CDC said on its website.

jerf 7y ago

Given that for the most part, our food supply chain is not composed entirely of 70+ year old people who will all simultaneously get the virus, while it's certainly not just "another day at the office" to keep food supplies running, it's not necessarily going to be as hard as your intuition may say, either. Especially if social distancing works and slows the infection rate, even the worst case scenario here is far from the metaphorical bodies in the streets and everyone lying at home in their beds, sick. On a day-to-day basis, it's more like a really bad flu season than "one day, the entire town just died". The non-essential economy is looking at a kick in the face, but I'm not too worried about the essential economy. In the long run, I think we're going to individually remember this as an annoyance, not a catastrophe. There are some other social changes that may occur, but they're mostly going to be accounted as "social changes that were pretty much on track to happen anyhow, the Coronavirus just precipitated them a bit earlier and more suddenly".

core-questions 7y ago
Honestly, in a worst-case scenario, I would hope for the government to be rounding up able-bodied people who aren't sick and draft them into the Grocery Corps or similar to keep things moving. I really don't think it's going to come to that, but I pray that if it does, the people in charge are ready for that kind of task. Damn knows I'll happily stop coding and go work wherever I am told to help with this.
- xur17 7y ago
  I imagine a fair number of people would voluntarily agree to do that if it really came down to it. That said, I imagine nation guard, etc would be mobilized first.
  - sudosysgen 7y ago
    I would certainly be up for it, at least.

klhutchins 7y ago

That brings up the question, Should we be cleaning products/ food brought home? I mean, normally I will wash produce but what about everything else?

francisofascii 7y ago
From a BI article, "In general, because of poor survivability of these coronaviruses on surfaces, there is likely very low risk of spread from products or packaging that are shipped over a period of days or weeks at ambient temperatures," the CDC said on its website.