Clueless sheep in my area from what i have seen

The last few times I ventured out and took note of what was stocked, I observed some shortages of rubbing alcohol and masks in some stores, while others were playing with a full deck.

I think everyone is mostly complacent in this area because they believe that warmth and sunshine make them immune to most seasonal diseases down here, and are treating this the same.

Most people I've talked to don't have a clue what's going on and aren't taking any preventative measures.

Several of my friends are talking about shifting money in their 401k to non stock investments. They are concerned that the fear of the virus will cause institutional investors to pull back until this blows over.

If they think that way, then it is reasonable to think that millions of others may be thinking they same way and act on it.

Today at Sam's Club and HEB I observed a lot of customers loading up on water bottles.  I saw several that had baskets full of water.  Others had tons of dry food and canned food in their carts.   On a positive note, Sam's had much more bottled water than normal.  They had random pallets of it scattered throughout the store.   HEB was almost out of large generic hand sanitizer, but Sam's still had a lot of it.

Walmart seems to be restocking the big jugs of hand sanitizer (for refills, not the ones with pumps in them) pretty fast, but alcohol is unobtanium.

Seeing people at big box home improvement stores that are obviously neckbearding masks - groups of them.   Mostly also wearing masks.

Lots of people being proactive with hand sanitizer in stores and with wiping down shopping carts.

Plenty of people in the post offices upset that the counter people are telling them the boxes of medical stuff they're trying to mail to the PRC won't get there.

So masks still at home depot and hand sanitizer and gloves available at sams here.
But I did just have someone come into the store today to get some stuff on his way to the mountains in his RV before the collapse of society....
Did I miss something? Is it time to bug out?

Actually, the virus appears more benign than I feared!

Unless your an Asian smoker in a communist country.......
Keep trying to decide if it's time to sell my extra masks yet.

The only thing in my AO that is off the shelves are masks and filters.

50 lb bags are rice for $20 still plentiful.
Hand sanitize and H2O2 and alcohol (even 70% ) are still plentiful.

But I live in a geographical area where people generally have their heads up their butts.

I have not seen anybody wear a mask of any sort.

My wife just flew back from spending 2 weeks in the Philippines.

When she traveled out to Manila (via TPE) on Feb 3, she said about 60% of the people were wearing masks. Her flight landed around 1 AM, and at 10 AM that day the Philippines closed itself off from China, which included Tiawan and Hong Kong under a "one China" policy*. Any Filipinos flying from/through Taiwan to Philippines was being put into a 14 day quarantine (my wife landed 9 hours before that policy went into affect), and non-Filipinos who traveled through "one China" were being denied entry completely and sent home (including one American born baby of a Filipina).

One flight had 70+ guys refuse to go into quarantine and try to force their way out of the airport. Police were called to the airport, and supposedly they all voluntarily decided to go into quarantine. Given the current unofficial "just murder anyone who might possibly somehow have anything to do with drugs, maybe" policy among Philippine police and human rights groups estimating 10k+ murdered by cops in the current administration, I have no idea what might have actually happened.

Local news was reporting 500+ people in quarantine in one regional airport. Most flights to Taiwan were cancelled and are still being cancelled. I think EVA Airlines is the only one still doing TPEMNL flights, and that's two flights a day instead of the normal six.

After a week of that, Taiwan got rid of the "free visas for Filipinos" and refused to renew Filipino visas, so the Philippines removed Taiwan from the travel restrictions.

A lot of people were avoiding the big markets like Baclarin in Manila and The Night Market in Baguio. Big events like the Baguio Strawberry Festival were cancelled. To me, it seems like a lot of panic for nothing given how few cases there are in the Philippines.

------

* Philippines is trying to get close to China and distance itself from the USA, so not recognizing Taiwan is a political move.

I know someone that is an airline pilot and they were calling me paranoid about discussing SARS-CoV-2 a few weeks ago. They texted me today frantically asking about masks and worried that they can't find any for sale online.  Also, it was said the airline will not allow pilots to wear masks because it would not be uniform compliant.

People in St. Louis finally aware/talking.  Still no rush to the store, although walmart had a huge isle display of three pallets of 70% alcohol (the cheap $1 bottles) that was almost picked clean, and masks are nowhere to be found.

Additionally- at harbor freight, the clerk said not only were they out of masks, but a guy came by and tried to order over $50k worth of masks...  he didn't know why. I guess to re-sell on ebay for $??

Out and about yesterday...the local warehouse store (Sam's Club) seemed pretty well stocked as did the local Meijer grocery (aside from masks). I did noticed that people were definitely keeping a larger distance between themselves in the aisles and while waiting in line.

Headed to BJs tomorrow. I’ll try and remember to look

The only thing I noticed was masks are gone, which is stupid because we use them for work from time to time.

Last week food grade buckets were gone at lowes, but all the lids were still there, so I was assuming that people just bought the white ones because they didn't want the blue "Lowes" buckets.

I hit Walmart, Aldi and Walgreens the other day, all of them were fully stocked.

I told my mom to do a grocery run and buy an extra month's worth of food for the pantry, not because of panic, but because if supply lines get clogged up food prices will either go up, or shelves will start to empty.

Public reactions?
 No one is concerned  Outside of the medical community  Then preference and prepar in my And prepar in my community.
I'm shocked that online single N95 dust masks are going for $15 and $7 a can red feather butter is going for $25 a can.

So tempting to sell some preps.

I'm flying from N.D to Idaho with a lay over in Denver this weekend. I'll update if I see anything worth mentioning. I'll have a little bottle of hand sanitizer at the minimum.

I volunteer at my church on the safety team. Last night for our kids and youth group, lots of Moms were talking about it while waiting to pick up their kids. Some were well aware and had spoken to their husbands while others had no idea. One lady said, "it will never get that bad here.", and kind of dismissed the others...

Observations from a rural Ohio walmart:

I entered the store at the same time as 4 other people, each alone : a woman in her 40s, girl in her 20's, a guy in his 40's and a gentleman in his 50s. All wiped their carts with the store cleaning wipes prior to taking them into the store. Normally only 1 or 2 people will actually wipe down their basket.
I observed approx 20 shoppers in the food/ cleaning isles on a weekday at approx 11 AM over the course of my shopping (25 minutes).

-Most had water bottle packs, Clorox/store brand cleaning wipes and toilet paper in their carts in addition to their other items. One wife

was overheard telling her husband to grab 2 extra packs of TP "just in case".

-While looking at canned foods, one lady told me to get what I needed today because, " Once the first of the month rolls around the welfare folks
are going to have the place picked clean. " I mentioned that normally happens, right? She only replied with, "it will be worse this month....."

Observations on the shelves.
-Chicken flavored ramen noodles were mostly cleared out
-3/4 of rice was gone,
-all of the store brand bleach was gone and their was about 6 bottles of Clorox left.
-Alot of OTC home medications were out or low. Store brand cold/flu was out
-Plenty of bottle watered, H202, and 50%,50%90% rubbing alcohol.

Time will tell if the shelves were just poorly restocked ( often times an issue with this walmart) or if people are beginning to pick up extra stock.

Nothing out of stock or odd. Rhode Island here.

It's a fucking political weapon stateside, nothing more.  What's the mortality rate in the US?  Fucking zero.  This is a politically and media driven attack on Trump; nothing more.  It's fabricated panic propaganda.  I will say it's a good dry run to assess your own readiness, but it also shows we have moronic sheep who are clueless and chicken-littles freaking out about a nothing-burger.

This is a very benign virus in the big picture and to even try and say the mortality rate is 2% from Chinese info is just as bad as believing everything Bernie Sanders says.

What this does show is how fast a more serious threat can spread and this should serve as a reminder to assess your own preparation and fill in gaps after this passes, when people forget, shelves stocked back up, and prices are down.

If the media and politicians weren't hyping this as a political weapon, it wouldn't even make the news.

ROCK6

Yesterday I picked up an extra 30 days of my prescription.  The local Walmart isn’t out of bleach, but there’s definitely a run.



This scene repeated itself at my local grocery store and at a second Walmart (has to make a return).  Another like-minded friend reported the same on the opposite end of town.

I also ordered a new Lenovo laptop about two weeks ago.  For the third time, the delivery date was again delayed.  I was supposed to have it yesterday or today.  Now it’s projected for early April.

I don't want to say this is a "hoax" but it's not that serious of a threat to us in the US.  It is a good indicator on how quickly things can spiral out of control when the media is really pushing the threat-narrative.  It again reminds us to be prepared first.  If you need to pick up a few things, do it early unless you want to waste gas looking or pay higher prices.  We did have plenty of warning...so it's not like this virus just "popped" up and we had less than 72 hours.

ROCK6

In the last two days I have been to Sams Club, Walmart, two HomeDepots and a local general store similar to Ace Hardware. Both HDs had ZERO mask of any sort and were completely out of filters with no back stock left. The local general store had one box of N95s left and informed me people have been coming in buying mask and wanting to buy more daily.

At Walmart today, I noticed they were very low on Mountain House foods ( Which they never are ) and there was actually people lined up talking about hand sanitizer, discussing if they should buy it now or wait. However, everything else in the store looked stocked as normal. Sams Club was pretty interesting. They had pallets of their branded Clorox wipes out on the end caps and they were about half to 3/4 full at 1130AM. This is an item that Ive never seen out on an end cap, its always tucked away on a side isle. EVERYONE shopping looked to have at least two cases of water with them and I noticed two people in the parking lot filling their truck beds full of water. Typically you see shoppers in this area shopping for one week at a time, buying small cases of water or only one larger case at once. The only item I saw Sams low on was their branded water that is six gallons for $4. They were almost out.

Are people panicking here yet? Nope, but some are starting to take notice and stock up on some stuff. FWI, I live in an area with a large university thats surrounded by country land and smaller towns. The university does have a significant international student  population though.

South Central Kansas here - no N95 masks in the area. I've checked Lowe's, Home Depot, Tractor Supply, Walmart, True Value, and CVS. Went to Walmart today and the hand sanitizer, Clorox wipes, and bleach are starting to get picked over. Saw one Walmart employee wearing a mask. I haven't seen many people wiping their carts down other than the norm. The wife and I are going shopping this weekend to stock up on pantry items, I'll update anything of note.

A lot of the people here saying 'It can't happen here' are ignoring the fact that a lot of med facilities in this country are already at 104% capacity on an average day, and haven't been hit with dozens or hundreds of new incoming a day, yet.

Add to that the fact that a lot of the drugs and gear we need come from China as it is, and interruptions in supply will make  the situation worse.

Something like 30% of the cases OCONUS require ICU treatment, and the spare capacity isn't a reality in this country on any kind of scale they may be needing here.

Don't discount that.

Just braved a quick stroll through the network news channels.  Man, they are hitting this hard.  Between desperately trying to politicize it and the market effects, it's like the issue just got a shot of NOx.

If you don't have your preps in order by now, good luck.  

Amazing how so many liberal areas are shutting down schools/etc already....

There are lots of places with better products than mountain house that aren’t being over run by panic, Thrive is having no issues keeping up right now and they have a way better product IMHO. The local grains place said they haven’t seen a spike at all while the Sams is starting to bump up their grain/rice prices. It’s all about panic buys vs actually doing your homework still.

I must admit I did a panic buy, ordered a new set of work boots because my others have needed to go in for a rebuild for a few months. Figure I needed to do it before there’s a shortage of vibram soles...but luckily not all are made in China so I probably have nothing to worry about

Good.

Kids are a cesspool of filth and disease.

Made the mistake of still needing things from Costco today, so made the trip (for the last time for a while thankfully).
Store was packed, but it always is. So that means nothing.
One person total in a mask; very large lady in a motorized scooter hacking.
Zero concern evidenced, except for Asians. ALL of them had bottled water & paper goods.
Still nothing compared to I. I definitely took the award for biggest nutter in the place
Everyone still eating their crap fried food elbow to elbow in the 'food court' by the checkout lanes (can't understand why anyone would want to eat there, ever).
Meanwhile every aisle cap was gridlocked with people stopped to eat free food samples w/ their hands.
On the way out, a nice older lady pimping ACs saw my chlorox & told me she mixes a bleach solution at home, followed by "God help us all".
I feel for her if this turns bad. She's almost guaranteed to get it, & is in a bad age group

I hit Costco and Walmart today for normal shopping.

Costco was pretty normal, more people grabbing a couple cases of bottled water and tp.

Walmart stocker was vocally complaining that he had never seen so much canned food sell that quickly. He said that the replenishment trucks they were getting were way above normal. The shelves were visibly shopped over, but most everything was still in stock. I can’t imagine what the place is going to look like on the 1st. Thankfully, Nerf Guns we’re still in stock, so the birthday party can go on.

Hit costco tonight after work.  Completely out of cases of bottled water ranging is sizes from 16oz.-1gal.  Also completely out of toilet paper, Clorox wipes, hand sanitizer, and antibacterial soap.  Running very low on bulk rice/beans, and some OTC meds.

This Costco is very well stocked under “normal” conditions.  Me and the wife agreed we had never seen anything like this.

PS For context, we live in a community with an extremely high Asian population (roughly 40-50%).  That may be adding to some of the panic buying.

I stopped by Costco this afternoon.
The dried and canned beans were stripped. Lots of rice had been sold, but there was still plenty left.
I saw lots of people with carts full of water, toilet paper, bags of rice, and canned goods. Obviously prepping.

Nothing happening in my AO.  HD still has masks on the shelves, as do the local hardware stores.

Remember bird/swine flu and Y2k? That's all this is!

I trust a 20 year RN over the media! Know in 2017-2018 there were 61,000 cases of death from the flu in the USA?!!!

More deaths happen from the flu this year then the Corona virus! So why are we not worried about the flu?

Eh, people that have been in a profession for a long time tend to get complacent. People are less worried about the flu because its something we deal with every year, in and out. This virus has all of the uknown facts. Started somewhere with shitty reporting, has been spreading everywhere with limited information and look at the reaction measures by countries hit by it. They are quarantining, doing mass cleanings etc.

Someone said it way back when in the GD Coronavirus thread, "Its not what they say, its what they do". By this measure, just look at the reaction of governments small and large.

Im not stressing that this will be a 1918 Flu or anything to that nature but we have not seen government actions like this before.

A lot of people seem to be aware that the economic impact is likely to be worse than the physical impact, we rely heavily on products from China to stay operational in lots of industries, shutting down those supply lines for any length of time will ripple through for weeks.

Don’t be scared if shelves are empty tomorrow, it’s going to be the 1st of the month. So if close to a major city I’d be shopping today and not the first week of the month

I'd trust a 20 year RN to change my bedpan. That assumes I knew who the RN was, which in the case of your post, I don't.
Who I trust to make decisions regarding the health & welfare of my family is ME.
Just so happens the same preps that apply to COVID19 are 100% applicable to influenza.
As an aside, there are plenty of victims - and families of victims - who would disagree with your assessment of prior outbreaks.
I still don't understand the motivations of people who feel the need to tell others they're too prepared.

My opinion: The herd is going to stampede this weekend (or is currently stampeding). On my way to/from work yesterday I drove past the nearest grocery store (not on purpose, just my commute). Parking lot was a LOT more full then it typically is on a Friday at 10am.

Wildcard: Doesn't EBT recharge on the 1st of the month (tomorrow)? Going to be interesting if the shelves are almost bare when they get there.

The medical friends I know aren't worried.

Not in the least surprised.

Two doctors (both in cardiology), one ED nurse.

We went to Aldi and Sam's Club today.. mind you I already prep... just wanted to pad it.
I looked everybody's shopping cart in there and nobody panicking.. we were the only ones with cases of stuff in both stores.

Sam's Club had plenty of water and plenty of bleach. Aldi's same thing.
I just walked in the Walmart but I didn't buy anything just to get a general consensus or what's going on there and they were sold out of just about all of the bleach and cleaning supplies and they had about 50% cleared out of cold medicine.
Their canned goods at Walmart were stocked up all the way there wasn't anything missing... so that tells me that they keep can goods in the back or they got a delivery last night but they didn't get a delivery of cold medicine or cleaning supplies...

I figured this would be the weekend people would start to panic but I guess not.

We ended up buying most of our stuff at aldi.

I can see people were eyeballing our cart but the checkout lady was the only one that said anything to us and my wife just said  we're having a big party.

I know one thing at those cheaper stores most people have a budget and they have to stick to it or they won't have any money in their checking account that's probably the limiting factor about stocking up. people are going to wait until it's actual desperation and then put it on their credit card..
But for me if I buy it now it just means I don't have to buy it in 2 months or 3 months so it's the same amount of money, I'm just spending more at once instead of spreading it out over the next 3 months.

And I've lived in hurricane-prone States and I know what happens right before a hurricane and I don't want to have to deal with that kind of nightmare so I'm just getting more prepared now. I sure hope nothing happens but if it does we can hunker down for a few months and not have to go shopping.

Yep, right one the money.

During Hurricanes, you either made it before the herd figures it out or you go without.  During Harvey, people were chastising me at the grocery store for buying fresh bread, veggies and ice cream instead of longterm supplies...I just laughed, knowing I already had many months of supply in four secured locations.

I was at the grocery yesterday and it was a bit busier than usual, but nothing like pre-Harvey.

Hitting Costco today for a couple things, I'll let you know if I see anything unusual, but I doubt it.  People here in Houston seem to either be "already prepared and calm" or "oblivious and unprepared"...it's too early for the latter to do their knee-jerk yet.

To me, it is shocking the incorrect, shallow info that the news is providing...just complete bullshit.  It's just going to make the woolwearers more panicky when it does ramp up.

I also see some posts above talking about how this will all blow over and be a nothingburger - I'm not a believer in that.  Hearing the stories of folks I know who experienced it...blowing this off is just whistling by the graveyard.

The bullshit about  "oh, the flu kills way more people"...yes, it does.  That's because there are a lot more people infected with the flu RIGHT NOW.  Like 32 million worldwide. 18K deaths, yes.  But with the current estimated fatality rate, the current estimated R0, you will end up with way more that 32 million infected.  With the current serious cases running about 20%, and a CFR of 2.6% do the math smart guys.  Let's just say ONLY 32 million get COVID.  That alone would result in about 700K deaths, way surpassing the flu. Unfortunately, with the R0 thought to be between 4 and 6, which is way higher than influenza, you're potentially going to get about 30% of the world pop infected, or about 2.3B people infected.  That would translate to about 59.8 million deaths.  Yeah, laugh the shit out of that one folks.

For me, I'm not going to worry, I'm not wearing a mask outside.  But am I watching and monitoring, topping off? Hell yeah.  Am I thinking nothingburger? Hell NO.

RW

Been through two international airports (CONUS) so far today. Not very many masks. Mostly asians, with a sprinkling of some white girls.

Hit a variety of stores today for 3-4 months in supplies we usually buy once a month:

Arash International Market in Aurora, CO: Nobody obviously sick, a couple coughers but all the various middle easterners, somalians, etc. seemed "business as usual". Didn't see anyone buying in bulk. Little international kids running around touching everything. We're good on cheese, olives and lamb now, won't be going back until summer.

The big Booze Costco in Littleton, CO: Super busy and spotted a lot of people buying 3-4 cases of bottled water, bulk packs of TP, 40 lb sacks of flour, etc. Strangely enough, I think I was the only one wiping down a shopping cart with the obviously placed large sanitation wipes (two carts with them) at the entrance. WTF people? Lots of sheeple gobbling down the free samples completely oblivious, while the foreign types avoided. Every Mexican/Hispanic I saw had carts loaded down with bulk goods. Our cashier looked really nervous and told use they sold out of water yesterday and things had been crazy since Wednesday. We spent about $700 picking up 3x our usual load out of cheese, meat, booze and also bought some OTC meds. We're well stocked on carbs (rice/wheat) so didn't need to buy any this trip. Can't beat the booze prices for Kirkland's best stuff. My wife was cracking nervous End of the World jokes the whole time, lol.

Big Lots: Scored four big bottles of hand sanitizer, a case of mixed $0.50/canned veggies (exp 2022), various sundry stuff like toothpaste, shampoo, things we usually get once every couple months; we're good until the summer now. The folks in the store were your typical sorry looking low income bunch and seemed largely oblivious to what's coming. Kiddos running around touching everything. People buy shitty furniture and lawn stuff.

Sprouts: Usual weekly loadout of fresh veggies, also bought some more wheat. The granola eaters there didn't seem disturbed at all by whats coming. No bulk purchases noted, except they were completely out of two varieties of bulk rice, the lentils, and getting low on some of the nuts like sunflower/pumpkin.

If this turns out to be a legit Pandemic, we're going to avoid contact with the public in all circumstances and look into food pickup options for fresh veggies and such (if available). Supermarkets/Costco are just plain disgusting.

Since I see you just joined us 2020 you don't remember all the people who said Y2K, Bird and swine flu would be the end of us all! Yet look we are all here!

By showing that the flu killed 61,000 people in 2017-2018 just shows there are worse things out there that are every day! Yet the flu is not a new killer of people! Been here for a long time! So who cares right!?

Also, there are a lot of people who are making this worse then it is! People causing panic making a shortage! Just like the 22LR shortage a few years ago!

Again not saying not to prep! Panic makes people dumb! Facts that the flu kills a hell of a lot more people each year time and time again then this new scary virus the media has hyped up! Should be enough evidence that you don't need to do anything special!

For the years you been preparing each flu season have you bought EXTRA stuff? My guess is NO so why start now? People who panic and cause alarm are harmful to there family and community!

With this new scary virus how many people inside the USA have died? I know of one person that came out today! Funny the media does not tell much about the person! They give little information and facts!

This scared mentality is not much different than the mentality of people after a mass shooting! Hyped up by the media and social networking! Once the death count hits over 61,000 people in a year I will admit this is something to prep extra for! Heck hits 10k I'll admit it!

Yes, people did die of the bird and swine flu! Yet a lot less than the common flu! Not making their deaths less or anything! Yet also showing that there is no need for alarm! It's not the end of the world people are not coming back as the living dead!

Why you see photos of empty stores is because of the alarm of sheep! Follow the sheep! 22lr shortage! Said part is that some who claim to be sheepdogs are nothing close to that! They are just sheep who baaa with a louder voice and think because of that they are sheepdog!

Just a disclaimer I'm not calling you a sheep or anything else! I know how sensitive some of our members are and don't want you to feel like I'm picking on you or being a bully to you! Since I have been accused of that before!

This is a poke at you and if it offends you then you need thicker skin! I'd not even think your competitive enough to change my bedpan!,

This is a poke at you and if it offends you then you need thicker skin! I do not even think you're competitive enough to change my bedpan!

Lady I'm quoting has 20 years as an RN and has her masters! She has worked most of her time in an ER and has done several papers on communicable diseases!

So please tell me what medical degrees or experience do you have that makes you feel she is not worth to change your bedpan!?

Hard to tell sheep that the media is wrong! Funny these sheep hate media unless it's apart of their agenda!