Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: How are you preparing for COVID-19 disruptions?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

381–390 of 566 posts

Re: Ask HN: How are you preparing for COVID-19 disruptions?

#381

Post by Mountain_Skies »

beachy wrote: post #81
ravenstine wrote: post #63

I've already been preparing as a hobby for the last 3 years, not specifically for coronavirus, but here's how I'm prepared for it: - I work remotely, so I can hunker down at home and have my income totally unaffected. - I've close to 6 months worth of food, and I've been buying more in the last month as the news continues. I can give some tips on what I think is good inexpensive food to get in case anyone is interest…

> I'm fasting regularly, which will realistically extend my food supply. Isn't fasting the opposite of storing food for an emergency? Surely storing food on your body as fat is one of the safest and easiest ways to store it.

A very rough rule of thumb is that your body can convert ~1% (probably closer to 0.8%) of your body fat into usable calories per day. If you're going to rely entirely or partially on stored body fat, be sure you have enough to cover your target calorie deficit.

Re: Ask HN: How are you preparing for COVID-19 disruptions?

#382

Post by paulgb »

brokensegue wrote: post #317
lucasmullens wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is buying food before the shortage contributing to the panic stocking problem?

The same way withdrawing from a bank you expect to have a bank run soon does? This is what causes bank runs.

The difference is, a bank only has a certain amount of money, while a grocery store can turn over inventory on a daily or weekly basis. So if I stock up now before everyone else does, I can actually make less of an impact if and when there is an eventual need for everyone to prepare to stay home for a week.

Re: Ask HN: How are you preparing for COVID-19 disruptions?

#383

Post by sdinsn »

bronco21016 wrote: post #87

I see lots of advice about stocking up on basic supplies and being ready to stay home/indoors for a few weeks up to a couple of months. It sounds like great advice and my family is already building our stores up some from the typical stock. Does anyone have any advice though for those of us that have to leave the house? My job is literally travel. I don’t have much choice other than a leave of absence or exhausting s…

If we get to the point that the government recommends self-quarantine, your job will probably be put on pause.

Re: Ask HN: How are you preparing for COVID-19 disruptions?

#384

Post by garmaine »

pmoriarty wrote: post #356
dfsegoat wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See 1. It's Because they were evacuated e.g. from Cruise ships with other symptomatic patients, and were quarantined + tested, it's a CDC standard protocol [2]. They even put one of them down the street from me as we speak [3] 1 - https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/quality/15th-us-corona... 2 - https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/yellowbook/2020/posttravel-eval... 3 - https://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/10751105-181/sonom…

There have been reported problems with the CDC tests.

Those problems would cause false negatives, not false positives.

Re: Ask HN: How are you preparing for COVID-19 disruptions?

#385

Post by droithomme »

capkutay wrote: post #349
millettjon wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can maximize immune system functioning by making sure you get proper nutrition and plenty of sleep.

I know this sounds trivial, but there's data that suggests common immune-systems boosters such as zinc and vitamin C do help with covid-19. https://journals.plos.org/plospathogens/article?id=10.1371/j...

I'm taking modest levels of Ascorbic Acid, Vitamin D, Quinine Hydrochloride, Zinc, and standardized Forsythia Extract.

Re: Ask HN: How are you preparing for COVID-19 disruptions?

#386

Post by fludlight »

theNJR wrote: post #357

I’ve spent about $300 to prepare, that includes paying a lazy fee ordering some stuff off Amazon, and optimizing for things I’ll eat in April if this all blows over. Food and water: Added 25 gallons to my normal water delivery Protein bars, jerky, dehydrated cheese Peanuts, trail mix, peanut butter Big sack of rice (save for earthquake kit after April, don’t usually eat rice) Canned chili, canned stew, canned beans (…

Why the tarp and duct tape?

Re: Ask HN: How are you preparing for COVID-19 disruptions?

#387

Post by garmaine »

WrtCdEvrydy wrote: post #234
agumonkey wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually last year a few pharmacies in France told us they were short of some pills. Then we learned that only a few brands were manufacturing them .. so almost a single point of failure.

Globalization as made this less likely but most countries will now allow emergency imports if the situation gets critical.

Globalization makes this more likely. Before globalization there were manufacturers distributed all over serving different markets. Now there are global monopolies on production (for particular drugs), which makes production very vulnerable to supply chain disruption.

Re: Ask HN: How are you preparing for COVID-19 disruptions?

#389

Post by reddog »

cycrutchfield wrote: post #224
dfsegoat wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find this to be pretty alarmist. "If the pandemic hits" ... the virus has already hit. The WHO itself has backed off the Pandemic classification [1]. The virus has an overall 98% survival rate, and most diagnosed cases in the US, are not actually showing any symptoms (which itself is a cause for concern re: spread). The annual Flu, MERS and SARS were far far worse. The flu kills between 26,000 and 52,000 annually i…

>The virus has an overall 98% survival rate You say this as if 2% of people dying is somehow nothing. Think about everybody in your life that you care deeply about. Relatives, friends, mentors, etc. If this goes pandemic, at least one person in that category will likely die.

Indeed. If you have 20 to 30 people that you love or care about a 2% mortality rate means that there is about a 50% chance at least one of them will die.

Re: Ask HN: How are you preparing for COVID-19 disruptions?

#390

Post by dwd »

btilly wrote: post #302
jackjeff wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was under the impression that the Spanish flu was very different from the regular flu and COVID-19, because it was the young/old people that survived it and the healthy 20-50 year old that died the most. Most people died of the Spanish Flu because of their immune response. It looks like COVID-19 is really mild* for lots of people in that age group. Am I missing something? Did the Spanish flu start like COVID-19 and…

The flu regularly migrates between pigs, chickens and humans. Whenever it does, the poorly adapted flu is unusually lethal. The misnamed Spanish flu seems to have killed by triggering a strong immune response. That response is called a cytokine storm. Which means that the stronger your immune system, the more likely you were to be hit hard. It therefore killed the reverse of the groups that normally get killed by dis…

Primarily death was due to bacterial pneumonia, the cytokine storm likely accelerating the deterioration of the lungs. That particularly viral strain may have been more dangerous, but overall the current pandemic is comparable in death rates.

It would seem during the Spanish flu your best chance of survival was being in a location where strict quarantine and travel restrictions were imposed so the health system was able to cope with those who did contract the virus.

The places with the highest fatality rates were those with poor or non-existent health services or where people didn't seek medical assistance.

The mortality rate in the US was around 0.5%, <1% in East Asia, but 5% in India and as high as 20% in some Pacific nations. Iran's current Covid-19 mortality rate is quite comparable to the Spanish Flu around 14%.

Post reply on HN