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

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

#471

Post by chewz »

Keep the gas tank full all the time. Escape the city before the lockdown - go to your summerhouse or your parents.

Don't stay in the city. Break the lockdown if necessary. Food shortages and violence will come quickly. There is always oversupply of food in farmlands and shortages in cities.

Keep some food supplies at hand (beans, rice, meat in the freezer). And some gold in small bars.

Few weeks ago, before it all started I have purchased 50 ordinary masks, some surgical disinfector and also two military grade masks with biological weapon filters.

But most important - keep up good spirits and wash your hands. My Mom prays.

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

#472

Post by gwd »

ravenstine wrote: post #348
gwd wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your body learns how to fast, just like it learns how to run. If you fast regularly, you body switches into "fasting" mode quickly, and you feel much less of an impact cognitively or physically, than if you've never fasted before (or haven't fasted for a long time). If it comes down to who can just survive the longest with zero calories, someone weighing 300 pounds is probably going to out-last me. But if there's any…

Absolutely! A lot of is is psychological, too. I try not to bring up the topic of fasting too much around people, but when I do, people think it's nuts to even just eat one meal a day! Of course, I would have thought that's nuts years ago. But after trying it myself, even if I don't continue to fast regularly, I know that I could do it if I needed to and that it wouldn't be a big deal.

It's so weird -- people say, "Oh I could never do that, I get SUUUPER hungry." Um, do you think I don't get super hungry? But it's not linear. People are 1 hour late for a meal and they're a little hungry; 2 hours late and they get quite hungry, 3 hours and they're super hungry. They extrapolate, and think that after 24 hours they'll be writhing in agony or something. That's not how it works.

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

#473

Post by jfim »

gwright wrote: post #323
riquito wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Italy it's illegal, you cannot hoard or speculate on basic necessities (as the masks are being considered during the epidemic). https://www.repubblica.it/economia/2020/02/26/news/coronavir...

Perfect way to guarantee shortages. Let the price float and there is an incentive for businesses to figure out how to increase the supply quickly, thus causing the price to drop. The economic theory on this is rock-solid and yet it seems impossible to educate the general public or government officials regarding the consequences of price controls.

It's not as clear cut as you say.

For example, the large increase in price creates perverse incentives to reduce the available supply and make it available at a higher price (eg. buying all the masks at $n and reselling them at a price greater than n).

A higher price also encourages counterfeiting; making fake masks that sell for $1 isn't that profitable, but if they sell for $50, there's definitely more of an incentive to do so.

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

#474

Post by chewz »

sneak wrote: post #469

I already maintain a 90+ day supply of food and medications and most consumables/supplies in my homes, as a matter of course. I took the lessons of the Battle of Berlin to heart. I also have a half dozen P99/P100 masks already, for the same reason. The only specific measure I am taking is stocking up on drinking water, my supplies of which fluctuate between 15 and 30 days as I consume it and periodically reorder. I a…

This is useless if you live in the city. All your supplies will be taken away from you by force if enough people becomes desperate.

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

#475

Post by chewz »

RegnisGnaw wrote: post #43

Refill your medication(s), that's the biggest one. India produces a lot of drugs and if they get infected, we will see shortage. China also produces a lot of the base chemicals used in medication, so this is worry some. If you have chronic conditions, you really don't want to be without. Soap and sanitizer. Mostly soap. Soap is equally effective as sanitizer in washing hands, etc. Soap is also much cheaper and more a…

Or better yet learn to make soap yourself. Its easy.

Fat, ash, water.

https://www.frugalandthriving.com.au/homemade-lard-soap/

https://www.thesprucecrafts.com/how-to-make-soap-517084

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

#477

Post by ClearAndPresent »

megous wrote: post #7
Someone1234 wrote: post #2

I'm not. There's no meaningful preparations for avoiding what is essentially a really dangerous variant of the common cold at an individual level. Now governments and the medical field should be preparing for it. But most of that is logistical problems (e.g. number of hospital beds, preparing quarantine plans, test kits, etc). You can order a bunch of masks if it makes you feel better, but countries with common mask…

Question is about disruptions caused by people's reaction to the outbreak, not the virus itself. Stuff like this: https://www.ibtimes.sg/wuhan-virus-italy-supermarkets-are-ru... The freaking panic is already starting in my country too. People buying up food in 10x the quantities than the usual shopping visit, etc.. I've gone shopping yesterday, when the virus was found in the country next to mine, to buy enough food…

>The freaking panic is already starting in my country too. People buying up food in 10x the quantities than the usual shopping visit, etc..

>I've gone shopping yesterday, when the virus was found in the country next to mine

What's the old saying? "You're not sitting in traffic, you are the traffic." :)

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

#478

Post by thatcat »

reddog wrote: post #355
veemjeem wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

is it possible to reuse a mask if you put the mask through an autoclave?

What if you microwaved it? To be clear, I don't have any idea if this works or not, I'm just asking. And of course it couldn't have any metal parts.

That works for sponges but it breaks the material down pretty fast. You could possibly use ozone to sterilize the masks if you sealed a container and let it sit at a proper concentration for the correct time period.

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

#479

Post by kingosticks »

dvfjsdhgfv wrote: post #465
thorwasdfasdf wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if you're excercising for health, you don't need a gym. Just go for a vigorous walk, do some gardening, maybe a run, or vacuum the house. All of those count as excellent ways to get exercise.

I have no idea why you're being downvoted. Have people forgotten how to exercise without gyms?

I'm not sure I'd personally suggest that hoovering the house is an "excellent" form of exercise, but at least they didn't blindly assume the person was going to the gym purely because they were not aware how to exercise outside of it. Perhaps the community aspect of their gym is what attracts them. None of the replies actualy answer the original question of are gyms are a particularly bad place to go. I would suggest they absolutely are a bad idea as they involve a lot of air conditioning and a lot of shared surfaces. And also a lot of coughing even at the best of the times.

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

#480

Post by Faaak »

jfim wrote: post #473
gwright wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perfect way to guarantee shortages. Let the price float and there is an incentive for businesses to figure out how to increase the supply quickly, thus causing the price to drop. The economic theory on this is rock-solid and yet it seems impossible to educate the general public or government officials regarding the consequences of price controls.

It's not as clear cut as you say. For example, the large increase in price creates perverse incentives to reduce the available supply and make it available at a higher price (eg. buying all the masks at $n and reselling them at a price greater than n). A higher price also encourages counterfeiting; making fake masks that sell for $1 isn't that profitable, but if they sell for $50, there's definitely more of an incent…

You suppose that you only have one "hoarder" (or speculator) in the market.

Once you have many, and if they don't talk together (which would be forbidden), masks would sell lower than what you think

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