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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?

#481

Post by Dowwie »

Sign up for the American Red Cross, disaster response. ARC is as organized as a volunteer-driven humanitarian organization can be. Once your family is secure, you can help others. Do not expect government to take care of basic needs. Federal, state, and municipal government can only do so much.

Don't bother responding to me with your opinion about misappropriation of funds. I spent a month volunteering in Louisiana after Katrina, taking days off without pay. Volunteers are always in short supply. The ARC is a vital institution.

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

#482

Post by Dowwie »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #5

Whether or not coronavirus turns into a stop-all-of-society-for-weeks event, China already stopped much of their society for a while. That means that things made in China are going to get scarce in a month or so. I therefore am paying attention to what things that I regularly use are made in China, and buying a few extra now, so that I can take a month or two disruption in the supply.

A lot of food comes from China

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

#483

Post by brador »

sampsonitify wrote: post #464
cactus2093 wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm wondering how realistic a water or power shutoff is, those seem like much bigger concerns for a hurricane or earthquake. For covid-19 it seems like the municipal authorities will be able to keep at least the handful of people working that are required to keep the grids up (even if just about everyone gets infected, it sounds like ~80% of cases only have minor symptoms). Restaurants shutting down and grocery store…

> 2 weeks of water and about the same of food Everyone keeps saying that, but what does it mean? What food did you buy, and how much water? I can't get a handle on how much that is. I'm not panicing, at all, I just want to have enough when everyone ELSE panics. I also hate the thought of boredom, so I'm trying every canned fish I can to see what I like, so I at least have some variety and flavour for those two weeks.

Water - 1.5 litres for each day.

Food - 2000 calories per day for every male, 1500 for every female.

And buy a water filter and gas burner/camping stove.

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

#484

Post by agumonkey »

garmaine wrote: post #387
WrtCdEvrydy wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

AFAIK that's what the pharmacist hinted at, there are brands, but the manufacturing plants are shared.

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

#485

Post by brador »

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…

How do you get electrolytes when fasting?

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

#486

Post by Tepix »

bartread wrote: post #8

We ran a drill a couple of weeks back where everybody worked from home to ensure that if we have to close our office we are able to continue working (assuming we're not ill, of course). This was really just to shake out any issues. Fortunately, since most of us already work remotely for at least some of the time we didn't have any significant issues. Beyond that, nothing really.

That's proactive thinking, good job. We're looking at the maximum user limits of our hardware and licenses and expect to buy some more licenses for the VPN appliance.

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

#487

Post by Tepix »

alexis_fr wrote: post #177
bartread wrote: post #8

We ran a drill a couple of weeks back where everybody worked from home to ensure that if we have to close our office we are able to continue working (assuming we're not ill, of course). This was really just to shake out any issues. Fortunately, since most of us already work remotely for at least some of the time we didn't have any significant issues. Beyond that, nothing really.

If we are constrained to work remotely, the network may experience issues too. The 4G and internet also need actual interventions. If we must work remotely, internet companies may also have to.

Having one or just a handful guys work on-site shouldn't be a problem.

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

#488

Post by Tepix »

petschge wrote: post #15
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…

There is at least one preparation that you can take: Make sure you have enough (non quickly perishable) food and essentials such as tooth paste and toilet paper at home so you don't have to go out shopping if you are at home sick for a week.

It's not just if you get sick yourself. If your company closes down its offices and you have to stay at home you may want to minimize your shopping during that time as well.

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

#489

Post by Tepix »

sneak wrote: post #467
reddog wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FYI: You can get get a 50 lbs bag of pinto beans at Sams for $33 and a 50 lbs bag of rice for $17. They will keep as is at least a year and provide, respectively, 76,000 calories and 82,400 calories. Maybe 80 days worth of food for a single individual. It would be a pretty monotonous diet but better than the alternative.

Drinking water is frequently the bottleneck, as stable food stores are cheap and straightforward.

If you have drinkable tap water you should be ok.

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

#490

Post by jiofih »

gwright wrote: post #395
jiofih wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In cases of extremely skewed demand/supply the price never actually goes down, and all the buyers get hosed. See: concert tickets.

Not the situation we are talking about but even in that situation a government control on the price of the concert tickets could easily create a shortage. An entertainer would just choose to have concerts in a different jurisdiction that didn't limit the prices leading to 0 seats in the location with price controls.

The entertainer makes zero money on the added price of tickets from trading dynamics we are talking about, it’s all middlemen.
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