COVID-19 Week 1 in Quarantine

This will be a weekly update on my personal experience during the Coronavirus Pandemic of 2019-2020. The virus started in China in late 2019. It wasn't officially recognized as an emergency in the US until recently. The general instructions right now is to stay inside and only go out for essentials. It is recommended to social distance yourself from others 6 feet. Many Americans are not listening to this and going out like nothing is happening. There is service announcements out there now addressing this. Many businesses are closed. This is having a huge impact on our Economy. The stock market is already down 25%. The US just introduced a $2 million stimulus for this.

I'm a single person with 1 cat. I live in Oregon in a populated area close to a major city. It is now March 2020 and I' haven't left my home in a week. Our entire company is working from home. I just found out they just laid off many people. For the most part I haven't been paying close attention to the all the details of this even daily. I get tidbits of information on my cell phone and other people. So far, life is pretty normal for me as my daily routine involves working on computers, steaming movies and playing video games. Power, Internet and water has not been effected. Since I'm a prepper, I already have all the supplies one would need including the items that went off the shelf recently which I'll explain next.

Regarding Emergency Preparedness and this event, I already had at least 3 months worth of food and water. This consists of food from my normal everyday staple foods (Dry food in pantry/food shelves and refrigerator) to long term survival food (Rice, Beans, Oats and Freeze dried survival food). I had enough cat food and litter to last 3 months but added another big bag of cat food for last another 3 months. Regarding water, I have a month supply in water containers (I have to increase this) but I can extend this by months with the water from the hot water heater and a water bladder for my tub. This will be if water is turned off. I have more then a sufficient supply of general survival supplies like you would need for outdoors which would more then suffice for indoors (Think of everything you would need for camping). I have plenty of first aid supplies and I happen to be in the process of creating several First Aid pouches as a project before this became a big deal in the US.

Regarding this specific event, the items that are pretty much non existent are Hand Sanitizer, Wipes, Toilet Paper, Flu Masks and Disinfectant supplies like bleach and cleaners. I had enough of these supplies to where it did not effect me. Even though I didn't have to, I went out 3 times the prior 2 weeks before Quarantine and bought everything I would think I like to eat for my freezer, fridge and pantry. These items mostly consisted of comfort foods like dry snacks, cookies, ice cream, milk, cereal and sugar. I was grabbing everything I would think I would like to eat like french fries, chicken fingers, cheese, salami, crackers and even bought biscuit dough. There were many low or empty areas were these foods were kept. I am a part of my neighborhood emergency preparedness event were I was going to do long term food storage so I bought more rice, mylar bags, oxygen absorbers and buckets but that event has been canceled. I admit I did buy more rice for extra long term survival. I don't think I will need rice again in my entire life :)

Experiences and Observations

• Dollar Tree, I noticed a woman looked panic looking for flu masks when they didn't have any. This was early on and I had her follow me home and I gave her some. She was caring for some elderly people. I went back 2 more times for recon. I bought cold and flu medicines just in case. I went early in the day and it wasn't that crowded.
• Silver went down to $13 from $18 and I couldn't buy any. So apparently it's high demand and companies are setting huge minimum order limits. The eBay auctions I've had on my watch list went down and I was going to buy but they weren't available. So silver went down and the prices to buy are over $20 an ounce...
• Grocery Store, the main one I go to is Winco. Once it was announced a problem in US and people may have to stay inside the line was all the way in the back of the store and went down the freezer Isle. I had to leave my cart behind. I went to Target and was able to get everything I needed. I went back another day after the fact and it was ok but this is when the shelves were empty of many items. Hand Sanitizer, Toilet Paper and Bleach were gone. Tiny bit of wipes left. The pasta and Ramen noodles were pretty much gone. The rice was hit hard. Back in the emergency supply areas there was big bags of rice, beans and oats.

Final thought

The feeling I have is strange. It's like the end of the world events you see on TV but very passive and slow. The weather has been beautiful. Its quite and calm outside for the most part. There was definitely panic buying at the Grocery stores (This is something I 100% knew was going to happen). Regarding the state of the economy, that is something I didn't think would have happened but I understand how it is being effected. When this is over I think there is going to be a huge boom in the economy. People will be wanting to go out and do and buy many things.