Monday, September 07, 2020
COVID Part 1: In the beginning there were shortages, or...
Oh shit, we're out of what?!
In writing about financial collapse, I've always held one belief over all others: saving your way through this great reset will be nearly impossible. Bottom line, it isn't practical for anyone but the most hardcore preppers. This doesn't mean I and everyone else couldn't be better prepared. Still, something always goes wrong in a way you couldn't anticipate, and you have the hope someone you know has what you need, be it a consumer good or a service. Nowhere was this more apparent than with paper products and meat.
Although the pandemic started in December, it didn't really hit until mid-March, with New York's cases and deaths exploding through May. As the economy shut down, people were forced to stay and work from home, and suddenly all these biological functions, usually completed at your job with supplies provided by your employer, were now taking place at your home, so a few rolls of toilet paper and paper towels weren't enough. On this topic I consider myself an accidental prepper, since I shop at BJ's and therefore buy in bulk, so we were decently stocked. We did run low from time to time, which for us was a normal supply for most households, but I never felt safe in what we had.
Others were not so lucky; BJ's went weeks without either product, and on the rare days when it did have some, both were sold out within the first two hours of opening. This was with the store rationing the products. Everyone could get one package of each, regardless of size, and it was enforced. I never tried to get around the rule by buying multiple cases in the same day on different transactions, but I doubt it would have worked anyway. You have to scan your membership card, so the store would know if you're buying too many of the limited items. If we were running low, and BJ's was out of what we needed, I fell back on a strategy I learned while looking for gas in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy: go local. The smaller convenience stores almost always had a roll or two, and Foodtown sometimes had some, though not as often. You were limited as to how much you could buy at all stores, but our household of three managed. You also couldn't be picky. The Foodtown brand of either paper was terrible, and people bought them as a last resort, but they were purchased. One day I saw every almost all types of toilet paper gone, save for a huge pile of Foodtown's generic stock. I had to laugh; evidently people still had some standards. They still sold out by the end of the day, and yes, I went back to check. Of course, I bought a roll for myself and suffered for the sake of the experiment. Why paper products were in such limited supply was evidently due to separate supply chains, one for commercial properties, and one for grocery stores, and no companies pivoted in time to make up for the shortfall. It's a lost opportunity.
Meat was a similar story, but with more urgency. Carolyn works with a sniffer dog, and the puppy has a sensitive stomach, so she has special dog food which is supplemented with boiled chicken breast. It's not really optional, unless we want to buy new carpets every few weeks. In fact, she eats so much more of the latter versus the former that you could switch the two. Here things were more dicey. Again, we never ran out, but it was much closer, and convenience stores usually don't carry raw meat. The answer was to get it whenever we could, regardless of the quality or price, and cross our fingers. I'm concentrating on raw chicken breast, but all meats were in short supply. I'll eat anything, but we had to have chicken breast. If we had a temporary surplus, we threw it in the freezer. We made it through, thankfully. The reduced supply was caused by meat packing plants and slaughterhouses having to shut down because of COVID sweeping through the employees. It took an executive order declaring these facilities as essential to get them back to work.
There are still sporadic shortages of both meat and paper goods, but nothing like April and May, when I trolled through BJ's everyday, trying to find what we needed and get some exercise at the same time. Still, stocking up now is wise, and out attic has plenty of both paper goods as a reserve. These are minor examples, and not having toilet paper or paper towels wouldn't have been an emergency. Not having chicken breast would have been more serious. How about diapers or baby formula? Baby wipes were also in very short supply. I'm not aware of any medical shortages beyond testing capacity for COVID and the few proven medications used to treat the disease when used off-label. However, major shortages could have occurred, and I, along with most people, would have been caught unprepared.
In writing about financial collapse, I've always held one belief over all others: saving your way through this great reset will be nearly impossible. Bottom line, it isn't practical for anyone but the most hardcore preppers. This doesn't mean I and everyone else couldn't be better prepared. Still, something always goes wrong in a way you couldn't anticipate, and you have the hope someone you know has what you need, be it a consumer good or a service. Nowhere was this more apparent than with paper products and meat.
Although the pandemic started in December, it didn't really hit until mid-March, with New York's cases and deaths exploding through May. As the economy shut down, people were forced to stay and work from home, and suddenly all these biological functions, usually completed at your job with supplies provided by your employer, were now taking place at your home, so a few rolls of toilet paper and paper towels weren't enough. On this topic I consider myself an accidental prepper, since I shop at BJ's and therefore buy in bulk, so we were decently stocked. We did run low from time to time, which for us was a normal supply for most households, but I never felt safe in what we had.
Others were not so lucky; BJ's went weeks without either product, and on the rare days when it did have some, both were sold out within the first two hours of opening. This was with the store rationing the products. Everyone could get one package of each, regardless of size, and it was enforced. I never tried to get around the rule by buying multiple cases in the same day on different transactions, but I doubt it would have worked anyway. You have to scan your membership card, so the store would know if you're buying too many of the limited items. If we were running low, and BJ's was out of what we needed, I fell back on a strategy I learned while looking for gas in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy: go local. The smaller convenience stores almost always had a roll or two, and Foodtown sometimes had some, though not as often. You were limited as to how much you could buy at all stores, but our household of three managed. You also couldn't be picky. The Foodtown brand of either paper was terrible, and people bought them as a last resort, but they were purchased. One day I saw every almost all types of toilet paper gone, save for a huge pile of Foodtown's generic stock. I had to laugh; evidently people still had some standards. They still sold out by the end of the day, and yes, I went back to check. Of course, I bought a roll for myself and suffered for the sake of the experiment. Why paper products were in such limited supply was evidently due to separate supply chains, one for commercial properties, and one for grocery stores, and no companies pivoted in time to make up for the shortfall. It's a lost opportunity.
Meat was a similar story, but with more urgency. Carolyn works with a sniffer dog, and the puppy has a sensitive stomach, so she has special dog food which is supplemented with boiled chicken breast. It's not really optional, unless we want to buy new carpets every few weeks. In fact, she eats so much more of the latter versus the former that you could switch the two. Here things were more dicey. Again, we never ran out, but it was much closer, and convenience stores usually don't carry raw meat. The answer was to get it whenever we could, regardless of the quality or price, and cross our fingers. I'm concentrating on raw chicken breast, but all meats were in short supply. I'll eat anything, but we had to have chicken breast. If we had a temporary surplus, we threw it in the freezer. We made it through, thankfully. The reduced supply was caused by meat packing plants and slaughterhouses having to shut down because of COVID sweeping through the employees. It took an executive order declaring these facilities as essential to get them back to work.
There are still sporadic shortages of both meat and paper goods, but nothing like April and May, when I trolled through BJ's everyday, trying to find what we needed and get some exercise at the same time. Still, stocking up now is wise, and out attic has plenty of both paper goods as a reserve. These are minor examples, and not having toilet paper or paper towels wouldn't have been an emergency. Not having chicken breast would have been more serious. How about diapers or baby formula? Baby wipes were also in very short supply. I'm not aware of any medical shortages beyond testing capacity for COVID and the few proven medications used to treat the disease when used off-label. However, major shortages could have occurred, and I, along with most people, would have been caught unprepared.
