I will admit to being just a little bemused by the wringing of hands over actual and potential shortages of things like toilet paper, hand sanitizer, face masks and prepper supplies . Other than hurricane regions of the country where people have, for brief periods of time, seen supplies falling down to zero, this is a whole new experience for most North Americans who are most familiar with fully stock shelves.
Across on the other side of the world though shortages of every imaginable product and service are ordinary and commonplace. People still manage to get by but it helps to learn patience and get used to waiting in line for items that you might think should never run low.
Like dollars or euro for example. Just imagine not being able to find foreign currency when you need some. But that is indeed the case in a number of African nations. Or to see sugar shortages and find yourself waiting in long lines for hours for your turn to come up only to be rewarded with a meager two kilo bag. Outside of capital cities you may be unable to buy such ordinary things as yogurt, cheese, milk powder, mosquito repellant and spare parts to fix your car.
Some shortages seem comical and are mostly irritating. The world will not end if you cannot find rubber tubes to repair your bicycle. But others can shut down industry such as the case of welding gases being unavailable when containers of full cylinders are held up in ports due to corrupt customs officials. And then there are the cases where shortages become life threatening.
For a time in 2018 it was not possible to buy insulin in much of Kenya. People were flying or busing to neighboring countries to purchase their medications or if they had family abroad were getting it sent in by courier. I encountered so many different situations over the years I cannot even recall them all now but one of the most absurd (at least for me) was not being able to find needed sizes of Phillips screws.
“Oh for cripes sake” I shouted at the clerk, “its not like they are gold or butter. How could you not have ordinary bloody screws in stock”! But they didn’t and neither did anyone else at a prices you would be prepared to pay. I found one guy selling but because they were so scarce he would open the boxes and sell by the piece at nosebleed prices. Utterly insane.
But of course its not the clerks fault. And its rarely the business owners fault either. The problems can be traced back to importers, supply chain disruptions, shortages of the correct currencies, import restrictions, customs bottlenecks, paperwork, corruption, labour unrest or even the rainy season. There is always a reason and there is never anything you can do about it.
The thing about being a Westerner though and living in Africa while suffering from a lack of supply is that you can almost always find what you need if you have cash. Money makes all the difference as long as you are prepared to pay the price. But these current shortages we now face here at home feel a little different to me.
And its because almost everybody here has enough money if they need something. So nobody has a cash advantage when a shortage erupts. Shortages in the West are not the same as shortages in Africa. If we are running low on goods or supplies here then odds are there are genuine problems somewhere that cannot be easily fixed. So its really a concern of mine that if people here begin hoarding critical supplies like medications, that across the world where the other half live there might be nothing available at all.
Money has a way of getting what it needs and goods will flow to the centers of wealth and power. But if you are a poor Kenyan or Tanzanian who shows up next month with an easily treatable illness or dental infection that requires an antibiotic only to discover the shelves have gone bare, then he or she could be facing their maker. It is life and death where antibiotics are concerned even if some of us have forgotten that.
If there is an important role for the World Health Organization this is probably the one where they can be most influential. Antibiotic and medication shortages resulting from the lack of economic activity in China and the new export restrictions in India are a global issue, not just an American problem.
It would be very easy for monied interests to overpower the needs of poorer countries by simply pricing critical goods well beyond there reach via demand. We do it already without even knowing its happening but I assure you when the price of a life saving medication doubles in our neck of the woods it will mean many people will die somewhere else because they are simply unable to pay.
It may be time to reactivate domestic laws against hoarding of supplies as distasteful as that may sound to some. Or to have international bodies begin to fashion some kind of agreements on distribution where global shortages now seem certain. I don’t know which of our international organizations is best suited for the role of ensuring there is equity between nations whether that is the UN, WHO, World Bank, Red Cross, IMF or any other but it needs to be given consideration since the market by itself is mostly a pricing mechanism and fundamentally only responds to one thing…
Dollars and cents.
Greetings, all. Some observations:
- Grocery and hardware/garden stores in NC are fully stocked. Shoppers radiate no sense of urgency. However, my online “next-day deliveries” are increasingly delayed, often by as much as four days. I had to back-order a nebulizer from Amazon. Worth the wait to avoid crowds at Costco.
- Several local universities have recalled students studying abroad, and it is not clear that those students will quarantine before returning to area campuses. These schools also enroll an abundance of Chinese students; the latest documented return from China was January 14. Hmmm…
- Someone here mentioned prepaying taxes/bills. I have requested an early top-up of the propane tank that we need for the gas stove. I had to insist since we are not due to refill for another six months. I’ve also scheduled septic-tank pumping this week. Trying to think of other do-ahead jobs in this weirdly calm interval.
- A reminder to focus on the present and to be alert to your surroundings as you plan. I absentmindedly took a tumble two weeks ago and fractured my foot, just as I was organizing preps. Now I hobble around a three-story house on crutches and a frankenboot, not ideal. Make self-care a daily priority, even as you plan for chaos, in order to remain on your feet in a crisis.
- A personal note, if you will indulge me: I have been preparing for a decade, after reading Kathy Harrison’s gentle but urgent guide, Just in Case. Canned foods I bought from the LDS bishop’s storehouse in 2009, when the forecast looked dire, can sit on my shelves for another 20 years—-more satisfying than money in the bank. My family has called me an alarmist and a kook. But this past weekend, my husband apologized for once suggesting that I am mentally ill. “You may be right this time,” he admitted. Jeebus. Those of us who strive alone to protect our loved ones need resources and communities like Peak Prosperity to help us remain resolute. Thank you all for your efforts, which have inspired and reassured me over the years!
This post regards products available from this provider in WA State (of which I have no connection); https://hostdefense.com/products/stamets-7-capsules
I believe the data to be more generally applicable to various similar products available at health food stores.
I am going to summarize some information from US Patent 9,931,316 granted to Paul Stamets on April 3, 2018. My prepping philosophy for this virus is to maximize active measures to boost my immune system. This patent is a wealth of info., much of it anectodal, but taken together it paints a powerful picture of efficacy.
“This inventor has found a surprising array of antiviral molecules spread amongst different families of mushrooms…”
"The effect of the antiviral and antibacterial components with the aforementioned mushroom species and their relatives may be the decisive factor that improves survivability from infection in many animals, including humans… "
Here are my summaries of some of the most interesting case studies given in the patent;
-
0.25 gram per day per chicken in feed protected the entirety of an Iowa free-range chicken farm (20K birds) from a deadly wave of avian influenza in 2015 . This farm was an island of immunity, whereas untreated chickens in surrounding areas tested positive and had to be destroyed. - NIH virology testing showed multiple samples of the authors mushroom preparations as being, “highly active” against HPV.
- A patient with an inoperable recurrence of Merkel cell carcinoma on his liver eradicated it through a series of dietary changes and supplementation, including the Stamets-7 mushroom blend referenced above.
- A physician who had longstanding a Hep. C infection and was planning to take a course of pharmaceutical treatment for it was not able to get the expensive pills because his latest testing in 2015 showed zero viral load. The only possible explanation - and one that caused this MD to document his case study and send it to the patent’s author, was that his use of two 60 capsule bottles of Stamets Agarikon mushroom product, which he had taken several months before the latest test, wiped out the Hep. C.
Best regards to all, Jim H
LesPhelps, what you are doing wrong with your math is that you are applying the case fatality rate to the entire population. That rate of death only applies to people who are diagnosed critical and/or hospitalized and that percentage of all people is fortunately still relatively small. I can’t recall the number right now but I think it was 5% of COVID cases that went critical and of that number, 3.4% were ultimately fatalities so the percentage of the entire population is still quite low.
Interesting article, fact checking a covid19 list on the internet.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/zinc-lozenges-coronavirus/
My sister, from a big city out west, just texted to ask if I’d heard about the 2 cases of the honey-badger virus (aka COVID-19) in little Rome, NY (in Central NY, near where I live). I checked quickly on-line, and the cases haven’t been confirmed yet. But they are being tested, and have the right symptoms, and recent travel to a country with the outbreak.
Thanks for the advanced warning, Chris!
Use the browser Brave if you can’t access this article (it often lets you get articles behind paywalls and “no ad blocker” filters:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/29/upshot/coronavirus-surprise-medical-bills.html
I expect that the Health Insurance lobbyists are working overtime to get the government to expand Medicare to cover the cost of testing and treatment of this virus. Never pay for something if you can get the government to.
ADDED: I noticed this comment:
"When people without good insurance coverage get wind of the notion that getting caught up in a quarantine might cost them tens of thousands of dollars, the US will have a significant number of residents working in the service industry who understand they MUST evade testing and quarantine. And who could blame them? It would be virtually instant bankruptcy. I'm sure that won't affect the spread of COVID-19."It is really going to get bad here, isn't it? Can't wait to see how the politicians start spinning this when 5% of the American population is in the hospital facing massive bills for treatment. Forget capitalism vs socialism, the #1 issue this November is going to be healthcare.
New Zealand has at least one more case from Italy. The advice from the WHO, which the Government is following is downright dangerous.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12313758
In an attempt to add to my modest supply of Sambucol’s Black Elderberry, I called my local Costco to verify that it was in stock. Luckily, Costco still had over 20 units on hand. One can buy a two 7.8 oz bottle pack of the “Immune Support Syrup” for 25 dollars - a significant savings per once when compared to the smaller varient of the product sold at the nearby Target.
However, unlike other locations in the US, the manager disclosed that his store will likely run out of the remaining sanitary products such as toilet paper by tomorrow. Apparently his store had long since sold out of thermometers and recently sold its last Clorox wipes.
The store is located in Grafton, Wisconsin, which itself lies within the northern part of the greater Milwaukee metropolitan area.
As a more personal observation, my teenage daughter just asked if she could have a mask, a small hand sanitizer bottle and a travel pack of wipes for her upcoming class trip to our nation’s capitol. This is the same middle schooler who gingerly questioned/made fun of such purchases just weeks before.
Although I am concerned about her future travels, I wonder to what extent will the growing acknowledgement of the novel coronavirus impact society during the coming weeks as ever larger daily case numbers emerge.
I believe that the death rate applies to all of those who are confirmed to be infected.
Hi Mark,
Good to hear from you again (I don’t pop in here very often). Thanks for the numbers. Regarding the death rate, yes, from the official numbers it does seem as though the rate is over 3%, though for many weeks it seemed to be consistently just over 2%. It’d be interesting to know why that percentage rose in recent weeks. However, that is just relative to known cases. Presumably, there must be many cases where there are no apparent symptoms or where the symptoms are so mild that they aren’t getting picked up. I don’t know how this compares to the flu, in that respect.
Again, thanks (I think) for re-emphasising the seriousness of this and I’ll be following Chris’s updates.
Tony
I believe that the death rate as stated by WHO, refers to 3.4% of those who are confirmed to have contracted the virus.
Please keep posting about the Little Rome outbreak. Not from Rome, but I was born and raised in CNY and still have family there. Beautiful part about of the world. Watch out for the crowds at Wegmans.
I constantly hear references to the large number of mild cases that go unreported which would lower the death rate… but we can’t forget the vast number of folks in China dying at home and not being counted. In the interview with a crematorium manager the percentage of people dying at home was 60%… also causes of death were listed as pneumonia… many factors could be contributing to an artificially low death rate as well.
Some may be forced into quarantine and some, like myself will go voluntarily, hopefully before contracting the virus. I just was in a post operative hip replacement with bone grafts, recovery at home, for 12 weeks of very limited mobility. I had stocked up before flying out of state. I have support people I could call, but I am stubbornly independent and did OK on my own. Read, watched movies, exercised, stationary bike, actually completed my taxes early. I am now restocked.
Not to get religious, here, but many spiritually minded people, monks, nuns, Buddhists, Christians, etc., prepare for and go into prayer ful retreats, with others or alone that can last years. Consider people in solitary confinement, all over the world. If you can have an attitude adjustment, and get ready, this time could actually be a blessing. Thank you for all videos and helpful ideas.
Get thee to Woodmans. Not sure about the one near Pleasant Prairie but the new one in Volo IL was well stocked yesterday. They also have good prices on vitamins, lozenges, etc. They also had cheap stock disposable food service gloves in the dishwashing detergent area. N95 masks were gone.
I don’t suppose any of the people welded into their apartments are going to be let out? How many of them have died?
Pretty please? I’ve lost track in which vids you dropped links in the comment section. I’m need to go back and word search some things. thanks
I take Stamet’s mushroom products, good stuff. I think even button mushrooms have health value. I try to eat two cups of buttonmushrooms (16 oz) per week in my steamed veggies.