We’re a few years out of covid now, but it still seems like every month or two, the media tries to play up some disease du jour as the next likely pandemic (like bird flu). Suppose they’re right one of these days and there’s a semi-global lockdown again, lasting at least a year.
What would you, your family, and your friends do differently this time around?
Hoard less Ass-Wipe.
So, that was YOU!!
I’d probably work more on learning a musical instrument, like guitar. And I’d probably work on a second language, like Spanish.
I still have my covid-era bidet… one of the best investments I’ve ever made. My brain may be foggy and my respiratory system may be in tatters, but at least I’ll have the cleanest arse in the apocalypse.
Covid taught me to keep a small cache of masks, hand sanitizer, bleach and antibacterial wipes at all times. When I go shopping I keep an eye out for deals on canned goods and other non-perishables and buy a bit extra. For example, I might buy two cans of tuna instead of on the one I really needed. I also moved some money around in anticipation of the upcoming economic collapse.
It’s surprising I survived Covid given my medical issues. Said issues have gotten worse since then. A bad cold could put me in the hospital. I’m already on the edge so I’d likely end up a pandemic statistic.. I don’t have the means or inclination to go all out with doomsday preparation, nor do I see it doing much good other than possibly delay the inevitable.
In other words, I wouldn’t do much differently from what I’m doing.
Try not to be hospitalized at the beginning of it. That was not fun.
(I’ve always hoarded food and supplies)
Hoard more. We didn’t want to contribute to hysteria, and then there was no TP available for us.
Load up on facemasks a lot sooner. Social distance even more. Maybe leave the USA as soon as possible for a nation that takes pandemics more seriously with less nonsense.
Pandemic is worldwide.
I don’t think you can hide somewhere else. Plus you gotta get there, exposing yourself to much more virus.
Shelter in place is the best bet.
Call out sick from the grocery store on the weekend when everyone loses their shit and starts panic-buying everything they can get their hands on.
My work closed, but continued to pay-- not full wages, though, just partial, and nothing the first summer, so no pay from the middle of June to the end of August.
When things started, we actually did not get paid for the first two weeks we were closed, because that was all that was planned, then they extended another six weeks, and paid us. Then it was 3 months, and we got 50%.
We kept expecting it to be over soon, and dipped into savings, not just to cover bills, but to buy some extra cable channels and streaming services, Kindle Unlimited, a gaming system and games, and a Peloton. As a percentage of savings in the first six months, it wasn’t much, but as the thing went on and on, we were stretched tighter and tighter.
And I wasn’t working.
I didn’t work for a year before it hit me that this was going on indefinitely, and I got a part-time job.
And then our checking account got hacked, and all our accounts at that bank were frozen. We didn’t regain access to that money for months. Having money coming in was crucial.
So if work ever closes again due to a pan- or epidemic, I will look for part-time work immediately. We are already managing accounts differently.
Same here. This is about the only thing I would do differently.
Not much really. I work from home anyway and am a homebody. My Wife took care of the TP thing right away during COVID, though some of it was horrible.
We enjoy eating out but that’s no problem, I also like to cook (and am pretty good at it).
My wife and I enjoy playing chess and cribbage, and that can eat up a lot of time.
We were in Taiwan for the last one, and they really handled well. Now that we are in Japan, if another one happens it’s gonna be much harder for us I think.
I was lucky because I was visiting the US when the news first came out. No one in the US believed that it would spread to the US, so no one was buying masks yet. I went down to the local drug store and bought several hundred.
Taiwan was able to keep the pandemic out for much longer than the rest of the world. We weren’t as badly affected. There were a couple of times that we had to stay at home, but it was much less than most everywhere else.
I actually thrived during the COVID scare. Got a lot of exercise, lost a lot of weight, played a lot of piano, continued working throughout.
I wouldn’t want to go through it again, but I can’t really think of anything I would do differently.
mmm
I can’t think of anything to be honest. I got the shots; I wore the masks; I avoided social contact with people I don’t know and kept the others to no more than 3 people I do know. Did I leave something out?
I didn’t do much of anything out of the ordinary throughout COVID. My “precautions” were: wore my mask as asked and tried to stand apart from strangers. And get vaxxed promptly as they were first invented and subsequently improved.
Normalcy: work, travel, shop, eat out (except the first month or so), prefer outdoors to indoors. We never back-stocked much of anything, and never had a problem buying TP. We definitely saw lots of evidence of panic-buying (selfish morons), but always found what we needed without too much foraging.
But … On one occasion we ran out of paper towels and I could not find more, so I ordered what Amazon had in stock: fanfold towels appropriate for the traditional public restroom dispenser. The smallest package I could get was a bulk carton, so it took a year or two to use them all. By then supply normalcy had been back for over a year. That was the extent of our COVID-inspired alternate purchases of necessity .
Not much. We didn’t always have the selection I wanted in stores, but there was always something to eat and there was always toilet paper. I didn’t go for the bleach wipes or the like (was also working from home, so only touching things in my own house, for the most part). I did buy a little extra on the frozen and non-perishables in case I had to skip shopping one week if I was ill and didn’t want to risk spreading anything.
Might get masks sooner. I never got sick (well, a very mild cold at one time, but there were no at-home COVID tests then, and there didn’t seem to be a reason to go the doctor, so that could have been COVID - don’t know), but by time I got them, the ones available weren’t comfy. But even if many had been available, I wouldn’t have known which fit/felt better. Though now I know more about masks, in general, so might buy better.
Of course, if transmitted by different means, with different symptom, etc. what worked well this time might not work last time. Some things are broadly useful across a wide range, but can’t get too specific because you don’t want to be the general still fighting the last war.
I worked from home & therefore rarely wore a mask because I was rarely around non-household people other than the bi-weekly trip to the grocery store. Mostly what I wore were fun ‘face’ masks; I had a lion & a scruffy face chomping on a cigar. Those were subsequently shown to not be that effective so I’d go straight to N95’s for the next pandemic.
Buy a bit more TP but not much else. We were already retired, so no work disruption. I live in the Bay Area which shut down early, and so had fewer deaths, so I never was very fearful. When I did go to the grocery, everyone masked. We ate at home almost all the time, so no problem there.
Our writers club, which used to have face to face meetings, went to Zoom so I got to teach a bunch of old people (older than me) about it, which was good for them also in talking to their kids and grandkids.
And we got vaccinated as soon as possible.