Coronavirus - what to stock up on?

Culture, Media, General
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Regular monthly warehouse store run today in Maryland. Sunday early afternoon was not too busy but there were fork trucks everywhere restocking. Pretty good stock but some things were wiped out: bleach, vinegar, Clorox wipes, tomato products. Candy and other snack food looked like a war zone. Lots of pet food but zero cat litter. I was in and out with a long list, self check-out in 45 minutes.

Maryland has really good public messaging (text, social, website, and of course media (which seems to lag)). They even give us a count of the number of test, results, and in-process. Nothing here yet.

Regular grocery run tomorrow morning at 6a (that’s when I go). We’ll see what that looks like.

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Ok @Naf, here you go: relative to the size of the amount you want to make, put about 3 -4 oz in a cocktail shaker over ice, shake and leave over the ice for just a bit to chill, but not to dilute too much. Strain. If you’re using small martini glasses, start with about 1/4 of the shaker amount in each glass, if making two, top with Prosecco, add a splash of St Germain, and garnish with a lemon wedge. You should get another 2 cocktails out of it if glasses are small enough. Scale the gin up or down to your taste. Be careful, they’re potent! If you try them, let me know if you like them. First had one in Charleston, and I think they were called a Summer Breeze there. I also heard them referred to as a French Connection in San Diego recently.

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Yeah, I hear you. We live on Cape Cod. Somewhat prone to Nor’easters and hurricanes. I’m married to an engineer and was a Senior Girl Scout. Sometimes getting shaken out of your complacency makes you feel more alive.

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No Rumor @shrinkrap, absolutely true. I’ve been hearing it for weeks now from credible sources. And one of the reasons it’s being referred to now as COVID-19, although the epidemiologists usually do come up with acronyms and often numbers. Easier to remember names like Spanish or Swine flus though.

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Wow. I can understand not investing in a product that folks don’t want to buy. Son has evolved so much in the last few years that I take his opinion about world politics quite seriously, and he said folks actually felt that the beer itself was the risk.

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Geez, the news is full of statements from qualified medical professionals stressing that the type of masks people can comfortably use are ineffective. If THAT message isn’t getting through, overreaction will be inevitable if the virus does prove to be more dangerous than annual winter flu, against which many of these same people aren’t getting vaccinated, even though flu kills hundreds of Americans.

If you are running low on prescription meds, refill them NOW. Many meds manufactured here and elsewhere contain ingredients for which China is the only source, according to an infectious disease specialist interviewed on NPR. Trade disruption is going to be a real problem. You can live without the latest tech gadget but maybe NOT without your prescriptions.

Buying extra household supplies and nonperishable food is a good idea. Coffee, tea, crackers, dried/canned fruit, canned soups, peanut butter, canned/dried legumes and other protein sources like cheese.

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That is so weird that people really believe that. I think I’ll buy stock, because if this doesn’t become a true doomsday, people will be back on the beaches drinking their Corona’s with lime. If it is worst case scenario, I won’t care about the $$ loss, because as kids remind me, I’ll be a goner. They were both provided with stellar educations and can take care of themselves. Trust me, if they say it one more time I will make sure to spend my share of the cash assets before I croak. :frog:

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Wow! That’s one of my favorite wine cocktails!

Gin, sparkling wine, elderflower, and lemon slice. Exactly!

I’ve seen it called an “English Garden” in some places, which is how I refer to it.

Great minds!

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So hoping you’d see my post! Think I might like it even better than T&T’s! Bombay Sapphire tini’s In 3rd place. On our first night in S Diego it happened to be Valentine’s Day, but we were able to get seated in the nice hotel restaurant right away which was nice after a travel day. The friends we were with had had a very long day. Of course we all needed a cocktail or wine. When I described the drink to our waiter, he kneeled down and asked us if we realized we were ordering something made with all alcoholic components. We said yes indeed, we wanted to get a buzz and be able to sleep that night! :cocktail::monkey: Cheers to you & yours. I had never heard of them as an English Garden. But nice ring to it! Yes to great minds :+1:

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I’m very much not a wine drinker, but I do like sparkling. But sometimes it is just too boring for me. A splash each of gin and elderflower livens it up a bit.

Lately, I’ve been going with a bit of Chambord in prosecco (or spumante) and it is delicious.

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I’ve primarily been a wine drinker, mostly whites, but can appreciate a fine bottle of red. Problem with that, is I’ve been spoiled by a friend who is an extremely serious and dedicated wine collector and enthusiastic foodie and excellent cook. His lovely wife specializes in great desserts. Tastes, makes notes as to when he think it’s going to peak. Has great whites and rose’s, but his passion for reds predominates. He often has bottles you would be lucky to find in world class restaurants, or if you did, they would be well upwards of at least $1,000 per. He is an astute and shrewd businessman, retired now, but still dabbling in various ventures. For NYE 2000, to resurrect almost ancient history, we celebrated at his house which is a few states away from ours. We of course started with champagnes and a couple of whites, then had paired wines with each excellent course. Not big pours of anything, pretty controlled. A lot of the food and comestibles were procured in NOLA, and one guest purveyed an excellent beef tenderloin for the main. Washington state oysters for Delmonico’s original recipe for O. Rockefeller’s. Excellent starter. Commander’s Palace recipe for turtle soup. The best broth I’ve ever tasted, meh on the turtle. Can’t remember now what the various sides, sauces and even desserts were. However, the main event was a blind vertical tasting of 10 years of Silver Oak Cabs. Telling this story not to brag, but to say sometimes it’s hard for me to select and drink reds I buy after having very fortunately been treated to the reds I have had in the past, even after reading ratings and reviews. I don’t have the interest, desire or space to collect and manage wines that need to age. But I can definitely appreciate! :wine_glass: Oh and forgot to mention we had clean crystal for every wine, and for the tasting we had five clean glasses for each member of our party of eight. So 40 wine glasses on the table at once. I hand washed ALL of it, in addition to the silver the next morning. Great and memorable way to welcome the brand new century.

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Another shopping update, this time at my regular grocery here in Annapolis MD. There is no question that people are shopping differently in the face of concern. I talked to the store manager who told me they are running double the usual number of trucks and trying to stock what sells.

No surprise that hand sanitizer is gone. She told me that when the announcement goes over the PA (so stockers go to the loading dock to help unload) customers line up by the doors and the hand sanitizer doesn’t make it to the shelves.

Other than that the patterns are quite simply weird. Particular brands of mayo are gone while alternatives are fully stocked. Some shapes and brands of pasta are gone (no rotini!) while there are plenty of others. I got the last bag of the orzo my wife likes. Unsalted chicken broth is gone with other sorts of the same brand are there. The cat food and litter look like a tornado tore through it.

My conclusion from the last couple of days here in Maryland where no cases of COVID-19 have been identified (with one possibility in Chevy Chase pending) is that people are stocking up but not changing brands and even sizes they usually buy. I interpret that as concern but not panic - not even the level of shopping we see before winter weather.

I shopped in the middle of the day (benefit of working from home). Based on what the store manager told me, after work and weekends are a little nuts.

Overstock for us: 3 quarts of UHT milk instead of 1, 4 bags of cat litter instead of 2, doubled our stock of cat food (there is a clear indication of where I stand here at Chez Auspicious), 10 cans of tuna v. 5, some extra meat in the freezer (an extra pound of bacon, two ham steaks, tuna and salmon instead of one or the other, other bits and pieces). We’ve finished an inventory of the pantry, the freezers, and the wine room (which is where all our home canned food is stored). We always have lots of water (about 50 gallons) because when we lose power we lose the well. I ran the generator yesterday and I dumped all the gas we have into cars and will get fresh tomorrow. Those are usually annual Easter tasks I’m doing a little early. Oh - I usually gas up our cars at 1/4 tank - I’m now at snowstorm thresholds, about 5/8.

Our biggest impact is the meeting my wife hosts in April may not happen, more from fear than risk so lots of meetings to talk about contingency planning and contract terms.

I’m interested in what people are seeing elsewhere, especially on the West Coast and in Texas.

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Nothing seems all that different here, in spite of the fact that weekend papers referred to us as “the epicenter” . I did get a Popeye’s chicken sandwich with no wait, so there’s that. I also got a gallon of peanut oil on sale for $6.00!

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I should have mentioned there is no sign of price increases.

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I thought it was usually about $15-20!

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I picked up my massive online order yesterday. They were completely out of shelf stable milk and hand sanitizer. The woman who checked me out said she is seeing buying trends like pre-hurricane levels. I’m in NJ.

My daughter’s school put out a vague communication essentially saying they may ban your kid from the school if you travel internationally which doesn’t make tons of sense as there is a case in the next state but alright.

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I’ve been waiting for this report, thank you! I haven’t been out, cause H is on a ski trip for a week. I’ve reported about our Costco and drug store from here before. Wish we had a generator due to being on a community well, we have no extra supplies of water except seltzer. May make my own w/ratio of bleach. Save any plastic milk containers we have in fridge. In reality, have so much food, condiments and oil, think we can ride this out. Have gas range, so can cook, also gas fireplace, which doesn’t provide much heat, but properly bundled, with other rooms of the house closed, was able to ride out an ice storm, while keeping my bird, and another I was caring for warm. Covered cages w blankets and put them near fireplace.

I’m totally calm now, but preparing to lose a bunch of relatives who are either very old or compromised, including my beloved but stubborn old dad. I won’t be able to go to their funerals probably, depending on what doc advises, including my dad’s if the worst happens. As executor of the estate, I won’t be able to step forward to assume my fiduciary responsibilities immediately. Need to have difficult conversation today, hoping to convince him to sign over temporary power of attorney for medical as well as financial in both my and H’s name. He will balk at this I know, think we had a proviso in place when he had his carotid done last year. I need to be able to disburse emergency funds to my brothers if needed, and other family members. If he refuses we will take care of them.

I’m in a state of total calm now, and no longer worried about the kids living real close to actual epicenter in our country, nor worried about H. I see local doc today who is sick herself, but coming in to see me at 5:30. I trust her completely. Feeling better, :zzz: sleeping, and carrying on. No stamina though.

I’ve had a thought it might be wise to remove hand jewelry for a while, so virus particles don’t get trapped under. The epidemiologists don’t know how long virus can live on non human surfaces, but many say up to 9 days or longer. If so, you may want to wear protective gloves while shopping and unloading, not touching your face, or opening packages delivered from elsewhere, thorough hand washing after. You can’t do it too much.

I hope this information is helpful, I’m careful in my research, have been fascinated by viruses and other infectious diseases for years, read research papers, etc. The last thing I want to do is disseminate misinformation.

Let’s be well all. Think it’s great we can share information and support each other during this time. Even if we’re straying waaay away from topic. :upside_down_face:

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This is a major challenge for me. Big one is pushing my glasses back up my nose. Secondary is self-soothing behavior of stroking my beard. I may have to shave. grin

With respect to water, hydration with respect to urgent situations is usual for me when sailing offshore. My favorite storage are Sceptre (brand) 20l (5 gal+) Jerry jugs. We have five (plus three empty in the garage that won’t be empty much longer. One of the full ones we use as an organizing separator in our chest freezer - partly to keep meat and veg on their own sides and partly to increase thermal inertia when we lose power. We also have three commercial single-use 5 gal jugs my wife bought once when I was traveling. The biggest issue with big jugs is decanting them. We use tall asparagus pot as an intermediate container; from there water goes into Sodastream bottles or Nalgene Tritan On-The-Fly bottles. YMMV. Also worth noting that canned goods are usually high in water content and help with hydration. Offshore I stay on top of urine color as an indicator of hydration level - no inspections, just nagging.

Do you have footnotes for the 9 days on surfaces data? That’s a long time for a virus. Herpes lasts about 10 seconds when exposed to air. sigh I regret that I know this - too many unrelated people in small spaces. You haven’t lived until you coach someone through inserting a motion sickness suppository from the other side of a closed door. big sigh

Best of luck with the discussion with your Dad. My FIL has become of some concern and here-to-fore refused to get a cell phone despite regularly driving distances. My wife’s sister got him a phone and it is set up with a charger in his car glove box. His willingness to accept it surprised everyone. People change. May I respectfully suggest you pitch your Dad with the concept of interlocking POAs? Bad things happen and sometimes we need someone we are confident have our best interests at heart. Even if yours with your Dad are secondary to your H, H may not be available.

Have read a couple of places that conventional hand soap is better than hand sanitizer but there was plenty of soap–solid and liquid–at the grocery but no hand sanitizer.

Have you tried https://scholar.google.com/ for peer reviewed research? I’ve had pretty good experience there.

Off to start dinner - roasting so an early start.

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I went kinda nuts today and bought a bunch of Clorox wipes, 70% isopropyl and non sterile latex gloves. Need to get hand disinfecting gel tomorrow and I’ll be set. A lot will be used in the office when seeing patients and cleaning surfaces. More show than substance

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Not sure it’s appropriate, but that’s where I start. Except for cooking and food and gardening and travel and reading for pleasure stuff. Okay, except for most stuff.

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