Prioritizing Shopping During a Pandemic
Whenever we experience a calamity be it an earthquake, tsunami, a war-like situation or a messy pandemic like this omnipresent Corona Virus, markets start suffering from shortage of many items be it in the category of food, hygiene, safety, security & healthcare. Well, that pretty much sums up the basic needs in such times. We’ve never ever faced such a situation except for wars where anybody and everybody in this world felt unsafe. A small little virus which we can’t even see brought the whole world to a standstill. Speaking of the present times, Corona Virus showed us the importance of toilet paper and… and… yes, staying at home. Well, staying at home is very important in these times but is toilet paper that important? Well… Let’s find out.
So, staying at home for a longer duration takes resources and it’s not that easy to decide and buy all those necessary resources in time. There are scores of essentials that we require to have a comfortable homestay for a much longer duration than we can imagine so it is practically very hard to prioritize the everlasting shopping list. Everything is necessary, everything is essential. So, how do you get to set the priorities of panic buying?
Although we know about almost everything required for a possible lockdown or similar SHTF situations, narrowing down to the number one in the list during a tight situation of panic buying is the real challenge. To ease the task, we need to list down the essentials first so that we could prioritize them.
Let’s get started.
The first essential category is “Food & Water”. Both these things form the basis of life. Very Important! So, Food & Water very well deserve to be the priority one till we analyze the rest of the categories.
The second essential category is “Hygiene”, again, very important. We all maintain hygiene and we must maintain it in every situation to keep ourselves healthy and disease-free. But can it replace “Food & Water”. Yes, you know the answer, it cannot. So, Food & Water stay at Number One.
Now let’s analyze the next category — Safety, again very important. We all have modern safety equipment installed in our homes. Even if we don’t have these installed, we can’t just do that overnight so just forget it. Moreover, in an extreme situation, all this equipment will be good for nothing. If there’s no power, all this high-tech electrical equipment would stop functioning and go defunct. So, the point is that the safety equipment will be functional only in normal and peaceful times where everything is functioning and you’ve got power grids functional. So, not important at all. Food & Water retain number one spot.
The next category is quite related to safety. Yes, it’s Security. We may be safe inside our home but we may not be secure. In case of a complete Grid Down situation where even governments could go defunct, you can very well imagine the situation. A rarest of rare situation but yes, it is possible. In such a scenario, people will be left to themselves. Police won’t come to protect you or arrest criminals, after all they also have families, they also have their home to protect so the basic human instinct will come into force in such a scenario. We may be potential victim of a riot attack. We may be attacked by some hungry people who ran out of food. Criminals and other anti-social elements will be roaming free and be a danger to the society. So, the point is, crime rate always goes high in such situations because of increased unemployment, poverty, lack of resources and absence of law & order. How do we secure our family and our home? We need to have self-defense capabilities. So, security is also very important. To be secure, what do we need? We need weapons, guns to be specific. But not everyone can have them. We need a gun permit or a license to own one. So, the point is that everyone can’t own a gun but still security is important. Maybe not as effective as a gun, but there are other means too, if we are able to use those effectively and strategically. We can potentially use anything available in our house as a self-defense weapon in case any rogue elements attack us. But in the larger context, we can’t do much about it in that short period of time so no need to think & worry much about it. We can maybe use anything as a self-defense weapon but we can’t eat or drink everything around. Now, back to the point. Is security as important as food & water? No, it’s not. So, Food & Water win this battle too and retain spot ONE.
The last category that we have on our list is “Healthcare”. A very important one. But is it as important as “Food & Water?” Well, let’s find out. It shouldn’t be much difficult now as we have narrowed down the competitors to two. On one side, we have Food & Water and on the other, we have Healthcare.
Healthcare is of two types. One, which the system provides us, in terms of hospitals, doctors and the whole federal healthcare system. I consider it secondary healthcare. Then what is primary healthcare? The healthcare which we arrange on your own. This would include three things — Prescribed drugs, Generic Medicines and First Aid. I personally feel that primary healthcare is more important than Food & Water. The reason — well, there are multiple. We all have a considerable amount of Food & Water already stored in our homes. In a possible grid down situation, we shall have considerable time to buy ample food that could last for months. Water supply is mostly there and can be stored abundantly. We can even harvest rain water during rains. We can boil, purify, recycle water and what not. But we seldom have a decent storage of medicines in our homes. Forget ample generic medicines and first aid essentials, people don’t store more than 15 days’ worth of prescribed drugs. In a possible SHTF situation, we are very much prone to basic infections, injuries and other forms of sickness but may or may not be able to reach the healthcare facilities in time. And it may take a while for help to reach us. What do we do then? In absence of access to healthcare facilities, we need to be a bit self-dependent so that we could handle minor medical situations and hang on till help arrives. Moreover, in such a situation, the authorities will try to ensure supply of food & water to almost every citizen. Even if there’s a bit of delay in the supply, we will have enough food to be fed for a couple of weeks. But if the medicines get delayed, can you afford it? No! Because, it may cost even a life. A minor chest infection or cold can turn fatal if not treated in time. A simple fever can be life threatening if not brought down in time. A minor stomach-ache could be a food poisoning and can be fatal if not attended to in time.
One more thing that I would like to tell you is to try and consult a doctor before you take any medicine so that a basic diagnosis can be conducted before you take any medicine. This is very important because, if you take just any medicine without any medical consultation, it can prove to be equally dangerous as not taking any medicine. So for that, there is one simple tip, take telephonic consultation by dialing any medical emergency number in your area. If not available, you should call your family doctor before taking any medicine that you’re not sure of.
So, you need to have a decent number of useful medicines at your home every time. Most medicines have a shelf life of 2–3 years so you don’t have to worry about them expiring soon. I would recommend you to have a storage of at least one-year worth of prescribed medicines. Apart from that, depending upon the number of family members you should also have a decent amount of generic medicines, dietary supplements and an effective first-aid kit at your home.
Now, in this vital war, we saw Food & Water winning almost every battle but Healthcare turned the tables, because nothing is more important than life. So now you know how to set your priorities in the direst of circumstances that we could possibly face in the future.
Originally published at http://pencilcorps.wordpress.com on December 5, 2020.
