In the past two days, during which the images above were captured, the covid-19 walls caved in on ordinary Americans. These images match reports I have heard from the local Costcos in my corner of the South. A father of a friend at a local Costco yesterday estimated the line was 150 (give or take) shoppers deep. Many, many are now belatedly and furiously prepping. Many are also probably having a hard time finding the things they need.
Covid-19 is almost without doubt far more widespread now than a few weeks ago. Put simply, the risk that you would acquire or spread Covid-19 in a visit to your local Costco was almost certainly far lower even a few weeks ago and nil before that. So those now jamming the Costco’s are putting all of us at greater risk because they simply don’t plan or think ahead. Now I know that for some people the financial burden of what they are doing now caused them to hesitate, but that does not excuse all or even most of the people in those lines and even then it still isn’t reasonable that ignoring the risks from their behavior for others was part of their calculus.
And some people will now come up short. Those who depend on them (kids, pets, etc.) will suffer. And they will probably have to take risky supply runs in weeks to come, adding risk to their families and others. Some weeks ago someone said to me that in a deep crisis the only moral thing is that kids come before pets. I agree, but that also completely misses the moral point: goddam you if by the smallest effort in advance you could have avoided such a terrible tradeoff. You were responsible for all of them, your kids, your elderly in-laws who live with you, your pets etc.
Some preppers are crazy, but a lot of non-preppers have let themselves all too easily off the hook by focusing on the tails of the prepper distribution. Yes, an 80,000 square foot bunker is a bit much. That doesn’t explain why you did not have some reserve food for your poor dog.
I am sorry if my tone is angry, but these people have wronged those who depended on them. And they have put us all at greater risk by their frantic efforts now.
Prepping is the responsible thing to do. Not prepping at all is crazy. Far crazier than the craziest crazy we find in the prepper community.
True enough. My last foray to Costco was weeks ago, and they were out of just about everything of value to a prepper..