This article was originally published by Michael Snyder at The Economic Collapse Blog.
I can’t remember a time when we have seen such widespread “panic buying” all over the nation. Today I spoke with someone that just visited the closest Wal-Mart in this area, and I was told that there are empty shelves all over the store. There are very few canned goods left, some of the most essential medications have been cleaned out, and there was nothing left in the long-term storable food section at all.
Of course, similar things are being reported at major retail stores all across the United States. All of a sudden, fear of COVID-19 has motivated thousands upon thousands of Americans to start prepping like crazy. But most of the population is still not taking this crisis seriously enough. As the number of confirmed cases all over the world continues to rise at an exponential rate, what are the stores going to look like when most of the country finally realizes that they should be prepping for an extended pandemic?
Over the past several days, this coronavirus outbreak has escalated significantly.
From Saturday to Sunday, the number of confirmed cases in Italy jumped by 50 percent…
Italy reported a 50% increase in coronavirus cases Sunday, as the US further restricted travel and the famed La Scala opera house closed.
Italy’s Civil Protection Authority reported the country now has 1,694 confirmed coronavirus cases, up from 1,128 confirmed cases on Saturday. Thirty-four people have died.
And in Germany, the number of confirmed cases actually doubled in just 24 hours.
Here in the United States, confirmed cases are now popping up all over the nation, and we are being warned to brace for a “boom” of confirmed cases…
A “boom” of confirmed cases of the coronavirus that has now killed more than 3,000 people around the world — including two in the U.S. — could already be racing across America despite ramped-up efforts to contain the outbreak, experts say.
The spread of the virus by “community transmissions” is an indication that we could indeed be looking at the tip of the iceberg,” Ogbonnaya Omenka, an assistant professor and public health specialist at Butler University’s College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, told USA TODAY on Sunday.
Overall, the number of confirmed cases outside of China has more than tripled over the past week. If we continue to see that sort of growth rate, there will be more than a million confirmed cases outside of China just five weeks from now.
I don’t think that it will happen that quickly, and let us pray that we don’t hit that number at all, but right now this outbreak is starting to spiral out of control.
As the fear of this virus rises, grocery stores from coast to coast are stocking up on essential supplies in an effort “to prevent shortages”…
Now grocers are working to prevent shortages and preparing for a spike in demand for disinfectants and long-lasting items such as pasta and canned food. Some are ramping up orders from suppliers.
“This is like a natural disaster, but it’s an illness,” said Doug Baker, vice president of industry relations at FMI, a trade group for food retailers.
In the short-term, hopefully, things won’t be too bad.
But without a doubt, global supply chains are becoming extremely strained due to the widespread shutdowns inside of China, and that has led one analyst to predict “empty shelves in Target and Walmart as early as April”…
“Literally, empty shelves in Target and Walmart as early as April,” predicts David Iwinski, a local China business consultant who once ran a factory in China.
Most retail stores are likely to have shortages because the coronavirus in China is hampering the manufacture of products shipped to America.
If there are things that you need to go buy, you need to do it now, because thousands upon thousands of Americans are already storming the stores.
In Los Angeles, a local Costco was quickly raided of the most essential supplies when the store opened on Saturday morning…
At a Costco Wholesale market in Los Angeles Saturday morning, a swarm of shoppers loaded up carts with essential items to prepare for a possible period of quarantine.
According to the chain, water, paper towels and Clorox disinfecting wipes were the most in-demand products.
And up in northern California, photos of completely empty shelves over the weekend were rapidly shared on social media…
On social media, residents further north shared shocking photos and videos from Costco centers in San Francisco.
Shelves were depleted of tinned food, while some shoppers climbed up onto shelving in order to reach remaining supplies of rice.
Of course, the exact same thing is happening in other states as well.
In Washington, one local resident claimed that “thousands of people” have been descending on the local Costco centers…
I live in the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in Washington State. My advice for those elsewhere – go to Costco now. Thousands of people at local stores yesterday – not where you want to be if there is a virus spreading. Glad I went a week ago.
And one video that has been very widely shared shows hundreds of people lined up at a Costco in Brooklyn before it even opened in the morning.
Already, there is a worldwide shortage of protective face masks. In fact, things have gotten so bad that Surgeon General Jerome Adams posted a tweet demanding that people stop buying them…
The surgeon general has a message for people who want to run out and stockpile masks to combat the coronavirus – don’t.
“Seriously people – STOP BUYING MASKS!” Surgeon General Jerome Adams tweeted. “They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus, but if healthcare providers can’t get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk!”
Personally, I don’t understand his logic. If the masks are not effective, then why do healthcare providers need them?
Yes, the masks have limited effectiveness against a virus that is so easy to catch. But at least they are better than nothing.
The time of “the perfect storm” is here, and this virus has the potential to greatly accelerate our problems.
We still don’t know if this will be the great global pandemic that so many have warned about, but Bill Gates certainly seems to believe that this may be the “once-in-a-century pathogen we’ve been worried about”…
Billionaire and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said the coronavirus that has killed at least 2,859 people and infected more than 83,700 globally may be the “once-in-a-century pathogen we’ve been worried about.”
“I hope it’s not that bad, but we should assume it will be until we know otherwise,” Gates wrote in an article published Friday in The New England Journal of Medicine.
Personally, I am still hoping that this outbreak will start to subside once warmer weather arrives.
But so far nothing is slowing this virus down. As I mentioned above, the total number of cases outside of China has more than tripled over the last seven days, and that is a huge red flag.
If you need to get to the store, do it now. Because at the rate that people are raiding the stores, there could soon be shortages of some of the most important supplies.
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New Article:
https://antoniusaquinas.com/2020/03/02/memo-to-the-donald-cut-tariffs-not-rates/
Fear Fear Fear. “Be afraid very afraid.”
Nothing but Fear.
Fear peddlers at work.
Fear is a Control Mechanism to control the naive/gullible.
Politicians, Mass Media, Church Leaders, love to Control You sheep with Fear.
Whole situaion is likely a cover:
You are a witness to china CCP purge. Genocide.
Other countries will also use the opportunity to Purge.
Also cover to destroy world economy without accountability.
The shelves might very well be empty because everything in Walmart is from china.
My dollars do NOT got to supporting china communist CCP.
FREE Hong Kong
It’s sad the CDC, NIH etc are totally unprepared. They have been wrong about almost everything. First the chances of it spreading here were “minuscule”. Now, because of their failure to prepare, they’re claiming that N95, N99 and P100 masks dont’ work?
The CDC and NIH running out of masks and protective gear at the very beginning of a pandemic is akin to the Army running out of bullets the first day of a war.
I have seen wasted money that they have seen fit to spend. The idea that they don’t have enough protective gear, when that is the very basis for them to be able to do their job? Not acceptable. They lost even more credibility, if they even had any.
I have stocked up on a lot of masks. I will not listen to the CDC when their information clearly goes against my personal interest. It’s sad we have people running these agencies who lack very basic wisdom.
I am not allergic to shopping, when it’s something fancy or good, and I don’t feel endangered by the ape, right next to me. It used to feel like a privilege, in this country.
I think, these same Black Friday lemmings will jump through any hoop, go through any checkpoint, accept any injection, or any microchip, in order to relieve any inconvenience, no matter how temporary.
And, without fake makework job appointments or welfare, I think, they would just steal it, the old-fashioned way.
“THE PATH OF THE RIGHTEOUS MAN IS BESET ON ALL SIDES BY THE INEQUITIES OF THE SELFISH AND THE TYRANNY OF EVIL MEN.
BLESSED IS HE, WHO IN THE NAME OF CHARITY AND GOODWILL, SHEPARDS THE WEAK THROUGH THE VALLEY OF DARKNESS. FOR HE IS TRULY HIS BROTHERS KEEPER AND THE FINDER OF LOST CHILDREN …AND I WILL STRIKE DOWN UPON THEE WITH GREAT VENGEANCE AND FURIOUS ANGER THOSE WHO ATTEMPT TO POISON AND DESTROY MY BROTHERS.
AND YOU WILL KNOW THAT I AM THE LORD WHEN I LAY MY WRATH UPON YOU.
From Ezekiel 25 and Pulp Fiction.
Lack of transparency leads to distrust! The Govt should have been honest with the people and enlisted all Americans to address both the virus and economic impact.
But now the Govt has lost all credibility and sadly it will be up to individual Americans and communities to get through this.
Is it just me or does it seem like this is all so hyped? Making a mountain out of two grains of sand stacked?? I just don’t see the “crisis” here. But they are MAKING it a crisis it looks like to me. And if “they” are manufacturing panic why? What’s the purpose? Agenda 21 anyone?
I don’t believe the gov’t on this one either. Remember what Pres. Reagan’s intel director said – they will consider their job successful when everything the Amer. people believe is false. They are the same ones who conducted secret tests over decades using germs, drugs, and chemical agents on an unsuspecting public. These are the ones who lie to the Amer. people to get us involved into endless wars. They are the ones who legalize the death even after the birth of a full-term, fully developed baby, and call it an abortion. These are the ones who conduct false flag operations on the Amer. people so that they can try to impose their agendas on us. These are the ones who refuse to prosecute illegal aliens when they commit crimes on Amer. citizens. These are the ones who will not mandate big agra and food corporations to show on products if a food is a GMO or if there is trace amounts of dangerous/herbicides pesticides in what we eat or drink. These are the ones who never stop trying to find ways to abridge or eliminate our rights. These are there ones who maintain a two-tier system of justice in this country – one system of justice for them and one for everyone else. Of course the list is endless. I keep saying it, the Amer. people are considered nothing more than managed disposable resources.
We saw again and again and again in the recent impeachment show how officials, both elected and non-elected, lied over and over and over to the Amer. people (Why do most of them still have their jobs?). If you say you believe them and that they are trying to protect us you are an idiot or a successfully propagandized fool.
I believe TPTB are hyping this virus and spreading hysteria for their own goals. H.L. Menchen said, “The whole aim of politics is to keep the populace alarmed and hence clamorous to be led to safety by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” A second quote of his, “All gov’t is ultimately against liberty.” And a third quote of his, “The apparent urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.”
The gullible are easily separated from their wallet and vendors piggybacking off the “end of days” narrative are well aware of this.
Notice the lack of attention paid to the HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of deaths over the past decade due to automobile accidents, prescription drug overdoses and obesity…
If it doesn’t fit into the “end of days” narrative it’s ignored or receives MINIMAL attention.
Ask any vendor why they only accept cash or plastic for their seed banks, books,pm’s, clothing and other “prepping gear”,instead of bartered goods like hand tools, a good milk cow,goat,chickens,etc.?
We have been told for years that money will be worthless when SHTF,and that SHTF is any day now,but for some odd reason vendors ONLY accept cash or plastic…hmmmmm,sum-ting not adding up doom and gloomers..
Americans running out and clearing the shelves of stores the day a disaster hits is not prepping, it’s hoarding.
A solid prepper, planned ahead, bought on sale, built to a plan and was ready months or years ago. That’s prepping.
Can someone explain to me why people who don’t know squat about prepping are buying long term foods? All they needed to do was toss the snacks and fill their freezer with foods they normally would eat anyway. In any normal refrigerator you can pack in enough food to eat well for six to eight weeks.
By the way I have a vacuum food sealer, meats from the store or left-overs packaged using it can keep considerably longer than grocery store shrink wrapped meats or even zip lock freezer bags in the same freezer.
Same happening here in Oz. Everyone is panicking. Pretty sure we’re in for a recession…
Here is a story that shows why I do not have faith certain sections of the general public are going to take quarantining and other health measures very well: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8069355/Mother-daughter-accused-attacking-Swiss-Air-pilot-biting-him.html
Some people should not be allowed anywhere near civilised human beings. Definitely something for the AI and the algos to take care of.
After reading your article earlier today Michael I thought I’d run by Walmart n see what the shelves look like. All shelves were full n well stocked except for some of the cleansers n bleaches which were low n some alcohol based hand cleansers were out.
if panic buying has hit the lower 48, it hasn’t hit the major metropolises of Alaska yet. Of course, as one writer said, most Alaska’s ate survivalists anyway. Living off grid, as do my neighbors, and having 10 – 14 feet of snow annually, we often go a few days at a time alone n without communal support.
blessings, and prep in every area of life.
People aren’t “prepping”. Preppers were already prepped. The sheep are in planned panic mode. Expect totally entertaining chaos to ensue as the sheep scurry about searching for toilet paper and water (which they have already if they have plumbing), forgetting that it won’t matter since without food you won’t be needing to crap. Every member of the herd now fights the rest like the neanderthal creatures they actually are. Popcorn.