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Comment by Someone1234 | Hacker News Reader

That plan seems predicated on the assumption that COVID-19 will burn itself out and disappear in a matter of months. But there's no current evidence to suggest that will be the case, and if we look to similar diseases, they have been around for tens of years.

Even if it depresses in the summer months, it will return in full force next winter (see e.g. flu, common colds, etc).

Best case scenario a working vaccine is invented. But nobody currently has a proven working one (regardless of a few headlines to the contrary) and even if they did that would be 18 months minimum before mass manufacturing could begin.

What I am saying is "bomb shelter"-style hunkering down will likely be ineffective if there's a mass spread in your country because the disease would out-live whatever supplies you have.

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The mind boggles at how people can characterise preparation of a month’s worth of food, water and other essentials as “bomb shelter”-style hunkering down.

The CDC, amongst other US and foreign government agencies, recommend it. When the CDC speaks, I listen.

Where did the CDC recommend a months worth of food and water for COVID-19 specifically?

https://ready.gov/pandemic

I read two weeks.

Nope. This is general advice about “a pandemic” and has nothing to do with COVID.

Great guys, you stay here and argue about whether two weeks of food and water or four constitutes a crazy bunker mentality. All the more time for the rest of us to stock up for our kids.

Indeed. A month is more in the range of a fallout shelter.

I am assuming that in the next few weeks I will need to be isolated for 3-4 weeks. I am assuming that electricity is mostly on, and water to my home is mostly available, (although possibly tainted -- preparing for that).

After that, who knows. Hopefully there will be a vaccine.

Considering the amount of time to develop and produce a vaccine for widespread distribution, I don't expect anything in place until next flu season if not the year after.

If there is an effective vaccine I'm expecting a lot of people to be drafted to create facilities to make it in quantity. (Assuming it can't be made in the same process that the current flu shot is made). If society puts its mind to it building this infrastructure can be done very fast - it won't be the most cost effective build in ordinary times, but it will get the job done.

I don't know what country you are from, but mine (USA) has lost its ability to set its mind to anything. It can't even be said to have a rational mind any longer.

Don't be so pessimistic. I'm from the USA: we might be divided (and people like you are pushing the divide!), but we still have the ability to get things done when we want to. There just isn't a collective goal pushing us all in one direction.

Overall I think it is a good thing. Only by many diverse opinions and goals from many different people can we try everything and see what really works out.

> but we still have the ability to get things done when we want to.

Please provide examples.

- We used to be able to build Hoover Dam. Now it takes literally years to pass a bill to maintain our highways.

- Do I need to remind you what a joke Infrastructure Week has become?

- How are those gun violence stats? Number 1 in the world at something, at least.

- The fastest-growing approach to paying for medical bills, in this country, is a GoFundMe campaign.

- The world financial system was nearly destroyed by inadequately regulated US "finanice industry innovation" in 2008. As Paul Volcker said the following year: “the ATM has been the only useful innovation in banking for the past 20 years”.

- Facebook and Google -- the most successful US companies in history, I think, have destroyed privacy, and are now bringing down democracy. Oh, right, I forgot, Facebook is connecting people. Point for you.

Seriously. What has this country done recently that proves we can do anything productive any longer?

Take a look at are highways. Despite constant complaints about them being in trouble, we build a lot of them including many bridges. Take a look at your city there is someplace in the metro area they are building something big.

Fasting growing doesn't mean much. Most people have insurance which covers everything. Yes there are too many people on the edges who don't have it, but most people do and don't need gofundme (I suspect some of them have a gofundme anyway as a way to raise money because they can)

Sure we don't do massive society wide projects, but that is because we don't need them. That doesn't mean we can't.

Vaccines are biological in nature. It's very possible that time will be a much more meaningful factor than people or equipment in producing enough of a vaccine to cover sufficiently many people so "massively parallelizing" the process may not help with the lead time to vaccine availability, only with quantity when it does become available (assuming an effective vaccine is found).

Having said that, I would expect that in most Western countries, sufficient quantities to cover the most vulnerable people (older people and those with existing heart or respiratory conditions - ie largely the same people selected for annual flu vaccines in many places) will be available by next (Northern hemisphere) winter.

Why would the water be tainted?

I think infrastructure, in general, is at some risk. The people who maintain infrastructure are going to be as motivated to stay home as everyone else.

If there's one thing public health authorities are going make sure stays on (fails last), it's water.

If water treatment plant can't operate because the workers are sick...I would imagine the first step would be similar to a flooded treatment station -- a boil water condition. Provided you have gas/electric to do that.

We can't speculate at this point what kind/likelihood of a civil emergency we might face with this or any other disaster that hasn't happened yet.

However, having been through Sandy where we had 16 consecutive days of no power or heat and a snowstorm with a foot of snow and fouled treatment facilities with boil alerts, here's my recommendations:

1) Hold 10x24x16oz bottles of water and use them in FIFO. When you finish one flat, you buy a new one and put it on the bottom of the stack. It's not that crazy to hold 2 weeks of drinking water in your pantry/garage. 2) In many places around the world, the sink water isn't treated at all. Have some sterilizer solution available for washing dishes but don't risk drinking water that isn't treated 3) peanut butter has a really long shelf life, easy to store, is really cheap, and if you don't have nut allergies, not a bad source of nutrition. 4) figure out the electrical needs of critical devices - phones/tablets CPAPs, air machines, etc. GoalZero is a pretty user friendly brand of solar / battery combos. 5) get a 100W 12V adaptor for your car. If you need to recharge something that isn't USB, you can use your car as a simple generator. 6) be prepared to live without heat or A/C but if you do have power, make sure your filters are clean. Ask your hvac guy to recommend the max level of HEPA your HVAC can tolerate. 7) have squirt bottles with disinfectant in every room with a sink.. not just normal countertop cleaning stuff. Bleach IIRC needs 7 minutes to achieve a maximum log reduction of bacteria / viruses so keep in mind when you're cleaning, its not possible to kill everything, you're reducing the load of bad things over a period of time.

"It's not that crazy to hold 2 weeks of drinking water in your pantry/garage."

The recommendations I've seen have been for 1 gallon per person per day.

That's 14 gallons for just one person for 2 weeks. 56 gallons for a family of 4.

Not that crazy, I guess, but that's still a lot of water.

I have heard people are catching it multiple times because their natural antibody production stops relatively quickly.

If that's the case I wonder how a vaccine would work. Weekly shots for everyone until it's gone? That would be hard to manage.

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