Wikipedia photo. Nick.mon / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0).
The photograph above was taken on February 26, 2020, at a supermarket in Bergamo, Italy. As you can see, the shelves are almost bare. As of this writing (March 5), according to news reports, Italy has confirmed 3800 coronavirus infections, and 148 persons have died. Institutions such as schools have been closed.
Where the sanitizing wipes were supposed to be today.
It’s quite possible that the epidemic will affect commerce in North America just as it has in Italy. Since more and more cases are being reported in the U.S., it seems quite possible that store shelves will have similar shortages within a few days. This afternoon, I visited a local Walmart. There was no “panic buying,” but many items were out of stock. At this point, the missing items were mostly preparations specific to a pandemic. There was no hand sanitizer, or sanitizing wipes. There was no isopropyl alcohol. There was still bleach available, but the shelves were starting to become empty.
The only “prep” item I bought today was a gallon of bleach. The CDC has instructions
for using household bleach for cleaning and sanitizing, and even if other cleaning products are not available, a gallon of bleach should be enough for thousands of uses. If your big box store is out of it, I bought mine at Dollar Tree. People are buying it, but if you look around, plenty should be available.
As of today, there weren’t any shortages comparable to those in Italy. However, I did notice that many grocery items seemed to have minimal stocks. In the soda aisle, for example, some brands and flavors were missing. The bottled water aisle seemed to have the most obvious shortages. Personally, I don’t see much need to buy water, since there’s no reason 
to believe that the tap water will stop working. But I guess if you normally drink bottled water, you might go on the assumption that it will be unavailable, at least temporarily, within a few days.
I think the moral of the story is that the time is now to stock up your normal groceries, and to do it as soon as possible. We published the following list previously as a recommended shopping list for hurricanes. For a pandemic, you have much more flexibility, since your normal refrigerator and stove will continue to function normally. These are, of course, just suggestions. The following links are to Walmart.com. If you want to save time, you can order online, and then pick up your order at the store.
- Ready to Eat Food:
- Food Requiring Minimal Preparation
- For Rehydration (See this page for more information):
- Supplies: