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:
  • Bottled water
  • Cereal
  • Canned fruit
  • Canned juice
  • Canned soup
  • Spam
  • Canned pasta
  • Canned beans
  • Peanut Butter
  • Jam
  • Crackers
  • Nuts
  • Granola bars
• Food Requiring Minimal Preparation
  • Rice
  • Dry soup mix
  • Pasta
  • Oatmeal
  • Powdered milk
• For Rehydration (See this page for more information):
  • Pedialyte
  • Gatorade
  • Sugar
  • Salt
  • Baking Soda
  • Morton Lite Salt
• Supplies:
  • First aid kit
  • Bleach
  • Toilet paper
  • Moist towelettes
  • Garbage bags
  • Dish soap
  • Aluminum foil
  • Paper towels
  • Paper plates
  • Paper cups
  • Plastic utensils

Click here for homemade electrolyte solution information.

As the coronavirus continues to make the news, we’ll be offering some posts with advice for preparing. As with any potential emergency, there are common-sense preparations that one can make, such as making sure that your family has an adequate supply of food and other items, in case supplies are interrupted or you are unable to leave your home.

Note: Please keep in mind that I’m not a doctor. I’m a lawyer. Just as you wouldn’t take legal advice from a doctor, you probably shouldn’t take medical advice from a lawyer. So please do your due diligence, and take medicine only upon medical advice.   But you can’t take medicine if it’s not available. My main focus is giving advice to make sure you have medicine available in the first place.

Basic Preparations:  Food and Medicine

For pandemic preparedness, the Department of Homeland Security’s ready.gov website recommends that you store a two week supply of water and food. (You can find food storage pointers at many earlier posts, many of which are linked here.)  The site also stresses that you should make sure you have a continuous supply of any prescription drugs you are taking. This seems especially critical in the case of the corona virus. According to news reports, about 90% of the active ingredients used by U.S. drug manufacturers originate in China. It seems quite possible that supply chains will be disrupted. If you take any prescription medications, it’s best to get refills as soon as possible, so that you always have a supply on hand. If the pharmacy can’t fill your prescription, it won’t be an emergency if you have a month’s supply at home. But if the pharmacy can’t get your medicine, and you just took the last pill, this could turn into a serious emergency.

Unfortunately, some insurers won’t pay for the refill until you’ve almost run out. If that’s the case, you might consider simply paying cash for an extra refill. But whatever you do, don’t just walk into the pharmacy and say that you’ll be paying cash. That could be a mistake that costs you hundreds of dollars. In this post and this post, I have suggestions that will dramatically reduce the cost of your prescription. You’ll save so much that you’ll be angry that the pharmacy was willing to charge so much in the first place.  In fact, in some cases, you might wind up paying a cash price that is less than your insurance co-pay.

Ready.gov also recommends making sure you have adequate supplies of nonprescription drugs and other health supplies, “including pain relievers, stomach remedies, cough and cold medicines, fluids with electrolytes, and vitamins.”

Oral Rehydration Solutions

By “fluids with electrolytes,” they mean oral rehydration solutions, the most familiar brand name of which being Pedialyte. If you are dehydrated by a condition such as diarrhea, this could be a lifesaving item to have on hand.

Unfortunately, this could be expensive to stock up in advance. However, with some foresight, you can do this economically. The simplest way to plan for possible dehydration is to stock up is to buy some Pedialyte or generic equivalent. It’s probably less expensive to buy it in powdered form. One replacement, albeit probably not as good medically, is a sport drink such as Gatorade. It is available ready to drink, or as a powder. (I have noticed that Dollar Tree sells small containers of a generic equivalent of Pedialyte, and at $1, these are quite economical for stocking up.)

Preparing to Make Homemade Rehydration Solution

As a last resort, you can make an oral rehydration solution at home. There are a number of recipes available, including from reputable sources such as the World Health Organization.

In most cases, you can make an acceptable oral rehydration solution with items that you normally have at home, such as sugar, table salt, and sodium bicarbonate (baking soda). If this is all you have, then this is certainly better than nothing. Many recipes, however, also call for potassium chloride. For example,  this recipe from physician Dr. Kara Fitzgerald, adapted from the WHO formula. includes potassium chloride. This is probably something you don’t have in your kitchen. However, the good news is that it’s readily obtainable prior to the disaster, and you can get enough to last a lifetime for just a few dollars. You can buy it at the grocery store in the form of “Morton Lite Salt.” This product is half regular salt (sodium chloride) and half potassium chloride. Since sodium chloride is also part of the recipe, this can be used. Dr. Fitzgerald, gives the following recipe, to be added to four cups of water: 1/4 tsp. table salt, 3/4 tsp. baking soda, and 1/4 tsp. Morton Lite salt.  For flavoring, you can add some Crystal Light or Sugar Free Kool-Aid.

Another alternative is Morton Salt Substitute, which is 100% potassium chloride. If your recipe calls for 1/2 teaspoon of salt and 1/2 teaspoon of potassium chloride, then you would use a full teaspoon of Morton Light Salt. On the other hand, you could also use a half teaspoon of regular salt and a half teaspoon of Morton Salt Substitute. The only difference is that the Morton Salt Substitute appears to be slightly more expensive.

Since the Lite Salt is so cheap (it’s probably about $2 at your supermarket), it seems to me that it’s cheap insurance. Since the only reason we would ever use it is for an emergency rehydration solution, I wrote the recipe and taped it to the container. We always have the other ingredients on hand, and it’s good to know that we have a method to produce a lifesaving medicine, if the need ever arises.

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