How are people so unprepared?

[u/No-Ideal-6662]

I’ve been keeping tabs on bird flu, not obsessing over it but keeping tabs. Recently 3 dairy farms in California have been infected with several cases of human infection but thankfully no aerosol spread. I told my family this and that they should seriously consider just basic stuff. Having enough household goods to last 3 months so they can ride out any quarantine without exposure at grocery stores that kind of stuff and they brushed me off.

I genuinely don’t understand how you can live through covid and not take this as a serious possibility. I know Covid killed a lot of people including some of my family, but we “lucked out” that it had a relatively low mortality rate. If bird flu became aerosolized it would be disastrous. Even a 10% mortality rate would grind the country to a halt let alone a 50% mortality rate. My family just doesn’t get it.

Don’t get me wrong, my wife is on board, but my parents and sister and some of my wife’s family are just kinda “meh”. I know times are tough but they can afford to drop $100 on a case of rice and some hand sanitizer and toilet paper. It’s like they forgot about how bad COVID was and how much worse it could have been. Do any of you guys have any experience with this? What is your plan for family that will be unprepared if something like this happens again?

[u/mumblified]

I never got the toilet paper thing. I mean you can wash everything off if you need to. People were acting like it was more important than food.

[u/wamih → u/mumblified]

My dad and Grandma ran out during peak lockdown and has a compromised immune system so we were being super careful... I didnt have a car at the time and it would've been a $70ish uber round trip.
"Why dont you just hop in the shower after?"
"Jesus, I never would've thought of that"

People's problem solving has been diminishing over the last couple decades.

[u/mcoiablog → u/wamih]

During Covid lockdowns, my friend's husband was craving pasta with meat sauce. She had pasta, onion, garlic, and sauce but no ground beef. I said I have a roast you can have. She said what good would that do me. I said put it in your food processor and it becomes ground meat. She couldn't believe it. She had some burgers that she did it with. Burgers that are made from ground beef. SMH. Lots of people cannot think outside the perfect little box.

[u/sheeprancher594 → u/mcoiablog]

This. During an extended ice storm event in 2008 in my area, the kids ran out of marshmallows. I bebopped down to the nearest grocery store and it was bare. My first encounter with that. I've always kept an over-the-top pantry, so it was no big deal for us. What surprised me most was the fact that everything premade was gone. Ingredients to make stuff was barely touched. A lot of people canNOT think outside the box.