With more and more public events being postponed or cancelled before of the Coronavirus outbreak, what is the best thing for us all to do? Should we be staying indoors or should we be venturing outside and carrying on as normal? Should we be stockpiling food and other essentials ahead of a potential pandemic?
What Is Coronavirus?
If you’ve been living under a rock you might not have heard of Coronavirus. Common signs of infection include respiratory symptoms, fever, cough, shortness of breath and breathing difficulties. In more severe cases, infection can cause pneumonia, severe acute respiratory syndrome, kidney failure and even death. There have been over 114k cases and 4k deaths worldwide. That number is changing all the time and you can keep up to date with it here.
Cancellation Of Public Events
One of the latest events I’ve read about being closed is The Photography Show which was due to take place in Birmingham this weekend. Specifically at the NEC. With so many staff due to be there on the hundreds of stands and thousands of guests due to visit, it’s probably the sensible and safe thing to do, postponing until later in the year. You can see from my video from when I attended last year just how many people are in attendance. Would you want to be around that many people when there is potential you could catch from from them?
Food & Supplies
There have been photographs on social media showing panic buying around the world. Shops have been running out of toilet roll and hand sanitiser has quickly become more valuable than gold. Personally, I tend to buy stuf in bulk anyway as it generally works out cheaper. We buy a months worth of toilet roll at a time from our local budget store. We buy big bags of dried pasta because out boys eat so much of it. In all honesty, we filled the chest freezer earlier in the year which was pretty empty anyway as we’d been using stuff out of it. We’ve got frozen pizzas, frozen vegetables and I’ve put a couple of loaves of bread in there too. I also utilised the space at the top of our kitchen cupboards by buying canned goods when on offer. We use them because my wife makes an awesome tinned food casserole but it’s always good to have them in. We tend to have stuff in and keep on top of that bulk buying in order to save money.I should note that we won’t be keeping this up during this pandemic as we want to keep enough on the shelves for other people. We have stuff in and will be donating where possible. I’ll be writing and scheduling a post for tomorrow about how to stockpile on a budget, for everyday life, not specifically for the current climate.
Your Health
Ultimately it’s up to you if you mingle with others or stay at home. Fortunately for me I work from home so I don’t have to go out apart from the school run. Will schools here in the UK close down for a few weeks? It’s possible! Schools have closed in some countries so we could have to start following these instructions from the government. Sports games are being played behind closed doors, even some F1 races will be driven without fans in attendance. There have been thousands of cases around the world and many deaths, five reported here in the UK. Those with minor cold symptoms are to be told to self-isolate for seven days. The UK government’s chief medical adviser said the change in advice could happen within the next 10 to 14 days.
Follow advice, be sensible and try not to worry. There are countries reporting a slow down in the cases of Coronavirus. Wash your hands, look after each other and keep an eye out for elderly neighbours. Be safe and come back tomorrow for top tips on stockpiling.
