I’m someone with respiratory disease, and a troubled immune system, I’ve been preparing for the likely coronavirus pandemic over the last week. Today, I thought I’d share my shopping list (with special thanks to a few of my long-term investor friends who helped me with this).
Obviously, I do not think anyone should be panic buying. We are not preparing for a zombie movie. But if an epidemic appears, there are certain places I will want to avoid, such as pharmacies and (subsequently) supermarkets. So this isn’t about assuming there will be shortages; it’s about assuming that we won’t want to go out much.
So why not prepare?
What We Should Already Have
- Prescription pharmaceuticals
- Include your partner, parents, children, and pets!
- Non-prescription pharmaceuticals
- Don’t forget to anticipate! eg. If you are early in your pregnancy, will you need something such as antacids in a few months?
- If you regularly need ibuprofen, buy it now
- Cold treatments such as Manuka honey, nose spray, panadol…
- Hyrdralite or similar…
- Frozen meals
- It’s unlikely we will lose power, so you probably don’t have to live off canned food
- Basics for nutrition
- Our toddler loves his milk, so we got a lot of long life milk
- We love pasta in this house, so we bought a bunch from Aldi
- Uh-oh, better go get some wine!
- Basics for sanitation
- Tampons or pads
- Nappies, baby wipes, toilet paper
- Hand Sanitiser
- Sanitising wipes
- Tissues
- Masks
- For some reason people seem pretty obsessed with arguing masks aren’t effective, but I’d prefer have one thanks.
- Basics for healthy family
- Orange juice
- Sources of vitamins
- Resveratrol (this study may have suggested it helps against MERS)
- Essentials for children who might get sick
- Baby panadol and nurofen
- Thermometer
- Infant nose spray
What To Get ASAP
- Make sure the car has a full tank of petrol
- Make sure important at home work and entertainment facilities are working such as tv/computer/phone/internet
- A Haircut — hairdressers might not be open in an epidemic :p
Please let us know if you think we’re missing something on this list and we’ll add it.
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