Why cant I wait until we know a pandemic is actually STARTING before I stock up?
At the beginning of a pandemic, there will be a run on supplies because everyone will be shopping at once. Grocery stores actually carry only about three days’ worth of food. There are no warehouses on site; resupplying, in many cases, requires goods to be delivered from overseas and then trucked to local stores. However, in our “Just-In-Time” economy, the supply pipelines we depend on will quickly be exhausted. There are just not enough goods on hand in the world at any given time to supply each person in the U.S. with an instant 3-month stockpile of necessities. As a society and as individuals, we must prepare now, before the pandemic starts.
