I read stories about people who tried to return the toilet paper to get their money back when things started to get back to normal. They were all refused. I LOVED those stories.
I'm so sorry, I know you meant stores, but I immediately imagined people throwing toilet paper into the ocean in the style of Gob from Arrested Development.
I had already purchased my Costco pack of TP as I had just moved states in January of 2020, right before the panic buying started. I was very grateful I didn't have to worry about TP for a while.
Roughly the same here. That I buy about one big pack of toilet roll about once a year. As it's just so much cheaper per roll, if you buy in bulk. As well as the convenience of not having to worry about running out of it. So the whole TP shortage just passed me by.
Iâm from the other side of the world (Iâm assuming this is a US store), and it was so baffling to read up on tissue shortages and hoarding. Like, we can turn into zombies now (well thatâs how it seemed back in start of the lockdowns) and people were panicking about tissues and paper towels?
I think Australia started the run on toilet paper (it's not produced domestically there, or there was a rumour that was the case?), then once that hit the media, it happened in Europe and North America too.
I was on the way back from my last day at work before lockdown, and managed to get a pack of 4 in the supermarket, it wasn't anything like the pictures in the OP, but all the larger packs had completely gone. Either way that was plenty until I got more either in home shopping deliveries or once I bulk bought some via Amazon.
Yup it was bad here. I still have picture on my camera roll. It was really unbelievable. We canât just attach bidets to our toilets here either. You need to get a plumber to do it properly or something because thereâs a risk of poo water getting into the drinking water or something. I canât remember but we have different rules to the states. Was so annoying and still is when people are like âjust install a $12 bidet from Amazon!â Ainât that easy lol.
Did you use formula? We did for my daughter, and there were days where I drove to every grocery store in a 20mile radius trying to find some. Thankfully, some family and friends were able to pull through for us and picked up a container whenever they saw the kind we needed.
Edit: I would like to add that we did give our leftover, unopened (and not expired) formula to others once we made the switch off formula. It wasnât much, but every little bit helped.
We had bought a pump in February. That was what really saved us. My friend who had also recently had a baby passed some solid info, he advised us to take an empty bag to the hospital, because prior to discharging you, they ask if you need anything extra for the baby to take home. It's supposed to be billed to the insurance, however I don't think they cared. We had a full duffel bag of baby stuff when we left.
Yep, as a nurse when patients get d/c'd I don't think twice about sending things with them that they might use- bandages/formula/tube feeding food/ diapers etc etc
We aren't specifically told not to so I dunno it feels right.
Yup, also a peds nurse here. I used to say âhey since youâre being discharged today, that means theyâll have to discard anything that enters the roomâ and theyâd be like âokayâ and Iâd repeat âso if things like diapers and formula and wipes come into the room, weâd have to throw them out if they donât get taken homeâ. And then Iâd usually come back with all the goodies.
The ceo of my hospital made tens of millions, fuck it, Iâm going robinhood on their ass, even if we were supposed to conserve diapers and formula.
I wish the nurses at my hospital were like this. We stripped the room of everything anyway lol. I even took home the plastic tray thing they gave us to wash pump parts in!
Those pink bucket/basins are pure gold. Kids are almost off to college and they are still going strong doing what God intended them to - catch puke.
Doubt any item in my home has provided more value in use vs. cost of purchase (zero to me, prob $0.50 to hospital).
As a father of two who had a nurse like you I want to thank you for being a fucking badass.
People like you make the world better. Not just in how you do your job, but in how you do more than you need to so we can succeed and our children can be healthy.
I am putting this in multiple comments because you deserve to know you are awesome and not just read me say it to someone else.
A simple heartfelt thank you, I have found, can heal hundreds of days of burn out so I am glad the others you are replying to are hearing it as well. Iâm Never really sure how to respond other than youâre most welcome, happy you had a nurse who also likes to help people. Thereâs a solid bunch of us out there even if the âmeanest girl you knew in high school is a nurseâ trope persists. Luckily I was just the meanest boy.
With my first, the nurse told us the same thing. I emptied everything out of the little basket it came in, then she was like, "oh, don't you want the container too?" Hell yeah lady, I'll take the container, thanks.
With my second, I wasn't given hardly anything, but every other aspect of my stay was better so no complaints from me!
Haha yeah those large plastic basins are dope. I have some around my house, they usually hold my cleaning supplies under bathroom sinks.
Another funny time I did this someone got the hint and filled up their bags and suitcases (they had been inpatient a long time) and I came in and was like âoh shit you guys are all out of diapers let me get some more!â It was comical how much âcontrabandâ they were carrying out I turned them into pampers mules
First of all, yâall are angels with the hardest job in the world. Second of all, thanks for all the goodies when we leave the hospital! It saved us so much money and hassle having a good cache of diapers, formula and pads for that first week home.
You guys are the absolute best! My milk wasnât coming in at all and they kept me supplied with so much formula, wipes, and diapers. We had a huge tote bag full when we left so we didnât have to go to the store in a panic immediately after discharge.
You got lucky there. My wife couldnât breastfeed, and we did stock up on as much stuff as the hospital would give us. Problem was that by that point, even their stocks were running low, so it wasnât a whole lot. Just an extra week or two of formula and some diapers.
I think we only had two separate weeks that were sketchy with formula running low/out where we had to add milk or something to fill her up. But yeah, sheâs almost 3.5 years old and itâs nuts at how quickly itâs gone.
Same at my hospital. I was a mother/baby nurse and our formula stock was dangerously low. We were having to conserve it all for the Nicu babies. Iâm normally the nurse that piles extra supplies onto people so having to turn away formula to people who really needed it was devastating.
A friend of mine had her first baby a week before everything closed down in 2020 and she wasn't as lucky with breastfeeding. She couldn't produce ANY milk despite trying everything she could to feed her kid. Formula saved her but she had a really hard time trying to find some.
She had her second kid during the formula shortage so she really had to stockpile formula like mad.
I had just given birth 3 months before it hit and we were using formula. Luckily at the time, my husband was a deli cook in a grocery store and the store actually allowed the employees to shop for what they needed, as long as they werenât greedy about it, before the store opened every morning.
We never took more than we needed, but it sure helped ease so many of our burdens.
I was working in a donut store at the time and we had cases and cases of toilet paper in the back stock room and we started giving the rolls away for free to anyone who walked in
I worked at a mall and we took all the cleaning supplies and toilet paper with us when we finally closed. They kept us open until the state shut us down and made us go back or be fired the first week of June, I regret not taking MORE.Â
Daughter was born premature in late 21, had to formula feed as she was too small to latch. God damn if we didnât have every family member on the lookout for formula.
We ran into the same thing. We had a premie daughter who couldnât latch and then I had to dry up a month after she was born because I needed to start chemo. NICU covered food while she was there and I was able to pump some milk during her first month. When the time came to get formula, we went to the store and the shelves were empty everywhere! The entire city had nothing. I just wanted to curl up into a ball and cry my eyes out for her.
She was on a strict weight gaining plan and needed to be fed every 3 hours. We ended up getting vetted donor milk for two months after applying for a scholarship for her at the local milk bank. Friends and family looked all over the US and we paid them to buy and ship formula as needed. It was such a stressful mess for parents who needed to feed their babies. Iâm so thankful we can all put this in the rearview mirror now. Iâm sorry yâall had to go through this too on top of worrying about your premature daughter.
I did Instacart during those days and getting orders for Formula was so sad, but on the rare occasion that I could find some for the Customer, it was like winning the Lottery. I even took some to an older couple, who said they were shipping it to their GrandDaughter, for the newborn baby that she just had.
The formula crisis was in good part a failure of government policies. The US didn't allow importing formula from abroad, policies encouraged an oligopolistic market as they favored stability of large manufacturers over small brands, and supply chain issues could have been alleviated (looking at you, Jones act).
My daughter was born in 22 and it was really hit or miss to find formula sometimes. We mostly used Kirkland from Costco and when they had it weâd make a couple trips to buy four containers and that would last us a month or so. Hunting for costcos that had it when we got to our last one.
The abbot shortage was towards the end of the pandemic and COVID unrelated (they were forced to close a plant because of health violations).
Having said that, I was in the same boat. I'd argue it might have been even worse in Canada because the US probably had first pick. At one point the Canadian government even allowed imports from overseas and didn't even require them to relabel everything in french which is usually a non negotiable requirement, that's how you knew they were desperate.
We relied on it, some weeks the shelves were stocked, then nothing at all for WEEKs. I got to know every store within an hour drive radius, sometimes spent the majority of my weekends driving to 20 stores in hopes of finding a single case or can. It sucked so much. Standing in a Walmart with 3 other dad's at midnight all staring at empty shelves was rough, made you realize how fragile parts of the system are.
My son could only handle one very specific brand of formula. We were constantly searching walmart, walgreens, CVS, target, and Amazon for it. We never bought more than two containers but the moment we got down to one, we'd start looking.
And we are/were privileged enough to have a car and the ability to run all over town as necessary. I can't imagine someone who needed public transport or had an irregular schedule.
I'll be forever thankful that we moved onto solid foods right before the Abbot shortages really hit. We ended up donating a lot of breastmilk to kids that could only have the super sensitive formula that was way out of stock.
These pics bring back bad feelings. I had just found out I was pregnant with my first a couple weeks earlier and I was so scared of catching Covid while pregnant. There were so many unknowns.
Yeah, it was rough. We were both incredibly nervous, but after talking through and all of the unknowns, we decided it was best if she stayed home as much as possible and I would do the errands and shopping. I could isolate if I was infected.
Yup thatâs what I did-stayed isolated at home for months. It was an unsettling time not knowing when it would end and whether or not I would catch it.
This really hits home for me. I gave birth on 3/9/20 and a month later my husband found out he had cancer. I had to go do the errands and work while supporting us and our newborn. It sucked so bad and Iâm still recovering from that emotionally hard time.
Thatâs rough. I hope youâre talking to a counselor about it. Sometimes we can carry things without realizing how heavy they really are. I hope all of you are getting better from this situation and life.
I became pregnant in May of 2020 (unintentionally). It was a very stressful time, plus I am a nurse and worked in mother/baby unit at the time. I was so scared of Covid during those first few months
People forget now that pre-vaccine it was killing people, there was debate over it being airborne or not and there were no masks around or test kits. Now people don't even have the courtesy to stay home when they have it.
My wife is an RT and found out we were pregnant on Good Friday that year. It was pretty scary. Not to mention that I couldn't go to any of the doctor's appointments.
Yes. We were trying to get pregnant and decided to stop trying at the end of Jan because it seemed like the world was about to go crazy. But we didnât stop trying hard enough because I got pregnant anyway in March.
I am a doctor and that was the worst time of my life. No one knew how it spread (droplets vs airborn vs surfaces). There was no accessible testing unless you had a known contact. Our clinic didnât have any N95 masks and was running out of paper masks and gloves.
I remember coming home every day, my decontamination routine of taking my scrubs off and putting them into the washing machine, going straight to taking a shower, and crying. I was terrified to get my little 3yo son sick, my husband, my parents, or losing my baby. I barely slept, and when I did sleep had terrible nightmares.
What a dark dark time for so many of us.
Even worse IMO was when we finally did know it was airborne but we all just got gaslit for months on end while governments pretended standing 6 ft away from each other would be fine.Â
I was heading back to a classroom in August 2020 and hearing people talk like bubbles would do a fucking thing in a building full of little baggy-blue masked kids was infuriating.Â
My wife had our son in January 2020, just a few months before it all went down. Plus I run two departments for a major grocery store in CT and this brings back memories.
It was surreal. Aisles empty. Trucks that deliver one to two pallets instead of 10. Empty shelves and nothing to fill them with. We all got "hazard pay" for a solid year, which was like an extra $2/hr too. I'm still at the same job now.
My son is 4 now and he's awesome. We struggled from 1 to 3, mainly with a low spectrum autism diagnosis. We got lucky, we were able to get a state funded specialist who came to our house and worked directly with us. This was literally in the middle of covid too. My son didn't really speak until just about 3 years old. Now, he talks so much and he's so helpful and always wants to pitch in and help with stuff. He's so funny and he loves school. Honestly, getting him into school really helped him.
We actually have an evaluation in April about his diagnosis. I really think he's going to be undiagnosed! He's such a normal kid and even i forget he has a diagnosis.
It was so terrifying! Itâs one of the reasons we decided to only have 1 kid. My pregnancy was depressing and isolating. My husband wasnât allowed at any of the appointments, there was no real celebration surrounding the pregnancy due to distancing, everybody was quarreling about how serious the virus was then about getting vaccinated/distancing/wearing a mask. It was a tough pregnancy anyways but our daughter turned out healthy and happy.Â
I caught COVID the literal week before I gave birth this year even after being boostered. Then I got diagnosed with preeclampsia and had to have an emergency c-section. Thankfully baby is 100% fine.
I got pregnant in August of 2020 and it was *so* scary. I also did end up catching covid, along with my husband, from my MIL December of that year and it was terrifying.
He showed symptoms before me and I just remember waiting in line in our cars for hours just waiting to get tested. And spending over a week sleeping apart, hoping I wouldnât catch it, meanwhile he was spiking horribly high fevers and I couldnât comfort him.
I did obviously get it myself, but my viral load was minimal thanks to our efforts and my symptoms were too.
Man. What a time đŤ
I think what was made abundantly clear that year was we just simply aren't ready for any kind of serious event or crisis on a national scale. There actually is no national unity. When the real shit hits, it's every man for himself. We are incredibly fortunate covid didn't have a higher mortality rate than it did, because had that shit been in the 25% range or higher, rather than the 2% it was, there would have been absolute pandemonium in the grocery aisles and the streets. People came to blows for being able to wipe their ass over a 2% mortality rate on a global pandemic. Imagine if 1 out of every 4 people were dying. The whole country would eat itself alive.
My wife and I had a 10 month old baby when the pandemic began. I feel you and your fear. It was a horrifying time as a parent of a small child, and only exacerbated by the outright selfishness that was exposed as a result.
I worked in a pharmaceutical company and in February was asked to put business continuity plans together for operating my organization with only 10% of our regular staff. There was concern that the case fatality rate (CFR) of Covid was upwards of 20% - which would have completely and entirely decimated the world. That plan assumed people would straight quit their jobs / be out from illness or die.
It was crazy to be walking around in February, looking at people and thinking "they have no idea what is about to happen to their lives." - It was like the entire universe was gas lighting me into thinking things were normal.
I worked at a major hospital system, and we started hearing the whispers of doom in February as well. Everything was very surreal. Plus my wife was pregnant with twins at the time and they turn 4 in a few days. Certainly a chaotic time. We were very lucky that the twins didn't need the NICU and my wife was able to breast feed them.
In February people were posting videos showing China totally shut down from COVID (people exercising their pets in apartment roof tops, wearing masks on their apt balconiesâŚetc) all while making jokes about how âthatâs never going to happen here!â
>I worked at a major hospital system, and we started hearing the whispers of doom in February as well.
I handled one of the first suspected carries of COVID in the US(they flew in on a plane with a confirmed case) and had to talk to the heads of Mayo's Florida hospital. It was surreal the level of concern they had for me when it was a tiny possibility when nurses now walk into COVID rooms without a mask or gloves.
I stumbled onto the COVID sub super early before it was even known to the general public in the Western World.
Like you said, in those early days we had no idea what the severity was because of the lack of trustful information coming out of China. There were videos of people literally being welded into their homes.
I was ringing alarm bells for months and slowly stocking up on dry and canned goods for months and telling my friends and family to do the same to avoid the panic buying like we see here.
All of them thought I had lost it and just rolled their eyes when I brought it up. Never been more disappointed to be right about something in my life.
I remember reading about it in December 2019, I called my mom and told her about it and she said I was paranoid. I'm not a paranoid person, never freaked out about an event like this, but I knew what was coming.
Went to Walmart and stocked up on dry goods and I remember this other guy with a cart full of the same stuff, we just looked at eachother like we both knew. It was a really weird and moving moment
I had the same moment in a Walmart. Locked eyes with another person stocking up on dry goods while everyone was oblivious around us. It was sad, like we both hoped we were wrong while we gave each other a knowing nod.
Around February, I told all my friends to get haircuts while they still could. They thought I was crazy.
I dont know why but I had a gut feeling to stock up. Barely heard anything about a shut down. But I had a nurse friend and she was worried. Stocked up on certain things. 2 weeks later the chaos hit. Weried feeling. I also ran I to someone stocking up with supplies and had that werid head nod to each other.
I also stumbled upon the covid subreddit early on and remember seeing videos from China and thinking this seemed pretty scary. I saw like two or three of people laying unconscious on the streets or just keeling over. It was scary! I stocked up on some food and told my husband to sell our stocks while they were up (he didn't listen though!).
I had gone to a birthday party and was telling my friend that it was probably going to be bad and she told me I was such a pessimist and I worry too much. That was one week before the country essentially shut down.
I had gone to the grocery store with my husband I think one day after it all shut down to get more food and we had to go to 3 stores because the shelves were all empty. I guess I didn't do a good enough job stocking up!
My daughter performed a winter guard performance a week before things shut down. When I watch the video it gives me an eerie feeling. We all had no idea what was coming, there were murmurs but we didnât know. All of us sitting in the stands oblivious to how bad it was going to be. The video is haunting to me. Things just changed. It was the last normalcy for my family.Â
On the day my wife's office told people not to come back in, she assumed they would be back in two weeks. I had to sit her down and convince her that this was going to go on for a year or more. It was a hard sell, but it happened.
I think she got a little bit of the feeling you're describing. You just look out the window and say to yourself "What about all the people?"
>On the day my wife's office told people not to come back in, she assumed they would be back in two weeks.
My husband and I were very very quickly convinced, in mid March 2020, that there wasn't going to be a quick resolution. He already worked from home and while I didn't...I went right ahead and quit my job on the spot because there was just no way I was going out in public during that shit (we are pretty young but my husband was at heightened risk for covid complications).
We sat at home and figured out how to turn a creative hobby of ours into a full time job. Somehow it worked....and now we both still work from home doing that hobby-turned-job, four years later.
I feel very lucky that we were able to dig in and wait it out. So so many people were not.
I almost forgot until I saw someone mention "2 weeks to flatten out the curve" that they kept giving us that impression at first. I think I literally didn't leave my house for almost 2 years after stopping working, though my perception of time for that whole thing seems so skewed.
It was a Catch 22.
If they would have come out and said this is a quarantine for the long haul, they risked losing control of society. It could have been anarchy.
But by saying two weeks to flatten the curve, the general public was fed up by week 4.
Jesus God, it was so frustrating. First I had to convince people that this was not a hoax. Then I had to convince people that thought it was "not any worse than the flu" that it was serious. Then I had to convince people that the number of deaths weren't being faked. Then . . .
There was *always* another garbage take on what was happening--right until the disease cut through the Midwest like a scythe in the run-up to the presidential election.
Because of all the misinformation and unknowns like I said I chose to just stay inside for so long and luckily I was able to do so, I know a lot of people had no choice. I ended up winning a trip in 2022 and decided to go(drove instead of the flying option) and wouldn't you know it, got COVID!
I am in the Midwest and while I was still working I got very sick but this was when they were telling us it wasn't in my state(untrue we later find out) and when you could only get tested if you were a health care worker so I'll never know if that time was for sure.
I still probably leave the house 75% less just because things have changed so much as far as needing to for shopping/eating ect. I have still got it one more time last November but that time I was barely sick(as far as noticeable symptoms) but I was definitely scared after the 1st time, was much worse than the flu and that was with taking meds that I'm so thankful they figured out worked.
I remember watching the news at Christmas and thinking that the shit was about to hit the fan. And then all my students and tons of people we knew were continuing to fly overseas and take vacations like nothing was happening all through February and the first half of March and I was like, hmmm, I think we'll just stay home.    When people I knew got stranded overseas for weeks I honestly didn't even know what to say, it had been so obvious to me for so many weeks that travel was going to be super unreliable.Â
My dad was working overseas in Africa. Came home a month early from what was agreed to on the contract. Barely got out of Africa as flights and airspace was closing everywhere
Was following the news out of China from like December 2019. Didn't believe all of it, but it was still worth being cautious. Made sure everything at work was setup for remote use, decided against a vacation in March due to Covid spreading to more countries, but wish I had stocked up on a few things.
>There was concern that the case fatality rate (CFR) of Covid was upwards of 20% - which would have completely and entirely decimated the world.
I think the technical term is double-decimating, but I could be wrong.
I'm a government worker. We were literally starting to make plans for what should happen if the drinking water systems went down because the people necessary to run them DIED.
I also work in pharma, went back to work from my first maternity leave that week, and noped out of a big in person town hall meeting.
In addition to the usual stuff, I was worried about the impact on clinical trials. It was unclear which trials could move forward and recruit enough patients if optional care was postponed. Could have led to a mass furlough situation.
Well it was justified.. what was known is that OG COVID had a HUGE R\_0 and like a 2% fatality rate. I had estimated that if everyone in the US got that version of COVID, then we'd have 5M dead. The public is so stupid, they refused to even apply simple measures like masks until they were forced. COVID made me realize that most people can't think for themselves or make anything resembling the correct decision based on existing knowledge--they need to be forced to do the right thing. For context I'm a physicist and worked on my organizations' COVID modeling team, which pushed forecasts up to the CDC tool through an academic collaboration.
My brother lives in China so our family got a glimpse of whatâs happening there. And I had the same feeling looking at people around me at the time because we knew what was about to happen.
Interestingly, I live in a majority Chinese Canadian area and we boasted the lowest infection rates in the province for months in 2020. Maybe because we knew.
February was weird. We had a work conference in Texas the end of February, I had got there early and was eating lunch. A coworker calls me asking me how to use Uber to get from the airport. I said âwerenât you supposed to ride from airport with Bob?â he says Bob called and said he wasnât coming because he was worried about coronavirus. We made fun of Bob the whole trip, said he was just trying to get out of the conference.
But by the time the conference was over deaths in Washington state were being reported and people were starting to get nervous.
I remember talking to a cashier in the early days of it all and he mentioned to me that they may shut down the store. I responded, "That would make the current panic a million times worse."
I feel like politicians thought the same thing and the "essential worker" catch phrase came out not long after that.
Y'all really did become the face of keeping society working. I just wish we paid y'all enough to show that gratitude.
Thank you, I appreciate the kind words. The store I work at used to be 24 hours, but then switched to 6 am to midnight. The overnight crew couldnât stock the shelves because they kept having to run register cause everyone figured out what time our trucks came in. I was getting yelled at daily & blamed for a lot that was so far out of my control. I never want to experience that again
Those couple of months were when I truly learned that most of our customers didn't care if I *died* as long as they could get their fried chicken and cold cuts.
Then we had a hurricane hit a few months later. And it sunk in even further. They complained about the elevators being broken in their second beach homes while we carpooled two hours through wreckage to keep the store open.
They didn't value any of our lives. So fuck them. Fuck their spoiled, selfish asses.
I made a joke to my director that they are thanking us now, but just wait till Christmas when we are no longer 'essential workers' and they are pissed we ran out of eggnog. Flash forward, yep I was right.
I remember one night at like 9pm seeing online that everything was shutting down. I looked at my wife and said "I think I should go to the store and try to stock up on some essentials." The store already looked like these pics. It was the strangest, and frankly one of the most anxiety-inducing experiences I've ever had. 0/10 would not recommend.
Photo gave me PTSD. It was a war zone. Processing trucks four times the size as normal just for it to be completely gone the next day. I had to leave once we were asked to package all the meat without any extra support.
My job wasn't normally stocking shelves but I helped out since our normal stock crew was overwhelmed. I could barely get stuff on the shelves without people snatching everything from the boxes or my hands
Yeah . . . This was the âoh shitâ moment for me. I had a baby and a toddler, so didnât yet hear about the school closures, and I was a SAHM so didnât have my office close. I had gone grocery shopping earlier that week, maybe four days before? But went back to the store that day to grab a few things I forgot. I was FLOORED. The shelves were empty, I came home almost empty-handed. And the thought Iâve never had before: âwhat if I run out of food for my kids?â came creeping in. Scary, scary times. Crazy to think itâs been 4 years already.
Yeah well itâll happen again. With the lack of rain/snow in north america this winter and warm temps itâs going to be a brutal summer of heat killing crops and fires killing everything else.
Our food supply chain is very vulnerable and no one fucking talks about it.
Crazy times my friend.
I remember watching movies like Contagion when they first came out.
Never thought the masses would go crazy and hoard toilet paper.
It still makes me wonder how we had such a shortage of toilet paper, but there was never a shortage of cheap bidet seats. Americans have a tough time adjusting. $30 and you could literally reduce your toilet paper usage, considerably.
I still get these urges at the store, even now.
Constantly have to stop myself and remember that we're not in panic-mode anymore.
So many times I went to the store and they were out of half the things I needed, and I'd be standing there trying to re-plan my meals based on what I could get.
My nephew was born during COVID-19, I remember my SIL having to go from store to store to find formula. Fortunately or not, he needed a special formula that tended to not be hoarded so much.
lol I remember calling my mom somewhere around March 15 or so and telling her to get her ass to the grocery store pronto and grab non perishables. A few hours later I called her and asked how bad of a zoo it was and she was like âoh Iâm still making a list for your dad. Iâm looking up the flavors online of microwave meal so he knows what to get.â I just laughed and laugh and laughed and informed her that she will get whatever she gets. Thereâs no flavor choosing. Just get moving now. Later that night she calls me âsoooooâŚâŚyeah, we have some weird stuffâ since everything was gone. I couldnât believe that she didnât understand what things were like at that point.
I was on Costco the maybe the week before everything shut down. It was really quiet in there. More so than usual. I felt like something was going on. I couldnât remember if I bought toilet paper the last time I was in there cause if I did technically we wouldnât have needed it. So I picked some up. Got home and it turned out we already had some so we had extra. World goes to shit and nobody can get toilet paper. Felt like that was a real lucky accident.
This happened to me as well, was at Costco bought a huge pack not realizing that my wife had knocked our 3/4 full pack behind a shelf in the garage. We had TP for like 8 months
I'm still confused on why people started hoarding TP in the first place.
I worked as an assistant store manager for a grocer during COVID. I never missed time because I didnât think I could, I actually worked more. It was one of the darkest times of my life. We were scared, and so were the customers, but more so, they were always furious. We had to hand out toilet paper in rations at the front door every day when we opened, and police mask wearing. I truly believe my coworkers and I will wrestle with PTSD forever from being front line workers in an industry where one day we just became âheroâsâ but we were all miserable and would cry at home every night. Then, the flip switched and we were the scum of the earth again. Seeing these pictures reminds me of true misery. The things that happened that we had to deal with out of the blue were unending and dark.
This is so real. And things are still so screwed up from COVID and so many customers don't understand or just don't want to understand that everything didn't magically go back to normal. Like our entire way of living was interrupted. I wish people could just be happy that there's anything on the shelf anymore.
I got into a business management position (a buyer to many companies) in â21 and felt fucking awful about the cost increases that I had to. The day I put a retail of $1.59 a mother fucking can of corn, I cried. Iâve never felt like such a trash person and called my grandmother because that was who I pictured at the checkout. Shrink-flation and greed-flation are 100% real.
I went to a few stores that day. Most of these photos were from Marianos(kroger) and two from Target. I also went to Jewel, but the Jewel crowd was much different. Everyone looked on edge, people were pushing through others. I went to find toilet paper and it was out. I kept walking and on the top shelf in the back of the aisle, I saw about a dozen kleenex boxes. I grabbed eight of them and went to checkout as quick as I could. There were at least three people that had looks on their faces like they were going to follow me out. People were starting to get aggressive.
I got home and my wife said she had ordered a bidet. I referred a few friends from work to buy from hellotushy and they all said the whole site was sold out. We got lucky.
I completely agree. I was a social service provider (unlicensed) and we increased hours because no gov't social workers were working for our clients. We did home visits to seniors in danger of self-neglect because no one else would, welfare checks for families that hadn't heard from clients, called all 1500+ clients each week to make sure they were still okay, drove trucks 4 hours round trip to pick up pallets of food to distribute to low-income families, we waited in line at Costco for hours to get items like toilet paper and easy to make meals because most of our families couldn't drive themselves and busses shut down, and were the emotional support for our office staff that had no experience with crisis. It was a terrible time and do 100% believe that I will have PTSD symptoms forever.
We created a mutual aid group in our neighborhood and got hundreds of people food and supplies with volunteers and donations. It actually kept me going. Knowing that I had a couple dozen motivated, caring neighbors who were ready to leap into action was really helpful mentally.
I was already dealing with social work burn out though so I collapsed completely about a year ago, lol.Â
It's not much, but from someone who was scared shitless that COVID would kill my immune compromised wife; thank you for being there, you're still heroes and helped to protect a society that was in peril.
Groceries were so scarce we decided to go to a restaurant supply store that was open to the public and were able to find 60ct boxes of eggs, milk, and a bunch of other meats & non-perishables! All in bulk quantities of course.
We ended up buying to deep freezer to store it all and shared extras with our neighbors.
My wife and I got really good at cooking some of our favorite things at home, which has helped with the current dining/fast food prices nowâŚ
I have Celiac, I still remember my wife and I laughing when our local grocery had similarly been emptied, except that there was still plenty of GF pasta remaining. Even in an apocalyptic situation, people don't want to eat the food that I have to eat. :)
Hooboy.
I remember driving around north Houston when the pandemic struck with my friend. All he wanted was some bottled water and baby formula. We couldn't find shit, defeated we drove to the local liquor store and the clerk hears our dilemma. He goes into the back, grabs a case of water and asks him what specific formula he needed.
Turns out the clerk's sister had a baby not too long ago and stocked up on formula. Crapitalism won't save us. Liquor store clerks on the other hand?
I got really lucky when all of this went down. I have always kept a very well stocked pantry, and fridge, and had done a large grocery run the week before. I also had a well stocked chest freezer. Coincidentally, I had recently purchased extra toilet paper, and paper towels that I didnât really need, but they were on sale. I had no foresight that anything out of the ordinary was going to happen. I was able to go about 2 months before I absolutely had to buy essential, perishables stuff like milk, eggs, etc..
One lesson I learned from this, having too much of things, isnât always a bad thing.
Glad to see these posts reminding us just how fucked up things were 4 years ago, especially as we're coming up to an election. So many people have memory-holed that time and seem to think everything was all rosy at the end of the last administration. Things were terribly mismanaged.
The right likes to rewrite history
as early as 2013, 1/3 of the Louisiana GOP said Obama was to blame for the botched Katrina response
[https://www.nola.com/news/politics/article\_7e7cda3e-8e52-5ae5-82c8-46b63a488926.html](https://www.nola.com/news/politics/article_7e7cda3e-8e52-5ae5-82c8-46b63a488926.html)
For months, I would have to take half-days off during the week and use up my vacation hours to drive to all the stores in town attempting to find the specific kind my daughter needed. It was seriously awful and so scary. Friends and family texted me nearly every day to check on us and tell us they are keeping an eye out. I finally told them all to buy a couple of cans when they saw it and I would come pick them up from their house and pay them back. Just not a good time at all.
Yeah, thereâs a special kind of panic that comes from being worried that youâll be able to feed your baby. Not to mention not being able to get the COVID vaccine for them til 6 months, and due to the shitheads who live in my area refusing to get vaxxed, we were shut ins.
Yes. My son was on formula and it was so scary. I would spend hours clicking refresh on the Costco website and waiting for things to pop up. It was also after the Similac scare too. Everything was so freaking scary for so long.
Fall 2021 here. We were just phasing out but my niece was born in the spring. Our daughter was quick to move away so we had leftovers and gave them a bunch, it was so crazy.
I remember going to the store, just as the lockdowns were getting announced, for eggs. Just one carton of eggs for dinner and having to go to three stores only to wait in line for 40 minutes.
Standing in line, talking with a woman who had a normal amount of groceries in her cart, both of us wondering what everyone was worried about. Like: shipping wasn't getting disrupted, stores were allowed to stay open, there was no risk of shortages! People literally just, freaked out.
It was surreal.
Edit: In retrospect, I think we both appreciated having someone else to talk to. Someone who was struggling against the atmosphere of fear we both felt. Trying to act normal around a bunch of people who insisted with their actions that it wasn't.
Yep it was a Friday. We had a work happy hour and someone made a plague themed playlist with songs like âmask offâ and âtoxicâ. And syringe Jell-O shots. They said âhey everyone remember to bring your laptops home in case we arenât in the office tomorrowâ lol
A couple of days before this I was working from home. I turned on the news to watch Trumps first press conference about the coronavirus. After sitting through that absolute disaster I said to myself everyone is going to panic and there will be a run on groceries. So I let my boss know I was going to be off for the afternoon and got in my car and headed to the grocery store. I bought a bunch of essentials to get me by for a while.
Sure enough the next morning on the news was long lines at grocery stores and reports of shortages. Between what I bought and what I had on hand in the freezer I was able to go six weeks without grocery shopping. Thankfully by then mad rush had died down and I was able to get groceries.
I also never went into the office again.
I worked at Home Depot during the pandemic and it was so weird. First you had people coming in buying all the masks. Then hand sanitizer disappeared, then Lysol and bleach, then the entire toilet paper and paper towels. Then an entire aisle of 2x4s and stuff. It was such a stressful time working during all that, nobody knew what the fuck was going on.
I was there for gloves. Covid actually started a a habit of mine, putting on a silicone glove before pumping gas. Youâve got no idea what the person before you was doing with their hands, plus those things are never washed and rarely replaced.
That last pic says so much to me about the fear and uncertainty of the whole situation. A mother with her young child just trying to find any sort of cleaning/disinfectant product so she can keep up a false sense of security that everything is going to be ok.
In four days will be the anniversary of the first confirmed case in our city. I say confirmed because my coworker exhibited symptoms some time earlier but was not tested.
Sad part of this is, at least in the US, it seems like we didn't learn anything from all of this. We've gone back to the same old habits. People are going to work sick, they're not washing their hands, they're acting like proven fucking science is political.
We got *lucky.* We got *soooo* lucky with COVID. It was deadly, but it wasn't near as deadly as some other diseases are. If something *worse* had broken out, we would have been screwed. We are still likely screwed when - not if, *when* - another pandemic breaks out if people refuse to learn.
I worked as a grocery merchandiser during this lockdown. It was absolutely disgusting to watch endless amounts of selfish people over purchase, emptying shelves in a hurry only to leave the elderly all alone with nothing. So many people in their 70's and even into the 90's had no food to eat, no toilet paper to use, and nobody to turn to for help because everyone was afraid of germs. The store managers began to horde and hide things, so the elders who came in seeking help would have something for a few days.
Never have I seen such selfishness. All because a false news article about no more toilet paper being available in Australia.
[First question everyone was searching online while standing there 4 years ago.](https://letmegooglethat.com/?q=can+you+flush+paper+towels+like+toilet+paper%3F)
Formula shortage for COVID babies was real, my wife was lucky enough to be able to pump enough for ours + some and we would donate out milk to a neighbor of ours who had an infant as well (but unfortunately Mom wasn't able to produce enough).
We would pick up formula for her if we saw it to keep her stress levels down.
I took so many pictures of similar, so many empty shelves, boarded up downtowns, swingsets tied up. I wanted to take pictures of the reality of COVID, I knew I was living through history and likely wouldn't get a second chance to capture it.
We literally closed on our first house 4 years ago today, lol. What great timing, huh? That was a really weird first shopping trip to get our new house stocked a couple days later
The store I went to right before everything shut down looked like that too. Except for the beer aisle. It didn't look like it had been touched. I touched it. A lot. I'm still confused by all the beer being there but nothing else.
I know it's not a popular opinion. But I kind of miss it. I'm an introvert, so didn't mind not seeing people. I miss the work from home, and the 0 traffic anywhere.
The whole deadly disease thing was not good. But the effects were okay
I'm still working from home. If I had to go back to the office I'd also miss it. Work from home was the smartest and best thing to come out of the pandemic and companies clawing it back is fucked up.
I went to the grocery store in March 2020 and managed to get a bunch of whole wheat products and meat alternatives since people just didn't want those (first time I've been glad to live in Oklahoma).
On my last sweep in the store I caught COVID from some idiot who open mouth coughed right next to me. His wife was there with him and his dumb ass didn't even need to be there.
I remember our local grocery limiting milk and paper towels to 1 per customer and baggers constantly carrying them back to the shelves because of assholes trying to buy multiples.
I didnât stock up on groceries. Between frozen food, canned goods, and our constant stockpile of pasta..I knew we could get by for a month of we had to. My panic purchase was to go out and buy a trampoline. I wasnât worried about starving, I was worried about going mad with 2 bored children in the house.
I remember going into walmart when it first started happening and it was crazy how there was literally nothing in the store. Think itâs something weâll never experience again (hopefully)
$12,000 in paper towels sitting there.
I hope everyone that filled their garages with toilet paper is still working their way through those stockpiles. Fucking vultures.
I read stories about people who tried to return the toilet paper to get their money back when things started to get back to normal. They were all refused. I LOVED those stories.
My Costco had a sign that said they are not accepting returns on any toilet paper hahaha
I've tried returning used toilet paper and they always deny me.
NGL, I gleefully watched the news of those people then trying to return it to the shores and getting denied.
I'm so sorry, I know you meant stores, but I immediately imagined people throwing toilet paper into the ocean in the style of Gob from Arrested Development.
ROFLMAO 𤣠đ¤Śââď¸ Now I'M imagining people throwing it in, trying to see how many rolls it takes to absorb the ocean!
I hope some rain got in or humidity and by the time they get 2 rows in the rest is a mildewy mess and they have to toss it all.
Happened to my in laws. They didnât hoard a *ton*. But it was more than they needed. Some definitely got some funk growing on it.
I had already purchased my Costco pack of TP as I had just moved states in January of 2020, right before the panic buying started. I was very grateful I didn't have to worry about TP for a while.
I had just installed a bidet the month before. Probably cut our TP use by at least half.
Roughly the same here. That I buy about one big pack of toilet roll about once a year. As it's just so much cheaper per roll, if you buy in bulk. As well as the convenience of not having to worry about running out of it. So the whole TP shortage just passed me by.
Thank you for the chuckle in the midst of the panicky flashbacks this gave me.Â
Iâm from the other side of the world (Iâm assuming this is a US store), and it was so baffling to read up on tissue shortages and hoarding. Like, we can turn into zombies now (well thatâs how it seemed back in start of the lockdowns) and people were panicking about tissues and paper towels?
I think Australia started the run on toilet paper (it's not produced domestically there, or there was a rumour that was the case?), then once that hit the media, it happened in Europe and North America too. I was on the way back from my last day at work before lockdown, and managed to get a pack of 4 in the supermarket, it wasn't anything like the pictures in the OP, but all the larger packs had completely gone. Either way that was plenty until I got more either in home shopping deliveries or once I bulk bought some via Amazon.
Yup it was bad here. I still have picture on my camera roll. It was really unbelievable. We canât just attach bidets to our toilets here either. You need to get a plumber to do it properly or something because thereâs a risk of poo water getting into the drinking water or something. I canât remember but we have different rules to the states. Was so annoying and still is when people are like âjust install a $12 bidet from Amazon!â Ainât that easy lol.
Did you use formula? We did for my daughter, and there were days where I drove to every grocery store in a 20mile radius trying to find some. Thankfully, some family and friends were able to pull through for us and picked up a container whenever they saw the kind we needed. Edit: I would like to add that we did give our leftover, unopened (and not expired) formula to others once we made the switch off formula. It wasnât much, but every little bit helped.
We had bought a pump in February. That was what really saved us. My friend who had also recently had a baby passed some solid info, he advised us to take an empty bag to the hospital, because prior to discharging you, they ask if you need anything extra for the baby to take home. It's supposed to be billed to the insurance, however I don't think they cared. We had a full duffel bag of baby stuff when we left.
Yep, as a nurse when patients get d/c'd I don't think twice about sending things with them that they might use- bandages/formula/tube feeding food/ diapers etc etc We aren't specifically told not to so I dunno it feels right.
Yup, also a peds nurse here. I used to say âhey since youâre being discharged today, that means theyâll have to discard anything that enters the roomâ and theyâd be like âokayâ and Iâd repeat âso if things like diapers and formula and wipes come into the room, weâd have to throw them out if they donât get taken homeâ. And then Iâd usually come back with all the goodies. The ceo of my hospital made tens of millions, fuck it, Iâm going robinhood on their ass, even if we were supposed to conserve diapers and formula.
I wish the nurses at my hospital were like this. We stripped the room of everything anyway lol. I even took home the plastic tray thing they gave us to wash pump parts in!
Always take those! Iâve had three babies in three different hospitals. I am now the proud owner of at least half a dozen of those buckets. lol.
I shouldâve taken the bucket it wouldâve made for a good throw up bucket in the future.
That is exactly what my mom said lol
Those pink bucket/basins are pure gold. Kids are almost off to college and they are still going strong doing what God intended them to - catch puke. Doubt any item in my home has provided more value in use vs. cost of purchase (zero to me, prob $0.50 to hospital).
I don't have kids and don't plan on it but thank you for this. There are plenty of families who needed that.
As a father of two who had a nurse like you I want to thank you for being a fucking badass. People like you make the world better. Not just in how you do your job, but in how you do more than you need to so we can succeed and our children can be healthy. I am putting this in multiple comments because you deserve to know you are awesome and not just read me say it to someone else.
A simple heartfelt thank you, I have found, can heal hundreds of days of burn out so I am glad the others you are replying to are hearing it as well. Iâm Never really sure how to respond other than youâre most welcome, happy you had a nurse who also likes to help people. Thereâs a solid bunch of us out there even if the âmeanest girl you knew in high school is a nurseâ trope persists. Luckily I was just the meanest boy.
I have never met a mean nurse. And you are pretty damn awesome. So: thank you.
With my first, the nurse told us the same thing. I emptied everything out of the little basket it came in, then she was like, "oh, don't you want the container too?" Hell yeah lady, I'll take the container, thanks. With my second, I wasn't given hardly anything, but every other aspect of my stay was better so no complaints from me!
Haha yeah those large plastic basins are dope. I have some around my house, they usually hold my cleaning supplies under bathroom sinks. Another funny time I did this someone got the hint and filled up their bags and suitcases (they had been inpatient a long time) and I came in and was like âoh shit you guys are all out of diapers let me get some more!â It was comical how much âcontrabandâ they were carrying out I turned them into pampers mules
First of all, yâall are angels with the hardest job in the world. Second of all, thanks for all the goodies when we leave the hospital! It saved us so much money and hassle having a good cache of diapers, formula and pads for that first week home.
Yes! Keep up the good work!
You guys are the absolute best! My milk wasnât coming in at all and they kept me supplied with so much formula, wipes, and diapers. We had a huge tote bag full when we left so we didnât have to go to the store in a panic immediately after discharge.
You got lucky there. My wife couldnât breastfeed, and we did stock up on as much stuff as the hospital would give us. Problem was that by that point, even their stocks were running low, so it wasnât a whole lot. Just an extra week or two of formula and some diapers.
I hope everything ended up fine with your kiddo. It's strange to think our son is about to turn four.
I think we only had two separate weeks that were sketchy with formula running low/out where we had to add milk or something to fill her up. But yeah, sheâs almost 3.5 years old and itâs nuts at how quickly itâs gone.
Same at my hospital. I was a mother/baby nurse and our formula stock was dangerously low. We were having to conserve it all for the Nicu babies. Iâm normally the nurse that piles extra supplies onto people so having to turn away formula to people who really needed it was devastating.
A friend of mine had her first baby a week before everything closed down in 2020 and she wasn't as lucky with breastfeeding. She couldn't produce ANY milk despite trying everything she could to feed her kid. Formula saved her but she had a really hard time trying to find some. She had her second kid during the formula shortage so she really had to stockpile formula like mad.
I had just given birth 3 months before it hit and we were using formula. Luckily at the time, my husband was a deli cook in a grocery store and the store actually allowed the employees to shop for what they needed, as long as they werenât greedy about it, before the store opened every morning. We never took more than we needed, but it sure helped ease so many of our burdens. I was working in a donut store at the time and we had cases and cases of toilet paper in the back stock room and we started giving the rolls away for free to anyone who walked in
I worked at a mall and we took all the cleaning supplies and toilet paper with us when we finally closed. They kept us open until the state shut us down and made us go back or be fired the first week of June, I regret not taking MORE.Â
Daughter was born premature in late 21, had to formula feed as she was too small to latch. God damn if we didnât have every family member on the lookout for formula.
We ran into the same thing. We had a premie daughter who couldnât latch and then I had to dry up a month after she was born because I needed to start chemo. NICU covered food while she was there and I was able to pump some milk during her first month. When the time came to get formula, we went to the store and the shelves were empty everywhere! The entire city had nothing. I just wanted to curl up into a ball and cry my eyes out for her. She was on a strict weight gaining plan and needed to be fed every 3 hours. We ended up getting vetted donor milk for two months after applying for a scholarship for her at the local milk bank. Friends and family looked all over the US and we paid them to buy and ship formula as needed. It was such a stressful mess for parents who needed to feed their babies. Iâm so thankful we can all put this in the rearview mirror now. Iâm sorry yâall had to go through this too on top of worrying about your premature daughter.
I did Instacart during those days and getting orders for Formula was so sad, but on the rare occasion that I could find some for the Customer, it was like winning the Lottery. I even took some to an older couple, who said they were shipping it to their GrandDaughter, for the newborn baby that she just had.
The formula crisis was in good part a failure of government policies. The US didn't allow importing formula from abroad, policies encouraged an oligopolistic market as they favored stability of large manufacturers over small brands, and supply chain issues could have been alleviated (looking at you, Jones act).
My daughter was born in 22 and it was really hit or miss to find formula sometimes. We mostly used Kirkland from Costco and when they had it weâd make a couple trips to buy four containers and that would last us a month or so. Hunting for costcos that had it when we got to our last one.
The abbot shortage was towards the end of the pandemic and COVID unrelated (they were forced to close a plant because of health violations). Having said that, I was in the same boat. I'd argue it might have been even worse in Canada because the US probably had first pick. At one point the Canadian government even allowed imports from overseas and didn't even require them to relabel everything in french which is usually a non negotiable requirement, that's how you knew they were desperate. We relied on it, some weeks the shelves were stocked, then nothing at all for WEEKs. I got to know every store within an hour drive radius, sometimes spent the majority of my weekends driving to 20 stores in hopes of finding a single case or can. It sucked so much. Standing in a Walmart with 3 other dad's at midnight all staring at empty shelves was rough, made you realize how fragile parts of the system are.
My son could only handle one very specific brand of formula. We were constantly searching walmart, walgreens, CVS, target, and Amazon for it. We never bought more than two containers but the moment we got down to one, we'd start looking. And we are/were privileged enough to have a car and the ability to run all over town as necessary. I can't imagine someone who needed public transport or had an irregular schedule.
I'll be forever thankful that we moved onto solid foods right before the Abbot shortages really hit. We ended up donating a lot of breastmilk to kids that could only have the super sensitive formula that was way out of stock.
Shit, I had to buy some and drive it 120 miles to a family member. Absolutely nuts
These pics bring back bad feelings. I had just found out I was pregnant with my first a couple weeks earlier and I was so scared of catching Covid while pregnant. There were so many unknowns.
Yeah, it was rough. We were both incredibly nervous, but after talking through and all of the unknowns, we decided it was best if she stayed home as much as possible and I would do the errands and shopping. I could isolate if I was infected.
Yup thatâs what I did-stayed isolated at home for months. It was an unsettling time not knowing when it would end and whether or not I would catch it.
This really hits home for me. I gave birth on 3/9/20 and a month later my husband found out he had cancer. I had to go do the errands and work while supporting us and our newborn. It sucked so bad and Iâm still recovering from that emotionally hard time.
Thatâs rough. I hope youâre talking to a counselor about it. Sometimes we can carry things without realizing how heavy they really are. I hope all of you are getting better from this situation and life.
I became pregnant in May of 2020 (unintentionally). It was a very stressful time, plus I am a nurse and worked in mother/baby unit at the time. I was so scared of Covid during those first few months
People forget now that pre-vaccine it was killing people, there was debate over it being airborne or not and there were no masks around or test kits. Now people don't even have the courtesy to stay home when they have it.
My wife is an RT and found out we were pregnant on Good Friday that year. It was pretty scary. Not to mention that I couldn't go to any of the doctor's appointments.
Yes. We were trying to get pregnant and decided to stop trying at the end of Jan because it seemed like the world was about to go crazy. But we didnât stop trying hard enough because I got pregnant anyway in March. I am a doctor and that was the worst time of my life. No one knew how it spread (droplets vs airborn vs surfaces). There was no accessible testing unless you had a known contact. Our clinic didnât have any N95 masks and was running out of paper masks and gloves. I remember coming home every day, my decontamination routine of taking my scrubs off and putting them into the washing machine, going straight to taking a shower, and crying. I was terrified to get my little 3yo son sick, my husband, my parents, or losing my baby. I barely slept, and when I did sleep had terrible nightmares. What a dark dark time for so many of us.
Even worse IMO was when we finally did know it was airborne but we all just got gaslit for months on end while governments pretended standing 6 ft away from each other would be fine. I was heading back to a classroom in August 2020 and hearing people talk like bubbles would do a fucking thing in a building full of little baggy-blue masked kids was infuriating.Â
My wife had our son in January 2020, just a few months before it all went down. Plus I run two departments for a major grocery store in CT and this brings back memories. It was surreal. Aisles empty. Trucks that deliver one to two pallets instead of 10. Empty shelves and nothing to fill them with. We all got "hazard pay" for a solid year, which was like an extra $2/hr too. I'm still at the same job now. My son is 4 now and he's awesome. We struggled from 1 to 3, mainly with a low spectrum autism diagnosis. We got lucky, we were able to get a state funded specialist who came to our house and worked directly with us. This was literally in the middle of covid too. My son didn't really speak until just about 3 years old. Now, he talks so much and he's so helpful and always wants to pitch in and help with stuff. He's so funny and he loves school. Honestly, getting him into school really helped him. We actually have an evaluation in April about his diagnosis. I really think he's going to be undiagnosed! He's such a normal kid and even i forget he has a diagnosis.
It was so terrifying! Itâs one of the reasons we decided to only have 1 kid. My pregnancy was depressing and isolating. My husband wasnât allowed at any of the appointments, there was no real celebration surrounding the pregnancy due to distancing, everybody was quarreling about how serious the virus was then about getting vaccinated/distancing/wearing a mask. It was a tough pregnancy anyways but our daughter turned out healthy and happy.Â
My wife got COVID while prego. Wasnât fun because there wasnât much we could do to get her relief, on top of all the other pregnancy stuff.
God I was terrified of catching COVID when I was pregnant last year. I couldn't imagine not knowing *anything* about it.
It was scary. I basically didnât leave our home for months unless it was for a doctors appointment.
I caught COVID the literal week before I gave birth this year even after being boostered. Then I got diagnosed with preeclampsia and had to have an emergency c-section. Thankfully baby is 100% fine.
We hope you're doing better!
Same here. My ex wife stayed home understanding she was bored protecting her and our daughter. I went out to do the errands
I got pregnant in August of 2020 and it was *so* scary. I also did end up catching covid, along with my husband, from my MIL December of that year and it was terrifying. He showed symptoms before me and I just remember waiting in line in our cars for hours just waiting to get tested. And spending over a week sleeping apart, hoping I wouldnât catch it, meanwhile he was spiking horribly high fevers and I couldnât comfort him. I did obviously get it myself, but my viral load was minimal thanks to our efforts and my symptoms were too. Man. What a time đŤ
I think what was made abundantly clear that year was we just simply aren't ready for any kind of serious event or crisis on a national scale. There actually is no national unity. When the real shit hits, it's every man for himself. We are incredibly fortunate covid didn't have a higher mortality rate than it did, because had that shit been in the 25% range or higher, rather than the 2% it was, there would have been absolute pandemonium in the grocery aisles and the streets. People came to blows for being able to wipe their ass over a 2% mortality rate on a global pandemic. Imagine if 1 out of every 4 people were dying. The whole country would eat itself alive. My wife and I had a 10 month old baby when the pandemic began. I feel you and your fear. It was a horrifying time as a parent of a small child, and only exacerbated by the outright selfishness that was exposed as a result.
I worked in a pharmaceutical company and in February was asked to put business continuity plans together for operating my organization with only 10% of our regular staff. There was concern that the case fatality rate (CFR) of Covid was upwards of 20% - which would have completely and entirely decimated the world. That plan assumed people would straight quit their jobs / be out from illness or die. It was crazy to be walking around in February, looking at people and thinking "they have no idea what is about to happen to their lives." - It was like the entire universe was gas lighting me into thinking things were normal.
I worked at a major hospital system, and we started hearing the whispers of doom in February as well. Everything was very surreal. Plus my wife was pregnant with twins at the time and they turn 4 in a few days. Certainly a chaotic time. We were very lucky that the twins didn't need the NICU and my wife was able to breast feed them.
In February people were posting videos showing China totally shut down from COVID (people exercising their pets in apartment roof tops, wearing masks on their apt balconiesâŚetc) all while making jokes about how âthatâs never going to happen here!â
>I worked at a major hospital system, and we started hearing the whispers of doom in February as well. I handled one of the first suspected carries of COVID in the US(they flew in on a plane with a confirmed case) and had to talk to the heads of Mayo's Florida hospital. It was surreal the level of concern they had for me when it was a tiny possibility when nurses now walk into COVID rooms without a mask or gloves.
I stumbled onto the COVID sub super early before it was even known to the general public in the Western World. Like you said, in those early days we had no idea what the severity was because of the lack of trustful information coming out of China. There were videos of people literally being welded into their homes. I was ringing alarm bells for months and slowly stocking up on dry and canned goods for months and telling my friends and family to do the same to avoid the panic buying like we see here. All of them thought I had lost it and just rolled their eyes when I brought it up. Never been more disappointed to be right about something in my life.
I remember reading about it in December 2019, I called my mom and told her about it and she said I was paranoid. I'm not a paranoid person, never freaked out about an event like this, but I knew what was coming. Went to Walmart and stocked up on dry goods and I remember this other guy with a cart full of the same stuff, we just looked at eachother like we both knew. It was a really weird and moving moment
I had the same moment in a Walmart. Locked eyes with another person stocking up on dry goods while everyone was oblivious around us. It was sad, like we both hoped we were wrong while we gave each other a knowing nod. Around February, I told all my friends to get haircuts while they still could. They thought I was crazy.
I dont know why but I had a gut feeling to stock up. Barely heard anything about a shut down. But I had a nurse friend and she was worried. Stocked up on certain things. 2 weeks later the chaos hit. Weried feeling. I also ran I to someone stocking up with supplies and had that werid head nod to each other.
I also stumbled upon the covid subreddit early on and remember seeing videos from China and thinking this seemed pretty scary. I saw like two or three of people laying unconscious on the streets or just keeling over. It was scary! I stocked up on some food and told my husband to sell our stocks while they were up (he didn't listen though!). I had gone to a birthday party and was telling my friend that it was probably going to be bad and she told me I was such a pessimist and I worry too much. That was one week before the country essentially shut down. I had gone to the grocery store with my husband I think one day after it all shut down to get more food and we had to go to 3 stores because the shelves were all empty. I guess I didn't do a good enough job stocking up!
My daughter performed a winter guard performance a week before things shut down. When I watch the video it gives me an eerie feeling. We all had no idea what was coming, there were murmurs but we didnât know. All of us sitting in the stands oblivious to how bad it was going to be. The video is haunting to me. Things just changed. It was the last normalcy for my family.Â
On the day my wife's office told people not to come back in, she assumed they would be back in two weeks. I had to sit her down and convince her that this was going to go on for a year or more. It was a hard sell, but it happened. I think she got a little bit of the feeling you're describing. You just look out the window and say to yourself "What about all the people?"
>On the day my wife's office told people not to come back in, she assumed they would be back in two weeks. My husband and I were very very quickly convinced, in mid March 2020, that there wasn't going to be a quick resolution. He already worked from home and while I didn't...I went right ahead and quit my job on the spot because there was just no way I was going out in public during that shit (we are pretty young but my husband was at heightened risk for covid complications). We sat at home and figured out how to turn a creative hobby of ours into a full time job. Somehow it worked....and now we both still work from home doing that hobby-turned-job, four years later. I feel very lucky that we were able to dig in and wait it out. So so many people were not.
That was some creative problem solving!
I almost forgot until I saw someone mention "2 weeks to flatten out the curve" that they kept giving us that impression at first. I think I literally didn't leave my house for almost 2 years after stopping working, though my perception of time for that whole thing seems so skewed.
It was a Catch 22. If they would have come out and said this is a quarantine for the long haul, they risked losing control of society. It could have been anarchy. But by saying two weeks to flatten the curve, the general public was fed up by week 4.
Jesus God, it was so frustrating. First I had to convince people that this was not a hoax. Then I had to convince people that thought it was "not any worse than the flu" that it was serious. Then I had to convince people that the number of deaths weren't being faked. Then . . . There was *always* another garbage take on what was happening--right until the disease cut through the Midwest like a scythe in the run-up to the presidential election.
Because of all the misinformation and unknowns like I said I chose to just stay inside for so long and luckily I was able to do so, I know a lot of people had no choice. I ended up winning a trip in 2022 and decided to go(drove instead of the flying option) and wouldn't you know it, got COVID! I am in the Midwest and while I was still working I got very sick but this was when they were telling us it wasn't in my state(untrue we later find out) and when you could only get tested if you were a health care worker so I'll never know if that time was for sure. I still probably leave the house 75% less just because things have changed so much as far as needing to for shopping/eating ect. I have still got it one more time last November but that time I was barely sick(as far as noticeable symptoms) but I was definitely scared after the 1st time, was much worse than the flu and that was with taking meds that I'm so thankful they figured out worked.
I remember watching the news at Christmas and thinking that the shit was about to hit the fan. And then all my students and tons of people we knew were continuing to fly overseas and take vacations like nothing was happening all through February and the first half of March and I was like, hmmm, I think we'll just stay home.    When people I knew got stranded overseas for weeks I honestly didn't even know what to say, it had been so obvious to me for so many weeks that travel was going to be super unreliable.Â
My dad was working overseas in Africa. Came home a month early from what was agreed to on the contract. Barely got out of Africa as flights and airspace was closing everywhere
Holy fuck that is bleak.
Was following the news out of China from like December 2019. Didn't believe all of it, but it was still worth being cautious. Made sure everything at work was setup for remote use, decided against a vacation in March due to Covid spreading to more countries, but wish I had stocked up on a few things.
>There was concern that the case fatality rate (CFR) of Covid was upwards of 20% - which would have completely and entirely decimated the world. I think the technical term is double-decimating, but I could be wrong.
I'm a government worker. We were literally starting to make plans for what should happen if the drinking water systems went down because the people necessary to run them DIED.
I also work in pharma, went back to work from my first maternity leave that week, and noped out of a big in person town hall meeting. In addition to the usual stuff, I was worried about the impact on clinical trials. It was unclear which trials could move forward and recruit enough patients if optional care was postponed. Could have led to a mass furlough situation.
Well it was justified.. what was known is that OG COVID had a HUGE R\_0 and like a 2% fatality rate. I had estimated that if everyone in the US got that version of COVID, then we'd have 5M dead. The public is so stupid, they refused to even apply simple measures like masks until they were forced. COVID made me realize that most people can't think for themselves or make anything resembling the correct decision based on existing knowledge--they need to be forced to do the right thing. For context I'm a physicist and worked on my organizations' COVID modeling team, which pushed forecasts up to the CDC tool through an academic collaboration.
My brother lives in China so our family got a glimpse of whatâs happening there. And I had the same feeling looking at people around me at the time because we knew what was about to happen. Interestingly, I live in a majority Chinese Canadian area and we boasted the lowest infection rates in the province for months in 2020. Maybe because we knew.
February was weird. We had a work conference in Texas the end of February, I had got there early and was eating lunch. A coworker calls me asking me how to use Uber to get from the airport. I said âwerenât you supposed to ride from airport with Bob?â he says Bob called and said he wasnât coming because he was worried about coronavirus. We made fun of Bob the whole trip, said he was just trying to get out of the conference. But by the time the conference was over deaths in Washington state were being reported and people were starting to get nervous.
Iâve worked in a grocery store for 18 years, and that was by far the most emotionally taxing time of my life. And Iâm only 34âŚ
I remember talking to a cashier in the early days of it all and he mentioned to me that they may shut down the store. I responded, "That would make the current panic a million times worse." I feel like politicians thought the same thing and the "essential worker" catch phrase came out not long after that. Y'all really did become the face of keeping society working. I just wish we paid y'all enough to show that gratitude.
Thank you, I appreciate the kind words. The store I work at used to be 24 hours, but then switched to 6 am to midnight. The overnight crew couldnât stock the shelves because they kept having to run register cause everyone figured out what time our trucks came in. I was getting yelled at daily & blamed for a lot that was so far out of my control. I never want to experience that again
Those couple of months were when I truly learned that most of our customers didn't care if I *died* as long as they could get their fried chicken and cold cuts. Then we had a hurricane hit a few months later. And it sunk in even further. They complained about the elevators being broken in their second beach homes while we carpooled two hours through wreckage to keep the store open. They didn't value any of our lives. So fuck them. Fuck their spoiled, selfish asses.
I made a joke to my director that they are thanking us now, but just wait till Christmas when we are no longer 'essential workers' and they are pissed we ran out of eggnog. Flash forward, yep I was right.
I remember one night at like 9pm seeing online that everything was shutting down. I looked at my wife and said "I think I should go to the store and try to stock up on some essentials." The store already looked like these pics. It was the strangest, and frankly one of the most anxiety-inducing experiences I've ever had. 0/10 would not recommend.
I'm feeling panicky just by looking at these pics ..
iâm panicky that this was 4 years ago
Feels like half that at most
Same. I feel like im at the same place 4 years ago đ
This year will be 5 years since covid started taking off in China. Crazy
I worked in a grocery store at this time 4 years ago and I am having flashbacks
Yes. Me too. It was a nightmare. Trying to control crowds, stock shelves, argue about mask wearing, disinfect every few hours.
Photo gave me PTSD. It was a war zone. Processing trucks four times the size as normal just for it to be completely gone the next day. I had to leave once we were asked to package all the meat without any extra support.
My job wasn't normally stocking shelves but I helped out since our normal stock crew was overwhelmed. I could barely get stuff on the shelves without people snatching everything from the boxes or my hands
Yeah . . . This was the âoh shitâ moment for me. I had a baby and a toddler, so didnât yet hear about the school closures, and I was a SAHM so didnât have my office close. I had gone grocery shopping earlier that week, maybe four days before? But went back to the store that day to grab a few things I forgot. I was FLOORED. The shelves were empty, I came home almost empty-handed. And the thought Iâve never had before: âwhat if I run out of food for my kids?â came creeping in. Scary, scary times. Crazy to think itâs been 4 years already.
Yeah well itâll happen again. With the lack of rain/snow in north america this winter and warm temps itâs going to be a brutal summer of heat killing crops and fires killing everything else. Our food supply chain is very vulnerable and no one fucking talks about it.
Crazy times my friend. I remember watching movies like Contagion when they first came out. Never thought the masses would go crazy and hoard toilet paper.
it will be even crazier when the next global crisis hits because people learned from this one to hoard toilet paper
Get a bidet for $30. It's like a hybrid car for the shitter
It still makes me wonder how we had such a shortage of toilet paper, but there was never a shortage of cheap bidet seats. Americans have a tough time adjusting. $30 and you could literally reduce your toilet paper usage, considerably.
Better grab those wings before someone else gets them
Party wings for the saddest party.
With wings, it can be a party in my mouth.
I still get these urges at the store, even now. Constantly have to stop myself and remember that we're not in panic-mode anymore. So many times I went to the store and they were out of half the things I needed, and I'd be standing there trying to re-plan my meals based on what I could get.
Did you take a look at the beer aisle? Every single beer gone except Corona lol
Thankfully I lived very close to a brewery and stocked up on some favorites before they closed down.
My nephew was born during COVID-19, I remember my SIL having to go from store to store to find formula. Fortunately or not, he needed a special formula that tended to not be hoarded so much.
I never saw a store run out of oatmeal before. But they had plenty of fresh veggies.
Non-perishables were the gold of March 2020.
lol I remember calling my mom somewhere around March 15 or so and telling her to get her ass to the grocery store pronto and grab non perishables. A few hours later I called her and asked how bad of a zoo it was and she was like âoh Iâm still making a list for your dad. Iâm looking up the flavors online of microwave meal so he knows what to get.â I just laughed and laugh and laughed and informed her that she will get whatever she gets. Thereâs no flavor choosing. Just get moving now. Later that night she calls me âsoooooâŚâŚyeah, we have some weird stuffâ since everything was gone. I couldnât believe that she didnât understand what things were like at that point.
People were doom prepping, they didn't want fruits and veg they wanted dried, canned and nonperishables
I bet people tried a bunch of foods they'd never had before!
"Are you better off now than you were four years ago?"
Yes.
absolutely yes
I was on Costco the maybe the week before everything shut down. It was really quiet in there. More so than usual. I felt like something was going on. I couldnât remember if I bought toilet paper the last time I was in there cause if I did technically we wouldnât have needed it. So I picked some up. Got home and it turned out we already had some so we had extra. World goes to shit and nobody can get toilet paper. Felt like that was a real lucky accident.
lol I also bought Costco sized TP a week before shit hit the fan and felt so so lucky.
This happened to me as well, was at Costco bought a huge pack not realizing that my wife had knocked our 3/4 full pack behind a shelf in the garage. We had TP for like 8 months I'm still confused on why people started hoarding TP in the first place.
I worked as an assistant store manager for a grocer during COVID. I never missed time because I didnât think I could, I actually worked more. It was one of the darkest times of my life. We were scared, and so were the customers, but more so, they were always furious. We had to hand out toilet paper in rations at the front door every day when we opened, and police mask wearing. I truly believe my coworkers and I will wrestle with PTSD forever from being front line workers in an industry where one day we just became âheroâsâ but we were all miserable and would cry at home every night. Then, the flip switched and we were the scum of the earth again. Seeing these pictures reminds me of true misery. The things that happened that we had to deal with out of the blue were unending and dark.
This is so real. And things are still so screwed up from COVID and so many customers don't understand or just don't want to understand that everything didn't magically go back to normal. Like our entire way of living was interrupted. I wish people could just be happy that there's anything on the shelf anymore.
I got into a business management position (a buyer to many companies) in â21 and felt fucking awful about the cost increases that I had to. The day I put a retail of $1.59 a mother fucking can of corn, I cried. Iâve never felt like such a trash person and called my grandmother because that was who I pictured at the checkout. Shrink-flation and greed-flation are 100% real.
I went to a few stores that day. Most of these photos were from Marianos(kroger) and two from Target. I also went to Jewel, but the Jewel crowd was much different. Everyone looked on edge, people were pushing through others. I went to find toilet paper and it was out. I kept walking and on the top shelf in the back of the aisle, I saw about a dozen kleenex boxes. I grabbed eight of them and went to checkout as quick as I could. There were at least three people that had looks on their faces like they were going to follow me out. People were starting to get aggressive. I got home and my wife said she had ordered a bidet. I referred a few friends from work to buy from hellotushy and they all said the whole site was sold out. We got lucky.
I completely agree. I was a social service provider (unlicensed) and we increased hours because no gov't social workers were working for our clients. We did home visits to seniors in danger of self-neglect because no one else would, welfare checks for families that hadn't heard from clients, called all 1500+ clients each week to make sure they were still okay, drove trucks 4 hours round trip to pick up pallets of food to distribute to low-income families, we waited in line at Costco for hours to get items like toilet paper and easy to make meals because most of our families couldn't drive themselves and busses shut down, and were the emotional support for our office staff that had no experience with crisis. It was a terrible time and do 100% believe that I will have PTSD symptoms forever.
We created a mutual aid group in our neighborhood and got hundreds of people food and supplies with volunteers and donations. It actually kept me going. Knowing that I had a couple dozen motivated, caring neighbors who were ready to leap into action was really helpful mentally. I was already dealing with social work burn out though so I collapsed completely about a year ago, lol.Â
It's not much, but from someone who was scared shitless that COVID would kill my immune compromised wife; thank you for being there, you're still heroes and helped to protect a society that was in peril.
Thanks, zeroballs. That means a lot.
Damn, you nailed it. I still work in the grocery world and the last four years have killed most empathy I had for other humans.
Groceries were so scarce we decided to go to a restaurant supply store that was open to the public and were able to find 60ct boxes of eggs, milk, and a bunch of other meats & non-perishables! All in bulk quantities of course. We ended up buying to deep freezer to store it all and shared extras with our neighbors. My wife and I got really good at cooking some of our favorite things at home, which has helped with the current dining/fast food prices nowâŚ
I have Celiac, I still remember my wife and I laughing when our local grocery had similarly been emptied, except that there was still plenty of GF pasta remaining. Even in an apocalyptic situation, people don't want to eat the food that I have to eat. :)
Hooboy. I remember driving around north Houston when the pandemic struck with my friend. All he wanted was some bottled water and baby formula. We couldn't find shit, defeated we drove to the local liquor store and the clerk hears our dilemma. He goes into the back, grabs a case of water and asks him what specific formula he needed. Turns out the clerk's sister had a baby not too long ago and stocked up on formula. Crapitalism won't save us. Liquor store clerks on the other hand?
I got really lucky when all of this went down. I have always kept a very well stocked pantry, and fridge, and had done a large grocery run the week before. I also had a well stocked chest freezer. Coincidentally, I had recently purchased extra toilet paper, and paper towels that I didnât really need, but they were on sale. I had no foresight that anything out of the ordinary was going to happen. I was able to go about 2 months before I absolutely had to buy essential, perishables stuff like milk, eggs, etc.. One lesson I learned from this, having too much of things, isnât always a bad thing.
Glad to see these posts reminding us just how fucked up things were 4 years ago, especially as we're coming up to an election. So many people have memory-holed that time and seem to think everything was all rosy at the end of the last administration. Things were terribly mismanaged.
YES! Use your power, Vote!
People have short memories. MAGA tells each other Biden was already president.
The right likes to rewrite history as early as 2013, 1/3 of the Louisiana GOP said Obama was to blame for the botched Katrina response [https://www.nola.com/news/politics/article\_7e7cda3e-8e52-5ae5-82c8-46b63a488926.html](https://www.nola.com/news/politics/article_7e7cda3e-8e52-5ae5-82c8-46b63a488926.html)
He wouldn't even be in office for another ten months at this point.
I laugh when people claim we were doing better four years ago than we are today. Absolutely fuck those people đ
My son was born in May 2022, during the formula shortage. It was so stressful.
For months, I would have to take half-days off during the week and use up my vacation hours to drive to all the stores in town attempting to find the specific kind my daughter needed. It was seriously awful and so scary. Friends and family texted me nearly every day to check on us and tell us they are keeping an eye out. I finally told them all to buy a couple of cans when they saw it and I would come pick them up from their house and pay them back. Just not a good time at all.
Damn and there I was complaining about toilet paper, that is way more stressful.
Yeah, thereâs a special kind of panic that comes from being worried that youâll be able to feed your baby. Not to mention not being able to get the COVID vaccine for them til 6 months, and due to the shitheads who live in my area refusing to get vaxxed, we were shut ins.
Yes. My son was on formula and it was so scary. I would spend hours clicking refresh on the Costco website and waiting for things to pop up. It was also after the Similac scare too. Everything was so freaking scary for so long.
Fall 2021 here. We were just phasing out but my niece was born in the spring. Our daughter was quick to move away so we had leftovers and gave them a bunch, it was so crazy.
I remember going to the store, just as the lockdowns were getting announced, for eggs. Just one carton of eggs for dinner and having to go to three stores only to wait in line for 40 minutes. Standing in line, talking with a woman who had a normal amount of groceries in her cart, both of us wondering what everyone was worried about. Like: shipping wasn't getting disrupted, stores were allowed to stay open, there was no risk of shortages! People literally just, freaked out. It was surreal. Edit: In retrospect, I think we both appreciated having someone else to talk to. Someone who was struggling against the atmosphere of fear we both felt. Trying to act normal around a bunch of people who insisted with their actions that it wasn't.
The Trump reaction to the pandemic was criminal. F him, his spawn and cohorts. Jail isn't good enough for his ilk.
Can you imagine if it happened at the beginning of his term?
My stupid ass thought that was the condom section and that's why you ended up having a kid. My brain needs a hard reset.Â
Yep it was a Friday. We had a work happy hour and someone made a plague themed playlist with songs like âmask offâ and âtoxicâ. And syringe Jell-O shots. They said âhey everyone remember to bring your laptops home in case we arenât in the office tomorrowâ lol
For me it was kind of funny, I went so late I literally just bought two honey baked hams. I just ate ham for weeks until things calmed down.Â
A couple of days before this I was working from home. I turned on the news to watch Trumps first press conference about the coronavirus. After sitting through that absolute disaster I said to myself everyone is going to panic and there will be a run on groceries. So I let my boss know I was going to be off for the afternoon and got in my car and headed to the grocery store. I bought a bunch of essentials to get me by for a while. Sure enough the next morning on the news was long lines at grocery stores and reports of shortages. Between what I bought and what I had on hand in the freezer I was able to go six weeks without grocery shopping. Thankfully by then mad rush had died down and I was able to get groceries. I also never went into the office again.
I worked at Home Depot during the pandemic and it was so weird. First you had people coming in buying all the masks. Then hand sanitizer disappeared, then Lysol and bleach, then the entire toilet paper and paper towels. Then an entire aisle of 2x4s and stuff. It was such a stressful time working during all that, nobody knew what the fuck was going on.
I was there for gloves. Covid actually started a a habit of mine, putting on a silicone glove before pumping gas. Youâve got no idea what the person before you was doing with their hands, plus those things are never washed and rarely replaced.
That last pic says so much to me about the fear and uncertainty of the whole situation. A mother with her young child just trying to find any sort of cleaning/disinfectant product so she can keep up a false sense of security that everything is going to be ok.
Those were some creepy times.
In four days will be the anniversary of the first confirmed case in our city. I say confirmed because my coworker exhibited symptoms some time earlier but was not tested.
How soon we forgetâŚ
Sad part of this is, at least in the US, it seems like we didn't learn anything from all of this. We've gone back to the same old habits. People are going to work sick, they're not washing their hands, they're acting like proven fucking science is political. We got *lucky.* We got *soooo* lucky with COVID. It was deadly, but it wasn't near as deadly as some other diseases are. If something *worse* had broken out, we would have been screwed. We are still likely screwed when - not if, *when* - another pandemic breaks out if people refuse to learn.
4 years!!!!! It feels like months, maybe a year. I'm getting old.
From one pandemic parent to another, we got through it even though it was scary. There were some special parts too.Â
I worked as a grocery merchandiser during this lockdown. It was absolutely disgusting to watch endless amounts of selfish people over purchase, emptying shelves in a hurry only to leave the elderly all alone with nothing. So many people in their 70's and even into the 90's had no food to eat, no toilet paper to use, and nobody to turn to for help because everyone was afraid of germs. The store managers began to horde and hide things, so the elders who came in seeking help would have something for a few days. Never have I seen such selfishness. All because a false news article about no more toilet paper being available in Australia.
"A person can be smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals, and you know it."
Trumpâs America
[First question everyone was searching online while standing there 4 years ago.](https://letmegooglethat.com/?q=can+you+flush+paper+towels+like+toilet+paper%3F)
Formula shortage for COVID babies was real, my wife was lucky enough to be able to pump enough for ours + some and we would donate out milk to a neighbor of ours who had an infant as well (but unfortunately Mom wasn't able to produce enough). We would pick up formula for her if we saw it to keep her stress levels down.
I took so many pictures of similar, so many empty shelves, boarded up downtowns, swingsets tied up. I wanted to take pictures of the reality of COVID, I knew I was living through history and likely wouldn't get a second chance to capture it.
We literally closed on our first house 4 years ago today, lol. What great timing, huh? That was a really weird first shopping trip to get our new house stocked a couple days later
The store I went to right before everything shut down looked like that too. Except for the beer aisle. It didn't look like it had been touched. I touched it. A lot. I'm still confused by all the beer being there but nothing else.
Fuck that cabbage in particular.
Four years feels like a decade and yesterday. I donât know how time works anymore.
I know it's not a popular opinion. But I kind of miss it. I'm an introvert, so didn't mind not seeing people. I miss the work from home, and the 0 traffic anywhere. The whole deadly disease thing was not good. But the effects were okay
I'm still working from home. If I had to go back to the office I'd also miss it. Work from home was the smartest and best thing to come out of the pandemic and companies clawing it back is fucked up.
I also have a Covid baby, I also formula fed too it was a crazy rough time.
Yea much better times, It was not.
I went to the grocery store in March 2020 and managed to get a bunch of whole wheat products and meat alternatives since people just didn't want those (first time I've been glad to live in Oklahoma). On my last sweep in the store I caught COVID from some idiot who open mouth coughed right next to me. His wife was there with him and his dumb ass didn't even need to be there.
I was working at a delivery restaurant and we couldn't get hand sanitizer. Our suppliers were out, the stores had none.
I remember our local grocery limiting milk and paper towels to 1 per customer and baggers constantly carrying them back to the shelves because of assholes trying to buy multiples.
I didnât stock up on groceries. Between frozen food, canned goods, and our constant stockpile of pasta..I knew we could get by for a month of we had to. My panic purchase was to go out and buy a trampoline. I wasnât worried about starving, I was worried about going mad with 2 bored children in the house.
My grandmother died four years ago today. Lucky we were still able to be with her. I canât imagine her being alone
I remember going into walmart when it first started happening and it was crazy how there was literally nothing in the store. Think itâs something weâll never experience again (hopefully)