Pandemic Post: a Retrospective

Not actually Erin.

Picture by KJ Photography

& is used with permission.

It's been over a year since I published "Pandemic? Don't Panic!", one of our most popular -- and most divisive -- posts. We received many comments about it, a good number of which were unpublishable because they were profane. Others  took offense at our reasonable tone when obviously we were all doomed. My favorites, however, were those who called Dr. Madsen's credibility into question while simultaneously hiding behind an anonymous name. I don't know about you, but if I have to choose between trusting a blogger with a pen name and someone whose qualifications are readily verifiable, I'll go with the latter, thanks. 

Oh, and this comment aged well:

For those in the back, total worldwide deaths from COVID-19 are currently listed at 2.5 million; here in the USA, we've had 550,000 deaths (regardless of age) out of 30.4 million cases. 

I don't know what's in our current psyche that makes people prone to panic, but there is. I saw it in 2014, when the doomsayers proclaimed that we would all be dead from Ebola, and I saw the exact same fear last year. And yet, here we are, having been told that if we did everything right that only 2 million people in this country would die, and a year later we're just above a quarter of that. Those deaths are tragic, of course, and my sympathies go out to everyone who lost loved ones in the past year; I simply wish to point out that Blue Collar Prepping, like a lot of other sources, was right when we said "By and large, we're going to get through this and it's going to be okay."

Another comment asked us, "What would you do in hindsight?"

This is an excellent question. In regards to myself, I would have gotten a bidet at the first sign of a toilet paper shortage and not much else; perhaps I would have tried a bit harder to convince people that it wasn't the end of the world. On the other hand, I remember being so aggravated at the number of preppers who were losing their minds over the Easiest Disaster Ever (With Pizza Delivery and Netflix) that maybe pushing more would have resulted in more stress for me. 

I asked this question of Dr. Madsen, but she is unable to make a public comment due to conditions at work; perhaps another time, when things have calmed down. 

In conclusion, preppers, consider this past year a test run. Make notes of where you were weak and make corrections as necessary; the next big emergency might be a lot worse.