Community Chat

[MorningLover]

tansy wrote:

suzyQ3 wrote:

moonlady wrote:
Anyone who looks to China for a model to which to compare our response, has lost all credibility.

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Well, moonlady, they just sent 1,00 ventilators to New York, and that is a credible statement.

The governor must be thrilled to finally get some response somewhere.

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And, hopefully, the Chinese ventilators were not delivered broken and had been maintained.

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Hopefully, I read about  Chinese masks exported to other countries were defective.

Dutch government recalled 600,000 of the Chinese manufactured face masks for being defective and not meeting safety standards — over half of the 1.3 million total N-95 protective masks that were delivered to the Netherlands. Hospitals in the country were requested to return the masks that did not properly fit on faces and prevent COVID-19 virus particles from making human contact.

"When they were delivered to our hospital, I immediately rejected those masks," one hospital employee reportedly said to Dutch broadcaster. "If those masks do not close properly, the virus particles can simply pass. We do not use them."

Other countries have expressed concern with medical equipment manufactured in China. After purchasing 340,000 test kits from a Chinese manufacturer, Spain's government claimed that 60,000 of them did not accurately test for COVID-19.

[Boehm Collector]

@stevieb ... we are also having trouble finding food: ie meat, poultry, eggs, milk, etc. Sanitizing cleaning supplies and hand sanitizers are no where to be found.  But yesterday I went to a supermarket near my brother's house.  With the exception of sanitizing cleaning supplies and hand sanitizers I was able to find everything I needed.   I don't understand how their shelves could be so well stocked while the shelves in our supermarket are virtually empty.  Both are in New Jersey.  

[Boehm Collector]

@Sooner    I have relatives in the central part of Italy.  As you are probably aware, Italy has been hit especially hard.  However, none of my cousins have had any difficulty buying food!   I'm in New Jersey and the shelves in my local supermarkets are virtually empty.  My cousins in Italy have trouble believing me.  Go figure!

[Sooner]

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@tototwo wrote:

@CalminHeart - you have toilet paper?!?!? I don't care what brand it is, we just want some!  We are also out of paper towels. Our stores order it, but don't receive it. Yes, I've asked.

I place pick-up orders at my supermarket, but only receive a fraction of what we ordered.  .

How can this happen in the good ol' USA?

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@tototwo How can this happen in the USA?  Well, everybody raced out on no notice and bought 4 to 6 weeks worth of groceries and other needed products.  No store or supply chain can handle that.

Especially since the advent of computers, the supply chain is much smaller than it used to be beause you have a tighter control on inventory, therefore can have a smaller stock on hand and less capital involved in having to warehouse more.  That's a big part of the problem.

[Diamonds22]

I hope the original poster let us know if she has received food. There are great suggestions & hopes she has found help. I worry about people in this time of crisis.

[Spurt]

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@josie wrote:

I ordered 33 items through Instacart yesterday and received 5....this doesn't even begin to show the first sign of getting better, if you do find domething somewhere the cost has tripled it is starting to get to me since I'm almost 70, can't get out, retired and a widow. What are we suppose to do...should we start buying food on QVC because we can't get it in the grocery stores?

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@josie 

A lot of times it has to do with when you placed your Instacart order and what day for delivery......  If you place your order for delivery on a Friday, Saturday, or Sunday --GOOD LUCK, stock is low on these days, and it was that way sometimes before the Pandemic.....thats when most people shop so stock is low.....

What has worked for me is ordering in advance for a weekday delivery, for example I placed my order on a Saturday night or Sunday to be delivered on a Wednesday or Thursday morning 9-11 or 9-12...... I had 29 items and got all of my items except eggs and paper towels....And our prices are NOT tripled....thats price gouging and should be reported to your State Attorney General's Office....  In my area Instacart uses the average price that our grocery store chain charges for their items (and in my city, prices vary by store location)....some items are priced slightly higher, while others are the same as in store shopping.....

The Instacart phone app works great because you can chat with your Shopper about whats available and the price....you have to be a bit flexible with Instcart during these pandemic times...if you are looking for the most common items that are always out of stock due to the virus you arent always going to get them.....

[stevieb]

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@Sooner wrote:

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@stevieb wrote:

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@Sooner wrote:

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@stevieb wrote:

No food, no Kleenex, no toilet paper, no cleaning products, no masks... Instead of our leaders at all levels rattling on and on about the medical aspects of the situation, which clearly they, nor the supposed medical experts, have a clue how to contain or eliminate, some of them really should, by now, have turned their attention to the fact that the population needs food and essentials. Whenever I see someone waxing eloquent about this great land of ours, I feel compelled to point out that no aspect of this crisis has been or is being handled at all well and in fact, others have done a better job. When something 'unprecedented' happens, we require creative solutions and we're not seeing any. We've essentially beenrelegatdedd to living in a3rdd world country.

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@stevieb Yes.  A pandemic tends to level to playing field to what is normal life in the3dd world.  Most of the1stt world has been shut down.  And in Europe, countries are a lot smaller and populations not as scattered or as large as the US. 

Nobody expected this or planned for it.  No country that I am aware of wasprepairedd for it.  So I think in light of everything our infrastructure is still at work--we have water, light, electricity and food and necessities, so in light of everything we are blessed. 

Do we have what we want exactly? No.  But we are trying to help those most affected, see that nobody starves, and for the most part pull together to get things done and food to people.  

It is an unprecedented global disaster, and considering I am not going toseondd guess anything. 

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Different perspectives @Sooner. We're allowed... It's an oversimplification to belittle or to imply those who see this as more than a mere 'incovenience' are somehow unreasonable... In too many instances, it's not a matter of moaning about forgoing what we 'want', which we might all agree is unreasonable right now, but of not having what we need. There's a pretty big difference and as you see here, there are people who do not have adequate food, can't seem to find it and who also don't have other necessities. I too am seeing neighbors helping neighbors, which is heartening, but what I'm not seeing is any local, regional or national authority taking control and doing much of anything except telling us to wash our hands, keep our distance and stay in 'if we can', knowing full well that for most of us, if we want to eat, we can't... Agreed, a disaster tends to level the playing field, but some of us will have to be excused for thinking the supposedly 'best and brightest' would have had some kind of a game plan for disaster. Clearly we don't... And when it gets right down to it, yes we are a large country with a large population, but other larger countries with larger populations don't appear to be quite as continually devastated as are we...

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@stevieb Really?  And what would those countries be? 

I think one of thebiggett problems is that we depend too much on the government and have been going down that path a long time.  After all, there is only so much we can expect or they can do when the whole country is shut down.  Who plans for that?  I don't know of any country who does.

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@Sooner  I'm not a proponent of Big Brother and yet you'll have to forgive me if at some level I believe our various levels of government are somewhat responsible for managing local, regional and national emergencies and crises... I don't think too many would disagree this qualifies... I also believe our various levels of government need to have plans in place for worst case scenarios and clearly they don't... Perhaps we rely too much on them for too many things, but from where I sit, this is major, right up there with homeland security and terrorism task forces... 

[Spurt]

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@Boehm Collector wrote:

@stevieb ... we are also having trouble finding food: ie meat, poultry, eggs, milk, etc. Sanitizing cleaning supplies and hand sanitizers are no where to be found.  But yesterday I went to a supermarket near my brother's house.  With the exception of sanitizing cleaning supplies and hand sanitizers I was able to find everything I needed.   I don't understand how their shelves could be so well stocked while the shelves in our supermarket are virtually empty.  Both are in New Jersey.  

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@Boehm Collector 

Im in Texas and it used to be that way in our city too, our grocery store chain, HEB, added additional limitations on more of the essential items....But you are right, there is a VARIANCE in stock in stores ........  some shelves are bare, but other stores are fully stocked.....  It also depends on the day and time you shop....My sister went today, to a store that normally has long lines and no food, but since she went early today Sunday morning, and everything was well stocked except cleaning supplies which were out, but she even got TP, paper towels, eggs , hand sanitizers ....

[stevieb]

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@Boehm Collector wrote:

@stevieb ... we are also having trouble finding food: ie meat, poultry, eggs, milk, etc. Sanitizing cleaning supplies and hand sanitizers are no where to be found.  But yesterday I went to a supermarket near my brother's house.  With the exception of sanitizing cleaning supplies and hand sanitizers I was able to find everything I needed.   I don't understand how their shelves could be so well stocked while the shelves in our supermarket are virtually empty.  Both are in New Jersey.  

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@Boehm Collector  Exactly... Because there's no one in a position of authority to regulate how supplies are divided up and under these conditions, there needs to be...

[Spurt]

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@tototwo wrote:

@CalminHeart - you have toilet paper?!?!? I don't care what brand it is, we just want some!  We are also out of paper towels. Our stores order it, but don't receive it. Yes, I've asked.

I place pick-up orders at my supermarket, but only receive a fraction of what we ordered.  .

How can this happen in the good ol' USA?

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@tototwo 

Sometimes it makes a big difference when you place your order, and the day for delivery....Also some stores are also better stocked than others...

Check this out---a friend when to pick up a food delivery at a barbeque place and they were selling toilet paper a $1 a roll.....  maybe thats why the stores dont have any resturants are selling it.....

But some of the shortages can be blamed on your fellow shoppers that are still finding ways to hoard just so they can re-sell and make some cash