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Logically one can assume that there are people and organizations that I'm going to just call "COVID response personnel" across the strata of Federal, State, and Local governments and various sectors of research science and medical fields that are privvy to more information than the public gets to see. There are things that sound borderline conspiratorial and make a reader start rolling their eyes and scrolling ahead... so that's fine if someone feels that way about what I am going to say next. I do have proof early-on in this thread where I alluded to some things that I couldn't talk about at the time that then about a 7-10 days later were made public. So, maybe a little credibiltiy there? Trump has started to show more transparency lately, and I think it's because we are getting close to the time when a lot of models predict that the situation is about to get really, really REAL. I think this careful management of information and the rate at which it is flowing out to us has been wisely designed to keep the thin veneer of civility stuck onto our society. First, some of the data is so dynamic and changes so rapidly that it looks like chaos when you plot it on a chart. Statisticians need time to process it, modulate and normalize it. If you try to "accept it" in real time, your response to it would be very manic. High today, low tomorrow. Hell, we've seen that with Trump during the daily White House briefings over the past week. I figure he's been getting the daily flood of data and it's had an effect. BUT... back to our Governor: He's an entrepneur and a good businessman. He's a solid Christian. I know because I go to church with him and have had him literally turn around in a service on a Sunday, look me dead in the eye and say, "I don't know why but I really feel like I'm supposed to pray for you. Can I?" He's the real deal when it comes to his faith and I see a lot of folks on social media mock him for it, or they question his sincerity and assume he's a Christian for the sake of show. Not the case. He's also what you'd probably just call an American. From what I've seen, he believes in the Constitution, he believes in the burden of leadership, and he's got experts in various areas advising him. While I'd still love to see some movement toward Constitutional Carry in Tennessee, he's not a single-topic governor and we don't have single-topic problems these days. My gut feeling -- and it's just that... not insider info -- is that he's been determined to walk the delicate balance between dropping the hammer and limiting a lot of civil liberties to control a crisis, and pulling the right levers at the right time, to keep the economy moving in Tennessee while managing down the potential for people to further propagate the virus. I think the "slow walk" toward big brash moves is just him being careful and reluctant to stomp on our freedoms. Take that for what it's worth. Last nugget for those of you who read this far: This isn't from my professional life either so I don't mind sharing. Based on what a surgeon at a very well-regarded local hospital told me yesterday, to my face, I wouldn't be surprised to see the Music City Center turned into a makeshift Coronavirus hospital very soon. Probably one of those things the government is doing behind the scenes that we're not all aware of.

In the interest of taking the good with the bad but being honest about the situation, this is an accurate assessment. On the flipside, she also would’ve been much more competent in pivoting this crisis into a bigger power grab for the government against our civil liberties.

Haven’t missed a day of work here boss.

Cliff Notes version: God ain't very happy with us right now.

When you've got time (and likely a lot of people have a decent amount of time right now), it's worth sitting down as a family and making a list of meals that you regularly enjoy - especially looking at some of the simpler ones to start with. For instance, in my family of five - it's guaranteed that we'll do spaghetti once a week - and my kids wouldn't complain if it was more. When the local Publix has Buy One Get One on jars or sauce or noodles, it's easy to put one away without even noticing it. Since they regularly run sales of some items biweekly - and others monthly - within 3 months max - you can have enough set aside for a month without even going outside your normal food budget. Date the items you buy - and put the new stuff in the back so that you use the oldest stuff first. There are other meals that this is pretty easy with as well. If you grew up like I did having a pot of beans and a pan of cornbread once a week - there's a complete protein. Likewise with a lot of soups or curries. Americans have really gotten out of practice living out of their pantries. Part of the reason supply lines have gotten tight in places is that up until two weeks ago, America was eating over half its meals in restaurants.

If you think the Patriot Act was bad, just look at all the stuff they tried to piggyback into the stimulus bill.

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I can't figure out how they think this'll square with the Labor Relations Board either. Her company, Gibson Brands, (who went through bankruptcy a couple of years ago), furloughed all of the manufacturing jobs in the US and gave them $1,000 severance. Salaried employees got the 10% reduction in salary across the board. I guess the investors figure that the salaried employees will be thankful that they still have a job and not complain. Their biggest retailer, Guitar Center, is being pushed over the edge of bankruptcy, and they account for about 65% of Gibson's sales. I'm sitting here praying that the VA will get off their butts and give me a good rating after my Compensation & Pension exam last December. If I get a good rating my wife can take a lesser position closer to where we live. It would also see us through if she gets laid off too.

You won't hear the news say this either concerning deaths in Tn. or the U.S.A. Last numbers I could find 2017 there was 12,140 abortions in Tennessee, that averages 33 per day. In 2008 it was 19,550 averaged 53.5 per day. So if the abortion clinics stay closed for 90 days it will save 2,970 people in Tennessee. It is all how you look at things.

For some levity - please take Samuel L. Jackson's advice here. It's beeped - but may not be safe for work??? If you're still at work - likely no one cares:

My mom called me recently. She voted for Trump once and likely will again. Her exact words were "Trump has been great for the economy, but he's the last person you want to guide us through a pandemic." I've since had a few Trump supporting friends text me and say they can't believe how much he's lied during these press conferences. As for your last sentence, let's not forget it's Trump's DOJ(the same one he demanded ban bump stocks) that has already asked for the ability to detain people indefinitely without trial. We'll never know what Hillary would or wouldn't do but we can see what Trump appointed Bill Barr is trying to do. Thankfully Rand Paul and a few others are trying to stop it.

You ain’t wrong... I hate Hillary but....in this instance she would have done a much better job. I’m a trump voter but anyone who thinks he didn’t F this all up has their head in the sand.

But they have to have someone to blame. It’s no different than the anti-gunners; you can manipulate the numbers to mean and project anything you want. Now everyone’s a medical experts, and the real medical experts are lying because Trump told them to. While you are looking in the mirror, there is no need to blame yourself. Repeat after me…China did this, and no matter how hard they try, no one can blame this on Me, Trump or the Governors. Were we prepared for something like this? No, and we won’t be next time either. What do all you medical experts think should have been done, now that you have the benefit of hindsight? We still have some brave Americans going to work and doing their job to feed us and keep us safe. Will that last another month with the rest of the country shut down? I do not know; but I have my doubts. Have I seen a change in Trump? Yes. I have seen him go from what I think was “We have to open the country back up and get people to work or our country will be in economic collapse.” To “The Doctors have convinced me that if we do that everyone will die, I hope to God we can make it 30 more days.” BTW…I thought this wasn’t supposed to turn into a conspiracy theories thread? That’s exactly what it’s turned into. Hopefully the people trying to find answers aren’t blinded by hate; if they are many more will needlessly die, some by the virus, some by the economic collapse that will soon bring us to our knees if we don’t stop standing around hand wringing.

I still believe that if we leave the economy shut down for much longer, Corona deaths are going to pale in comparison to starvation and suicides. You can't just shut an entire country down.

I've been a "minimal" survivalist for a good while now. As a townie, in an apartment. Just me. Assuming the water supply hangs in there, I can shut the door and not open it for at least 9 months. (only have 2-3 months water stored). Idea is that if the big balloon ever goes up, I can at least hang out for a while to see if life's still worth living in the aftermath of whatever would cause that. Assuming I don't get overrun by bad bipeds. This isn't that, but it will do till that comes. My last "close" contact with people was at Kroger on the 24th. I don't expect to do any more of that till May. Maybe longer, we'll see. Ain't skeered, just don't see a lot of reason for "mostly" social distancing since I can easily do it totally for a good while. - OS

Of course. There are certainly states where we’ll have data in a few weeks. Tennessee is probably an example where you’ve got stricter measures in some cities than you do the state at large. Mississippi, Florida, and Texas are others. If in a couple of weeks we see more rural/non-metro outbreaks like Albany, Georgia and Lander, Wyoming, you’ll certainly have a lot more people asking what their governors were waiting for.

The above quote was by Michael Crichton referencing physicist Murray Gell-Mann. I’m going to sound like a complete jerk here. But, I might suggest taking everything the White House says and parsing it through that framework. I don’t really care what you chalk it up to - but this administration has no more idea what they’re talking about this week than they did a month ago. They can present new charts with updated casualty ranges. They can beg people to take it seriously now when a month ago they were saying the opposite. Whatever. It doesn’t matter. They lack the ability to comprehend the depth of the problem - because they lack the ability to care about anything other than lining their pockets. They are historically unprepared - and thousands upon thousands of Americans will die because of it. It’s an absolute disgrace. And all of us ought to take a good hard look in the mirror and use this time in quarantine to think about how we got here.

@bud Great to hear! Honestly I don't get a ton of feedback on the site even though I can see traffic coming to it. Glad it helped. That is the whole reason for it. I got tired of only seeing "be ready for the Zombie Apocolypse in an underground bunker" type of planning discussed. Thanks. If anyone else is interested, this is the list Bud referenced. I finally broke down a year ago and put it where it can be directly seen. http://leveledsurvival.com/2019/03/10/the-list-i-thought-i-would-never-make/ I will look at those containers. I bought a couple 7 gallon ones a while back, but they don't stack and 7 gallons is a lot of weight. Around 58 lbs. Not something you want to move around a bunch. 5 gallon (40 lbs) might be a bit easier. Still have to figure out where I can get that stacked away from kids and animals, but not subjected to cold and heat.

Worst Apocalpyse... Ever. https://www.shootersnation.com/podcast/0067-the-end-of-the-world-doesnt-have-the-zombies-you-prepped-years-for/ Enjoy!

3.7 million NICS background checks last month. An all time high. https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/nics_firearm_checks_-_month_year.pdf/view

I never said we shouldnt have more equipment and be well prepared but even with enough to cover every single human in North America you will not save them all. People die. And whether it's Trump or someone else that stockpile will be pirated for some BS disaster in another country and not get replenished. Reminds me of the wheel tax in my county we got in 1975 to build a school. Then last year they asked for 60 million to build a new school. When asked where all that money was from the wheel tax 45 years ago they said "well that was a long time ago blah blah blah" and now here we are. Or it goes the other way and we have an excess of katrina fema trailers you can't give away. Point is you can tag whatever headline on it you want to get the money but we will be right back in this spot next pandemic and the money will be gone. Just like what Cuomo supposedly done when given a choice in 2015

Sounds like more overtime for those of us in the road building trade. I ain’t ever gonna get to fish.

Trump made a good point about this being a good time with interest rates being so low. But holy sh*t guys. Can we take a pause for a minute? We've not even seen what the first $2T is gonna do. It's like saying, well we've already screwed up the budget, we might as well go on a shopping spree... Toss in some new bridges here, a few dams there, maybe a new aircraft carrier. And the dems with sprinkle it with student loan forgiveness during checkout.

I wonder what’s going to be tacked onto the new $2T infrastructure bill announced yesterday. No doubt National infrastructure is in serious need of repair but the government is going into a full blown spending frenzy.

Heck, there’s a lot more Democrats these days. At least the way it’s colloquially defined, right? I mean, y’all are all sitting at home. No one’s working. Everyone’s waiting for the government to send them their check.

We generally keep about a months worth of food around. Meals would get boring about half way through, but I don't think we'd starve. I also keep 21 gallons of water stored plus the 50 gallons in my water heater. I have a couple water filtration options. We were fortunate in that we took delivery of our annual beef supply (about 150 lbs) around march 1st. That plus the usual chicken and pork means our freezer is packed. We also usually have a small vegetable garden and try to can what we don't eat. The garden yield hasn't been great the last couple years so we're down to a few jars of relish, pickles, and jam. We'd already decided that if the garden doesn't produce enough this year, we'll hit the farmers market and get a few bushels to can. A friend at work grows and cans lots of green beans. In the past, we've traded maters and relish for beans. We've got camp stoves and plenty of fuel. We've also got a fire pit and firewood, so cooking should be covered. With that, I think we've got the fundamentals covered. It's just extending the length of time we could go at this point.

Well Comrades, I have some good news! Apparently my standing in the Party is acceptable as I have been granted Letters of Transit by the Bureau of Identifying Essential Services. Get out of Jail card? Reading some internet news, if true: Citizens are fined for going out Criminals are being released Rhode Island is going door-to-door and looking for out-of-state plates to round up New Yorkers and those from Jersey LA has been tracking cell phones to enforce shelter-in-place. New York is planning on delaying / rescheduling elections. Right to any kind of assembly is being curtailed. How do I get tested to prove I'm negative and don't pose a health risk to the public good? In case you want to know about Letters of Transit and one way to acquire them Regarding the God ain't happy comment, if we lay it at his feet and want to hold Him accountable, just remember, if He led us to it, He will lead us through it.

I'm sitting here trying to understand how you cut salary temporarily without ending up on the losing side of a Labor Relations Board suit. Companies use salaried positions expecting to be able to flex into overtime hours without having to pay overtime wages. The trade-off is that they also agree to pay the same salaried rate if they retain the worker but give them less hours. The only way around that is to sever the employment agreement and establish a new one or just sever the employer-employee relationship.

I have said this many times. God let His chosen people wander in the desert for 40 years a walk they could have done in a week. Now if He let them suffer in the desert for 40 years, don't you think he will make us suffer for a bit over the millions of abortions??

This is a basic outline of plans that i have seen. lets you pull water from the well sans power. https://preparednessadvice.com/well/make-your-own-deep-well-bucket/

No, but alternate power methods are a part of the equation. Also figuring out a hand crank wouldn’t be a terrible idea

This is something that my wife and I are going to have to really talk about. We’re good for a month, tops. It’s time to re-evaluate our comfort in the idea of things carrying on as normal. edited to add: Just talked to the wife and she is on board with getting us in line to be set for at least a couple of months.

I've always wanted to prep and I have to some extent, with my firearms. But my wife and kids ahve always thought it was crazy. When this thing looked like it was going to be bad, I talked to my wife and then hit Sam's and Krogers and immediately stocked up on enough food to last us a couple of months (an estimate). It wouldn't bee a fun couple of months, but we'd make it assuming the water supply didn't get turned off. There are things we still probably need like more vitimans and medical supplies. I pointed didn't stock up on water, since I felt like that wouldn't be a necessity during this period. My wife and I ahve already decided that when this is over, we are going to set down and do a lessons learned and start preparing for the next situation, whatever it is. My kids on the other hand were completely blind sided by this, is spite of my warning too them. After Food started getting hard to find, my soon and his girlfriend both lost their jobs and we made the decision to take them to the store and buy them a 30 day supply and top off their gas tank. Since then, they have both been called back to work and they are keeping up with their food stock. They fixed us dinner last week to think us for taking care of them. My daughter and her husband, while also being initially caught flatfooted, figured it out pretty quick and get on the prepping bandwagon. and have been able to catch back up, now having enough food for 30 days. One thing I think lots of people tend to overlook is their pets. One of the things we stocked up on was enough dogfood to also last us from a couple months as well.

I don’t think Trump F this up. He has experts he is listening to; he isn’t a Doctor. He tried to keep people calm; I guess some think that was a mistake, and maybe it was. He’s now seen many folks are too stupid to follow recommendations unless someone is power is ranting. Maybe he should have started ranting about how dangerous this was from the beginning. Of course, then our Trump hating friends would be complaining because Martial Law would have already been enacted; and probably will be if this lasts another month. Let’s scare the food industry into shutting down to protect their workers, that’s already happening. How does anyone think that will work out? I’m pretty sure my head isn’t in the sand. I will say this: When 911 happened, I was too old to go back in the military and help out. I’m 65 and retired, I’ve never worked in the food industry, but I’m a Toolmaker and CNC programmer, so I can probably run a machine or do something in a food processing plant. I am more than willing to go do that if they need me; and I'm pretty sure I'm not alone.

This Atlanta boy is going to edit the title of the thread to reflect an R.E.M. appropriate The End Of The World As We Know It.

Competent governance matters, y’all. Despite the fact that the current captain of this ship is historically unprepared and unqualified - the hull of this ship has been rotting away for a while. The Chinese can blame Xi Jinping. We can partially blame the Chinese for underreporting - but it’s not like that we don’t know that’s within their standard operating parameters. The Iranians can blame the mullahs. But we’ve got ourselves to blame. Our partisan - what’s good for my side must necessarily be bad for your side - one-upsmanship has left us unprepared.

I was out walking around the farm a couple days ago. Heard one gobble twice about 2 pm. I stood still and kept my eyes peeled, he finally walked out. Goodlooking bird.

"Glock 45 in 9mm". Seriously? Who was the non-genius in Glock's marketing department who decided on THAT model number for their latest 9mm? Talk about confusing people. "Hey you want to see my new Glock 45?" "Sure! So is it the new model 36 or a 21?" "No, it's a 45." "OK. But which 45 is it?" "It's not a .45, it's a 9mm." "Dude. This is just insane. Don't you know which Glock you got?"

Fauci is a pro - and has been for a long time. I’m starting to view him and Birx through the lens you’d use in a hostage negotiation. They are valuable and need to stay alive - or in this case on the job. There are some rules they have to play by - because staying alive could literally save thousands of lives.

RCBS. Rockchucker. Slow but dependable and.....bulletproof. I have several for each step in the process. They'll outlive me and they make bullets the way you want them.

The version I heard was ran under the guise that we need never to be caught like this again. So we should apparently keep 1 of everything on hand for each member of the population. With each passing day I get the feeling the government thinks it's our new helicopter mom

Can you get to it if the power dies? - OS

Thankfully we live in the sticks and have well water.

While water isn't an issue with this scenario presently, it would be a good idea to think about it for future preparations. I'm not saying you need to go out and buy cases of water now, but a "couple" of good water containers should be considered, especially if your storing a lot of dry goods. A Reliance Aqua-rainer holds 7 gallons and costs less than $20 each. Just cycle the water about every 6 months.

I've got an old RCBS Rockchucker that I bought used over 30 years ago. Its still going strong.

That stinks. Hope they both recover quickly. So far, the positive test rate is about 15%, so clearly there's more than just covid going around.

Hate to be “that guy” if this doesn’t apply to you, I’m sure it will to someone else...are you out of debt? Do you have 3-6 months worth of expensives saved up in an emergency fund? For most of us, these things should take priority over a new firearm purchase. If you are in good shape then awesome! Buy night vision!

I still have my original.

A member started a company years ago and created the Battle Mug along with several other products. The one above is a cheap knock off. https://battlemug.com/