Politicizing Coronavirus Is A Horrible Idea
Spice and I have been noticing how many preppers are politicizing Coronavirus news, and we both think it’s a really horrible idea.
We don’t do politics here at 3BY (with the exception of supporting Second Amendment rights and poking a bit of fun at the gun grabbers from across the political spectrum). We believe in inclusiveness when it comes to prepping.
The Funny (Funny As In Odd, Not Funny As In Ha-HA) Thing Is
So much time and effort is wasted by so many preppers watching the news on a daily basis (IMHO), worrying about stuff that we have absolutely no control over.
When something serious comes along… like a pandemic… we have people who are ignoring or denying it’s even happening simply because it doesn’t fit into their political world view.
It sounds crazy, but I think it’s just a form of Normalcy Bias.
Normalcy Bias
What is Normalcy Bias? Wikipedia has a good definition: “Normality bias, is a tendency for people to believe that things will always function the way they normally have functioned and therefore to underestimate both the likelihood of a disaster and its possible effects. This may result in situations where people fail to adequately prepare themselves for disasters, and on a larger scale, the failure of governments to include the populace in its disaster preparations. About 70% of people reportedly display normalcy bias during a disaster.”
(Spice’s note: I suspect this tendency is part of a coping mechanism. “I don’t know how to think about or deal with potential pandemics with so many unknowns, but if I consider it a political thing I know how to handle it!” The brain’s good at twisting situations to make everything make sense.)
It’s my belief that people are so used to politicizing EVERYTHING that they can’t stop for any reason.
That’s a bad thing when dealing with what may turn out to be the biggest pandemic any of us will ever see in our lifetime.
You Don’t Have to Believe In It To Prep For It
Like most types of disasters that we prep for (not counting stuff like prepping for common minor regional disasters like ice storms in the midwest, hurricanes in Florida, etc) we will probably not have to live through the situation we have prepped.
Having said that, many of our preps are “multi-use”. Six months of food is a great thing to have whether you are bugging in due to civic unrest, grid down, or pandemic isolation.
I’ve told this story before but I’ll repeat it. We have all of the preps we need for a pandemic and for germ isolation not because we were afraid of a 1918 style flu, but rather because of the latest big Ebola outbreak… one that I knew would not affect us.
Say what?
During the recent big Ebola outbreak (a disease that we really don’t need to spend much time worrying about here in the USA) I noticed that all of the isolation stuff (isolation suits, aprons, N95 masks, etc.) sold out almost immediately.
That got me to thinking… what if this had been a pandemic, a deadly bug that we really DO need to protect ourselves against?
I have plenty of guns, lots of ammunition, garden seeds, stored food, etc… but my medical isolation supplied? None. Nada. Zip.
Needless to say, when they came back into stock I went to town and bought a BUNCH of all of the things we would need should a pandemic occur.
“But What If It Does”
The real question… and the real danger of writing off information about Coronavirus or any other situation, is the phrase “but what if it did.”
Despite it not agreeing with your beliefs and your politics, what if it does hit us? Are we better prepared because we ignored it since it was “just a scare tactic by so-and-so”?
Frankly, the ship has already sailed as far as getting medical supplies, you pretty much are where you are going to be when the virus is well and truly out here.
What we all can do is be absolutely diligent on keeping our hands washed, not touching our faces, the whole 9 yards.
(Spice’s note: And taking general good care of ourselves. Exercise. Sleep enough. Eat decently. This is one disease where if you do get it, it’s a lot more likely to do you no serious harm if your immune system’s humming along nicely. And that we can control, to some extent.)
I think you’ve done a good job of minimizing the politics on this site and keeping it open to anyone who may be interested. Unfortunately, that is the type of thing that must be constantly worked on, which is tough when the world outside the site is going in the opposite direction.