Our COVID Strategy

Now that I’m “sheltering in place” and our vacation to the beach has been cancelled (the BJJ Cavewife and I were really looking forward to introducing our little one to the ocean for the first time), I have time do a little writing.

The first thing I wanted to share was the way our household has been preparing for the COVID pandemic these past few weeks. We shared the contents of this post with our friends and family and hope you’ll find something in here helpful as well.

We haven’t been perfect at adhering to the everything but have tried our best given the current circumstances.

Going Out in Public

Eye protection – Ideally I would wear wrap around glasses or even goggles, however since I normally wear glasses my thought is that it’s good enough for now. My only public outings are to the grocery store every 2 weeks and daily walks to the park where its easy to maintain a 6 ft distance from the nearest person since we live in a small town.

Masks – N95 masks are the best thing to wear if available however since these are hard to come by anything is better than nothing, even something made from cotton which some studies have shown to be 30% as effective.

If you’re interest in making your own mask there are resources available online detailing how to do so.

Luckily we picked up a few of these Vogmask reusable N95 masks during the wildfires last year and have been using them regularly. I actually wear mine even when we go to the park simply because it’s allergy season and I’ve found it helpful in the past to reduce my allergen exposure.

I just ordered a few of these masks from Origin Main to wear on top of my Vogmask for added protection, but I haven’t received them yet. It’s also a way for me to support Jocko Willink and his goal of bringing manufacturing back to America.

Food Security

While I have confidence that America has plenty of food, my concern is with the food supply chain which is based on the hyper-efficient ‘just in time’ model. It’s obvious that the supply chains are stretched just by seeing the empty shelves in the grocery store.

These are just some of the potential areas in the supply chain that have me concerned:

• Initial surge of hoarding and panic buying
• Potential bottlenecks – What will happen if these individuals fall ill?
  • Manual labor to harvest crops
    • Many are immigrants and recent decision of US to suspend immigrant visas
  • Truck drivers – Some are finding rest areas closed due not being ‘essential businesses.’
  • Closed Ports
    • Limited imported foods.
  • Restricted Air Travel which further limits food imports
  • Grocery Store Workers
    • Constant exposure to public
    • Working nonstop already to stock food
  • Countries starting to hoard food
  • Gig workers

Here are some of the articles I read that got me thinking about this stuff:

Slate – No, We’re Not Going to Run Out of Groceries

Reuters – Western supply chains buckle as coronavirus lockdowns spread

VICE – Instacart’s Gig Workers Are Planning a Massive, Nationwide Strike

I’d rather be overly paranoid and end up with a bunch of extra non-perishable food that will take us a while to work through rather than unprepared and have us wishing we stocked up better.

If it turns out I’m completely wrong, at worst I’ll be stuck bringing the extra food to lunch every day for the next few months.

This is what we’re currently striving for:

Reduce the amount of ordering out to minimize additional outside contact

However when we do end up ordering out:

• Have delivery person leave food outside
• Spray down the food containers with isopropyl alcohol or hydrogen peroxide

Keep 3 month food supply in fridge, freezer, and pantry

We just ordered this 5 cubic ft chest freezer from Sears simply based on it being available to ship at the time. When we do make it to the grocery stores we only buy a few extra items to slowly build up our supply since we don’t want to contribute to the sense of panic shopping out there.

Keep 3 month food supply in form of freeze dried doomsday prep food

Ordered this 3 month package from Prepare Direct. It’s got a combination of freeze dried entrees like Spahgetti w/ Meat Sauce, Beef Stroganoff, and Lasagna as well as cereals, cans of fruits and veggies, and powdered milk and eggs.

I also this Easy Prep Ultimate Entree Bucket which has 128 servings of entrees like Teriyaki chicken, broccoli cheese soup, and chili. Unfortunately due to increased demand there’s a 3 month delay in shipping, so who knows when I’ll actually receive this.

Bought a couple cans of protein powder too, for an easily stored, nonperishable form of protein.

Water Security

We picked up a few extra cases of bottled water from Costco to keep as storage.

Our current everyday water filter is the AquaTru countertop filter. It consists of 4 filters including a sediment pre-filter, activated carbon pre-filter, reverse osmosis filter, and a volatile organic compound carbon filter. The water out of this tastes much better than the Brita and Pur filters we’ve tried in the past.

We store the water in these milk bottles which make it convenient to bring to the dining table or our night stand.

The drawback to the AquaTru is that it needs to be plugged in and in the event of a prolonged power outage we’d be stuck so we recently ordered this Big Berkey countertop filter (Amazon Link). Unfortunately it seems to be sold out everywhere so we ordered it from Prepare Direct along with our doomsday food. Hopefully they’ll both show up without any issues.

Packages

• Move packages into a dirty area in the garage
• Spray packages down with either alcohol or hydrogen peroxide
• Kick them over and spray other sides
• Wait 30 min
• Open the package
• Spray contents of package if we’re feeling especially paranoid

We’ve been doing this for the past few days and are starting to find it cumbersome. I think we’ll try doing things without spraying down the outside of the packages and instead just making sure to wash our hands thoroughly after opening them.

COVID Supplements

• Elderberry 700-1000 mg per day
• Zinc 7-15 mg four times per day
  • Best on empty stomach
• Zinc Lozenge once per day
  • If you get sick, covid or not covid, take every 2 hrs
• Copper 4-8 mg per day
• Stabilized Allicin 180 mg per day
• Vitamin C 150 mg per day
• Echinacea 500-900 mg per day

Most of this is based on this Food and Supplement Guide for Coronavirus by Christ Masterjohn.

Unfortunately no studies have been performed regarding these supplements and the SARS-CoV-2 virus so all of these recommendations are speculative.

The SARS-CoV-2 has a fatty coating that protects them, enters our cells via the ACE 2 receptors, and hide their double-stranded RNA in double-membrane vesicles which further conceals them from our immune system, and possess an enzyme that prevents our cells from attacking them with important cytokines.

The supplements above are based on the idea that some of them have been shown to be effective against other similar coronaviruses or at least have a theoretical benefit based on mechanisms of action that can interfere with the various protective layers of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

It goes without saying that these may work or may be complete BS. They’re all benign enough that I’m ok with having the BJJ Cavewife and I start taking these at least for the next few months.

If you want to read more on the specifics of these as well as a list of resources citing the supporting evidence, please check out Chris Masterjohn’s Guide. I thought it was well worth the $9.99.

Here are links to the specific supplements we ordered.  Amazon was completely sold out so we used other sites.

• Nature’s Answer Black ElderBerry Syrup
• Nature’s way Elderberry Lozenges
• NOW Elderberry Capsules
• Jarrow Zinc Balance 
• AlliMax Allicin Capsules
• Life Extension Zinc Lozenges
• OysterMax

Here’s an NY Times article discussing whether or not supplements are even helpful.  Basically they say the evidence isn’t strong which I completely agree with.

Medications if we contract COVID

• Azithromycin – 500 mg once, followed by 250 mg daily for four days
• Hydroxychloroquine – 400 mg two times on day #1.
  • Maintenance dose of 200 mg every 12 hours for 5-10 days with food
• BE CAREFUL IF ANY HEART, KIDNEY, OR LIVER DISEASE.
  • Both of these can cause cardiac arrhythmias
  • Hydroxychloroquine can lower seizure threshold so cannot use if there is history of epilepsy.

The data on the utilization is sparse with only a few studies based on a few amount of patients.  One study based in France showed a positive benefit.

Another study from China showed no benefit compared to placebo. 

With the available data many hospitals are already using these protocols for their current treatment regimens, so I’m comfortable with our household using them as well. At least until the data changes.