So what happens if 20 percent of the workforce is off all at the same time?

[SmallGreenStripes]

Just wondering what sort of things might be in the pipeline for January.

We live rurally and get cut off (both the power and geographically) fairly often, so we have food, wood and plenty of batteries (and a generator). How long might a severe wave last? We have food for about 4 weeks, so we won’t have to add to any rush on the shops if supply chain issues pop up.

Presumably supply chains will suffer again. I won’t be letting DH do any chainsawing as I don’t think we’ll want to be visiting hospital.

Schools - I have 3 DC and I hope the schools stay open. If they can’t, we have resources at home to do this if we need to.

What other implications are there? Just musing, no need for anyone to scream ‘scaremongering’ - this is the prepper board, thinking about this stuff is what we do - hide it if you don’t like it!

Just thinking today if there is anything we need to stock up on. We have lots of pasta, rice etc and tinned stuff. Any advice? We have a camping gas stove we can use. We also have stock of loo rolls and medicines

Hi Dodie, we were really pleased that we always kee in a biggish stock of basics so we didn’t need to shop as Covid broke in wave 1. We stayed away from the rest of humanity for a while (and lucky too that we could work from home).
We have some fresh veg and salad growing in the greenhouse and garden, that was really useful last time.
Our main issue is always milk! We have some UHT and powdered in stock, but the kids don’t like it! So they end up eating a lot of toast and eggs for breakfast! We have chickens so had lots of fresh eggs last time.

I generally keep the petrol tank over half full and try to keep a couple of extra weeks of my prescription drugs in stock.

If you have DC and can afford it, a chrome book for school work was invaluable

To be totally honest, I'm neither a scaremongerer or a Covid denier. I'm somewhere in between like most preppers. But I think (with my logical and pre Covid Government contingency planner head on) I think we should stock up on anything we normally use. Get it now. Who knows what January will bring. I'm not talking bulk buying the whole shelf of bog roll in Sainsburys, but get a pack of 24 from Aldi, then get another pack next week if you can. Omicron seems to be so infectious. It is going to impact on our Healthcare workers, our Lorry drivers, our Supermarket workers.

I'm disabled. I have a limited diet. Yes, I've put 4 packets of pasta on my supermarket delivery for next week. I can live without Turkey, but I'm really worried.

I'm disabled and we live in a city so I'm pretty worried, especially about power cuts. As well as the usual food and loo roll, I've picked up extra hot water bottles, candles, matches, butane lighters and gas, and barbeque charcoal.

I wish we could keep poultry. Stock up on chicken feed, as much as you can store rodent free. You might think about adding a few more to your flock. If you buy from an animal feed merchant and can store them, look at getting a ton of feed carrots and potatoes so you can bulk out their feed with cooked mash. (Most of them are usually fit for human consumption.)

Thank you @Thelnebriati . Sounds like you have made sensible preparations and yes, both advantages and disadvantages to being in a city.

We have recently added 4 to our flock - not a great time of year for laying, but getting a few eggs a day. Good shout about pet food - will get onto it …

i keep hearing stories that England will have some form of lockdown or tougher restrictions after Christmas.

Personally i think between Christmas and New Year. Im basing this on the fact that both Wales and Ireland are implementing restrictions about this time and France has decided restricting travel from the UK during the ski holiday season (thats a lot of money).

On the upside we, as a family, learnt a lot of lessons during the last lockdown and are much better prepared if there is one this time.

I have more of less run my prep down to just pasta, tomato sauces for pasta and rice. Not great timing in hindsight.

I am starting to find that there are things I cant find right now and some imported things ( eg Jellycat soft toys) that are down to 10% of normal stock levels in my local shops.

It's not a great time to let anything get last minute. Including kids clothes. Not sure what's Brexit fall out or covid supply chain.

I've got enough food for a month, and about two weeks' worth of bottled water. Vehicles booked in for maintenance tomorrow and Tuesday, filling tanks and jerry cans. Two delivery slots booked. Of course, these might be cancelled or minimised beyond my control. Kids' clothes are basic but serviceable.

I feel less worried about shortages atm, more about cancelled appts. As soon as I had my booster, I booked up several much-delayed checkups, etc, and now dreading cancellations and postponements which would then clash with school return in January.

Much more au fait with online resources now, and can turn to these quickly. Still have lots of school supplies as well.

dentist, opticians etc if you need them

How much water are people keeping? We have a decent amount of food in, but almost no bottled water. If we can boil water (electric kettle and hob) we should be okay, but not if the power goes out. Are there those tablets at supermarkets to make water potable? That might be a better option, as we don't have a lot of extra space.

Drinking water I have 10 gallons stored and an option for 10 more (just need to fill the jerry cans) if I think I'm going to need it. On top of that, I have a water butt in the garden that I could use for flushing the toilet.

To be honest, I have never seen the water purification tablets for sale in a Supermarket, however, you can get them from most camping / outdoor shops.

A lot will depend on why you are purifying the water in the first place. You may need to use a combination of filtration and chemical purification, depending on where you got your water from.

Be warned that if you use the purification tablets, they make the water taste like the local swimming pool (I always carry a small bottle of orange squash in my kit)

Thanks a lot for the helpful answer, @K9medic. I think we'd better get some more bottled water, in that case! And try to get water purification + squash if we can.

I'm keeping the cat food well topped up. Twice during covid there were supply issues and I had 3/4 weeks at a time when our local supermarket didn't have the two boxes my lordships will eat and I had to trawl the internet/travel further afield. Have learnt my lesson and minimum stash is now three weeks supply, but I've been trying to get the odd extra box over the last month (I tend to shop on foot so can't panic buy the whole shelf!!)

I can't help thinking I'm missing something. Planning for up to 25% absences across all sectors. What else could that mean? Bins might not get emptied on time, water we have covered. Pet foods and groceries in general. Prepped in case of home schooling..

I really feel like I am missing some obvious gaps somewhere.

If it helps try breaking jobs/ services into Essential, Key and None essential workers.

For example, I work for a private ambulance company. So you would think Paramedics and ambulance crews would be essential workers? There not, there is a certain level of contingency built into our staff rota (days off, annual leave & bank staff), during the first lockdown we discovered we are only key workers. The real essential workers are the mechanics who keep our ambulances on the road, trust me there is not a lot of "Spare" vehicles out there.

Draw a straight line from any service or item to you, now how many places could that line be broken?

On the Brightside, give yourselves some credit, you're doing really well at disaster management planning, there are a lot of companies I have seen who are not as far forward and they have a much bigger budget to play with.

Don't forget as prices rise and wages don't keep up we could be back to strikes...so which industries are likely to strike and what are you going to do about prepping for those?

Transport? (Bus trains)
Fuel tanker drivers?
Bins?
Supermarket depot/warehouse?

Even a rumour of a strike could make things go pear shaped...as evidenced by the fuel shortages last year