My wife pushed me over the lip of the 'prepper' rabbithole a couple of days ago.
We live in New York City, and her mother lives in Flushing, Queens in the midst of a dense Asian community. In addition, someone close to my wife was on the Diamond Princess and is presently in a hospital in Japan on a ventilator, with massive kidney failure due to 2019-nCov. They aren't expected to survive. Her question, which tipped me over, was 'should we get masks for my Mom?'
Now, I've been down the prepper hole before. I'm somewhat insulated from the full on version, because I live in New York City; much of the real 'self sufficiency' stuff is not only pointless but actively impossible here. Still, I remember a couple of decades ago getting to California for a job and being handed an earthquake preparedness kit to keep under my desk. That little red fanny pack was a whole mindblowing new concept to me, and I wish I knew where mine went. So when I used to live on my tod in Inwood, I did have a couple of weeks of water supply bottled in a cupboard. I had a couple of weeks of emergency rations (emergency food bars, long-life) in the house along with, generally, a couple of weeks of regular supplies that I rotated through normally. I spent a week or two building a small urban emergency kit I could grab if I needed to, which I still have, containing more 'urban' emergency gear - namely, toiletries, money, underwear, first aid stuff, and spare eyeglasses and prescriptions.
I firmly belong to the 'there is no point in spending my time preparing for Apocalypse, because it prevents me from living' school of thought.
Unfortunately, I also belong to the 'Ooo, shiny' and 'I LIKE SHOPPING!' and 'gear nerd' schools. Prepping can be, and is, often just an admission to the advanced version of those schools. The way I keep myself from falling into that pit is by adamant self-reinforcement of the 'THIS IS NOT A HEALTHY OR PRODUCTIVE ACTIVITY' line of thought. So when my wife asked me this, and then added (hesitantly) 'Do you think we should have respirators?' my first reaction was to start firmly noting 'THIS IS NOT HELPFUL, WE DON'T EVEN KNOW IF THOSE ARE EFFECTIVE, IT WILL CAUSE MORE PANIC BEHAVIOR...'
...and then I stopped.
I thought about it, and had a sluggish realization that my job, right then, was not to do The Right Thing(™) objectively for the world or for the event that the worst actually happened. My job, in fact, was to make sure my wife was comfortable, not stressed out in the now, and able to sleep at night.
I said "Hon, would it make you feel better if we had those in the house?"
Knowing me well, she hedged, but it was clear that it would. So I got off the phone, ordered some from Amazon, and while I was at it ordered enough supplies to rebuild the 'two week supply' I had let drift away when she and I moved into our modest one bedroom apartment into a more diverse, two person four-week supply. It helps that we have been on a diet! I even bought a case of MREs, in case we find that we need to evacuate somewhere and need stable food for the trip.
When she got home, I laid out what I'd bought. I was quick to point out that the primary likelihood we'd need this for would be 'precautionary self-quarantine' in the apartment, but that maybe we should keep the car as relatively full as we could, just in case. Again, not expecting to need it.
She relaxed a bit. Visibly. Despite somewhat worryingly asking me why I'd gone so far.
It's difficult at my age to mature as I need to, having left it this late, but it's my job (since I got married) to keep trying to do so. For both our sakes.