WELL, IF YOU’D LISTENED TO THE NEWS MEDIA IN FEBRUARY YOU’D HAVE BEEN TOLD THAT WORRYING ABOUT THE CORONAVIRUS WAS PARANOID, UNSCIENTIFIC NONSENSE: Preppers Are Quite Prepared to Enjoy Some Vindication. “Now, with Covid-19, they feel vindicated. Because they are. The coders and founders long snickered at for stockpiling flour and toilet paper were absolutely right. . . . Observing all of this is one thing. Acting on it is another. The moment when you first started prepping for coronavirus has become perhaps the hottest new credential in Silicon Valley. Noticing it early signaled that you were someone who kept a close eye on China, ignored official channels of information, brushed off snark and knew how to parse data.”

Plus: “I have noticed an instinct among those who first mocked Silicon Valley preppers as alarmist is now to call them smug. Certainly, some of them are. But the fact remains that they saw this — or something like it — coming a long ways off.”

And:

There is irony to this, of course. Prepping is required in part because technology helped make America’s economic infrastructure so efficient. Grocery stores adopted just-in-time delivery systems perfected by Silicon Valley. Hospitals would keep only a few days of extra gear.

“Prepping is really a decision to take the slack that we’ve ‘optimized’ out of the system and put it on your own balance sheet,” Mr. Stokes said.

Maybe optimize less in the future.