While everyone is arguing about the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin, some aren't paying attention to a couple of problems that are looming.
First, food supply was at a very high stockpile back before these stay in place orders hit. That stockpile has been reduced significantly.
Read this article: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/31/opinion/coronavirus-food-supply.html
This means a couple things to you.
1. Plant a garden if you want fresh veggies this year. Get your seeds and whatever you need to plant and get it now. When people realize what hundreds of thousands of migrant workers not showing up means, all those supplies will disappear.
2. Get more of the canned types of veggies now. There is no real downside to this as that stuff lasts years and in 2023 if there are no veggies shortages, you can open that last can of beans and finally clear out your stockpile.
As a corollary to point 2, learn how to can. My wife has been doing it for years. My favorite are her bread and butter pickles. We opened a can last week for some frozen burgers. Nothing like it you can buy anywhere. Totally awesome.
3. If you can get a small freezer, lay in some extra meat. Once again, I don't think there will be shortages. There will however probably be outages. This means if you can't get to store around when the truck has shown up and the products are put out, you won't be able to get it. Supply bottlenecks are going to occur. Count on it. They look like the toilet paper situation.
The next big problem will be the recession/depression that's going to come. Once all the fed party money gets spent, real pain is going to happen. When we start seeing the real unemployment numbers hitting 20+%, and the fed realizes that the fire hose of money isn't helping, they will turn off the tap and deflation is certain. Everyone will be competing for the jobs that do exist, meaning wage deflation is certain. This means a couple key things.
1. Don't incur any new debt. You don't want to borrow money that is worth more tomorrow. This is what is great about inflation. Every year, the value of the dollar goes down. I could buy a 1970 $15,000 middle class home out of my 2020 savings. What changed? The value of the dollar went down and $15,000 today is worth probably 10% of what it was worth in 1970.
2. Eat cheaper. Grow a garden. See point above.
3. Pay off the debt you can. I have two mortgages, both are small. I could probably pay one or maybe both of them off this year if we re-structure things. It would help if the market recovers.
4. Having some hard assets is helpful, but not depreciating assets(like cars). Not mountains of it, just some to get through a lean period if you need to sell. Guns, ammo, silver, etc. Use your imagination.
5. Improve your skillsets. I can do framing, plumbing, electric, finish carpentry, cabinets, trap, hunt, fish, cook, rebuild engines, swing an axe, a sledge hammer, I can write code, fix just about any computer, make rj45 cables, configure commercial networking equipment, monitor and configure your AD, your DHCP, DNS, set up surveillance systems, use wireshark and track down misbehaving network devices, on and on. Some stuff I suck at. Fidgety work that requires patience and finesse. Like sewing. Stuff that requires good dexterity is not my strong suit, but I'm learning. Everyone should.