Current Food Shortage and Economic Decline Caused by Pandemic

[Kez1817]

As a matter of fact,we are currently experiencing the result of the Covid-19 pandemic through out the world.
There are so many people who are suffering and because most of the people are now unemployed because of many companies either closed or lessen their workers, the lives of the people getting worst.
      Lack of foods and other personal necessities.
      Lack of finances.
      Lack of transportation because of quarantine.
Those are the major problems we are now still facing while the pandemic continue spreading because there is no cure for this virus until now.

What will be the solution for this?
How we can help our government on this current circumstances?
Does bitcoin or any digital currency could help?

[serjent05]

Does bitcoin or any digital currency could help?

No, it cannot help by itself alone.  The only ones who can help, are people who are kind enough to share their excess or savings to those who are in need.  Cryptocurrency can be used  as a tool such as a means of donation (where fiat currency can also be used), then right after, these donated cryptocurrencies will then be converted to cash to buy foods for the needy.  At the end of the day, these cryptocurrencies or digital currency have no mind on its own so don't expect any help from it.  

How we can help our government on this current circumstances?

The best thing to help the government is to follow their social distancing guidelines and other instruction regarding the prevention of the pandemic.  If we have extra we can donate either in form of currency or basic needs items.  

[fiulpro]

As a matter of fact,we are currently experiencing the result of the Covid-19 pandemic through out the world.
There are so many people who are suffering and because most of the people are now unemployed because of many companies either closed or lessen their workers, the lives of the people getting worst.
      Lack of foods and other personal necessities.
      Lack of finances.
      Lack of transportation because of quarantine.
Those are the major problems we are now still facing while the pandemic continue spreading because there is no cure for this virus until now.

What will be the solution for this?
How we can help our government on this current circumstances?
Does bitcoin or any digital currency could help?

What I do think can be done is :
•Support the Local markets , your local sellers who grow e everything in their own Garden , the prices might be a little high but , you are getting safe and Quality Products.
•Look for Online Jobs , because no one can actually live without one for a long time.
•Bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies are providing some opportunities for the same , people are buying/selling services online on platform like these.
•We need to understand that , we need to help ourselves first , therefore we need to save up and stop investing in unnecessary products or services. We need to manage our accounts very well because this is going to be something which will go on for years .

The current economic decline we see is not the worst to come , we will soon enough see banks failing and people not being able to pay their mortgages.

Without any job creation by the government one cannot even apply for one therefore it needs to start by *creating jobs * the government needs to set up manufacturing plants so that they can
1. Employ people
2. Produce their own resources without any need to import

Export/import can serve as a major downfall for the business since it is very easy to spread the virus this way plus due to shortage of resources the prices of imported products are either too high or either the product is unavailable.

[CHENIEN]

Initially,you must be obey some rules and regulation whereby you belong as good example to others .For safety never isolate your body protector as vision against pandemic and it is for the sake to your family and neighborhood ,despite all the World Health are still seamlessly have a follow up operation regarding this.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

This question being asked reminds me of all those threads I've seen asking if bitcoin can eradicate poverty, homelessness, or whatever social ill you can think of--and IMO the answer is no, and bitcoin isn't going to help the global economy recover from the COVID-19 outbreak. 

Why would it?  Bitcoin is either a form of money or an investment, depending on how you look at it, and neither one of those types of things is necessarily going to help anyone if they can't access enough of it.  Sure, if you gave every person a stimulus airdrop of 0.5BTC or something like that, it might be a temporary band-aid....but even that isn't going to happen.

Anyway, I hadn't heard of any food shortages anywhere on my continent (N. America).  Not only haven't shipments been slowed down, but restaurants are starting to reopen.  Hopefully in places where that sort of thing is a problem it'll be temporary.

[Sanugarid]

This question being asked reminds me of all those threads I've seen asking if bitcoin can eradicate poverty, homelessness, or whatever social ill you can think of--and IMO the answer is no, and bitcoin isn't going to help the global economy recover from the COVID-19 outbreak. 

What bitcoin could do is more on the aftermath, as we already have bitcoin in part of our market. I can't think of any way that bitcoin could help the world to ease poverty, homelessness etc.
ok just imagine that the world has so much more monetary value than the cryptocurrency yet we are hoping for this little fraction to make it disappear. It's futile to think that way.

Anyway, I hadn't heard of any food shortages anywhere on my continent (N. America).  Not only haven't shipments been slowed down, but restaurants are starting to reopen.  Hopefully in places where that sort of thing is a problem it'll be temporary.

Are we really having food shortages? or we are just having a huge number of people hoarding their goods? coz there is no way that we are going to experience shortages in our essentials, they were never closed.

[dothebeats]

Bitcoin is never the solution to socioeconomic problems that the world is facing currently. Not now, not ever. It will be a tool to help lessen the burden for some people, but it's not a one-size-fits-all thingy which everyone can benefit from.

Food shortage is slowly being addressed by most countries by restarting the supply chain and allowing more essential businesses on logistics and food manufacturing to reopen. Also, people are now trying to grow food within their gardens and whatever land space they have to at least add something in the plate. In these hard times, everyone is affected with little to no exemption--well except the ultra-elite, perhaps--but people still make-do in order to survive. As lockdowns are getting lifted and economies are slowly being reopened, these issues would be resolved, although at the price of more infections and possibly deaths, I'm afraid.

AstraZeneca plans to ship their vaccine by September so there's a little glimmer of hope in that area, although the possibility of the vaccine not working as expected is still high, so the best bet that we have until this whole thing is over is by the end of the year or the first quarter of 2021.

[Upgrade00]

What will be the solution for this?

A vaccine would be nice, but while waiting for that, the global population should adhere to health regulations inorder to reduce the effect of a second wave of the virus; social distancing, washing your hands, not touching your face. The government also has a role to play by providing PPE for the general population. Price of face masks spiked in prices in some regions due to demand and not everyone can get them or afford to dispose them after use.

• Sensitization exercises should be intensified to ensure everyone is keeping to health guidelines. This is a global effort and needs the contribution of everyone
• Inventing cheap hacks which would be effective in preventing the spread, such as the use of cloth face masks which are a lot cheaper than the N-95's and can be effective when combined with other preventive measures.

How we can help our government on this current circumstances?

As mentioned above keeping to health guidelines is our best action.

Does bitcoin or any digital currency could help?

Bitcoin does not impact the economy, it is rather affected by it. Government fiscal policies and market sentiments are the main factors that influences that.

[sunsilk]

Don't also forget those brave medical front-liners that are helping to cure those infected and recovering patients. They're also risking their lives and the main problem that they're dealing with is the lack of medical supplies and protective gear.

Also, many of them are also losing this battle and instead of them increasing in numbers, they are decreasing. And that's a bigger problem if we start to have a shortage of them.

As for the food and finances, if there's already nothing left for most citizens. What the governments are doing is to borrow money from the World Bank to sustain this problem temporarily.

[Ucy]

I think the current systems are not that very efficient and sustainable, but that is what most people keep running to even with the evidence that they are not so reliable.. There has to be systemic/structural changes. People should be able to fend for themselves with farming and creating of other basic things. But you can't easily do this in the current city structures. I honestly wouldn't build cities/towns without taking individual farming in account.

[Lorence.xD]

I think the current systems are not that very efficient and sustainable, but that is what most people keep running to even with the evidence that they are not so reliable.. There has to be systemic/structural changes. People should be able to fend for themselves with farming and creating of other basic things. But you can't easily do this in the current city structures. I honestly wouldn't build cities/towns without taking individual farming in account.

The reason that the system is not efficient and sustainable is because we the masses grew dependent on the state and we all address our problem by bickering that the state is the problem, we depend so much on the state that we will go down with them when the time comes, I do believe we can still resolve this dependency, with the rise of brilliant minds, I hope that we will have a better future. Urban farming is a thing now and I agree that we should have a sustainable food sources near our cities though this will be hard because of geological factors, environmental and personal.

[Kez1817]

Don't also forget those brave medical front-liners that are helping to cure those infected and recovering patients. They're also risking their lives and the main problem that they're dealing with is the lack of medical supplies and protective gear.

Also, many of them are also losing this battle and instead of them increasing in numbers, they are decreasing. And that's a bigger problem if we start to have a shortage of them.

As for the food and finances, if there's already nothing left for most citizens. What the governments are doing is to borrow money from the World Bank to sustain this problem temporarily.

Thank you for adding those i forgot to include:
      Lack of medical supplies and protective gear
      Shortage of Medical staff
It's really heartbreaking  to think that we are facing now this pandemic which everyone is affected too much specially those poorest of the poor.

[plvbob0070]

In my country, we don't experience food shortage because essential businesses are still operating, but the problem is the financial capability to buy essential goods. What our local government did was to provide food for families like rice and canned goods. However, it's still not enough so other sectors gave financial aid to poor people and even if they keep saying it's not enough, I think there's also a limitation because everyone can't just keep on asking for help to the government, they are also responsible to feed themselves.

Finding a solution for this pandemic is difficult, that's why if you are fortunate enough, you can help by donating to people who need help. But if you can't, you can start by helping yourself and find something to do so you can earn even though there is a pandemic. Also, bitcoin can't be that big help for everyone, some can use it for digital payment without the use of paper money than can also bring bacteria but bitcoin and digital currency are not accessible for everyone. It may be helpful for others, but not one of the primary factors that can help everyone in this pandemic.

[sunsilk]

Don't also forget those brave medical front-liners that are helping to cure those infected and recovering patients. They're also risking their lives and the main problem that they're dealing with is the lack of medical supplies and protective gear.

Also, many of them are also losing this battle and instead of them increasing in numbers, they are decreasing. And that's a bigger problem if we start to have a shortage of them.

As for the food and finances, if there's already nothing left for most citizens. What the governments are doing is to borrow money from the World Bank to sustain this problem temporarily.

Thank you for adding those i forgot to include:
      Lack of medical supplies and protective gear
      Shortage of Medical staff
It's really heartbreaking  to think that we are facing now this pandemic which everyone is affected too much specially those poorest of the poor.

It's heart melting that the poorest of the poor are the ones that's being badly affected by this pandemic not just with food supplies and stuffs but, I've read incidents those that has been infected by the virus. It's a delicate thing to discuss but not every country has a good health care. It cost a lot to recover for the hospitalization of this covid19.

I'd also like to share the good vibes and salute that there are also individuals and groups that are sharing help as volunteers. In these hard times, unity and concern to others are not being forgotten.

[so98nn]

The shortages which we are discussing are not really the problem, because there isn’t any. When corona outbreak started at that time all the essential services were up and running. The industries were never shut down, all they had is cut down the employees to 50% but at the same time production was running.

The stuff only got stuck into the transports, roads were closed and boundaries were made city to city and state to state etc.

This surely slowed down the process for while but it did not stop the Quantitative production.


Yes things got messy due to this but if you carefully look out the curves of corona in some countries then it’s becoming normal, flatter.

Yes we are in economic crisis but surely no shortages are there. Economic crisis is because of industries such as automobile, average cash flow in banks, IT industries etc.

[Kakmakr]

We can help by pushing Bitcoin payments for online purchases, because Bitcoin is a contact-less payment option, it reduces the chance of people getting infected and if we can reduce physical contact with cash and coins (fiat currencies) then we will win the virus pandemic.

Bitcoin can also remove the middle man (Banks) between the consumer and food providers, which will increase the profit for them, because they will be paying less fees.    The more money that are put back into the manufacturers and farmers pockets, will create more job opportunities for the people who lost their jobs or it will protect jobs that are currently employing people. 

[figmentofmyass]

Anyway, I hadn't heard of any food shortages anywhere on my continent (N. America).  Not only haven't shipments been slowed down, but restaurants are starting to reopen.  Hopefully in places where that sort of thing is a problem it'll be temporary.

there is likely a food surplus, in fact. part of the trouble is that supply chains are broken. demand from restaurants has plunged, leading to farmers destroying entire crops and batches of milk. at the same time, since demand has shifted to retail (people cooking at home) with supply lagging behind, you can't always find what you want at the market. while this has improved some, i am still noticing periodic shortages (paper products, eggs, beef, tofu, high quality grains, etc) where i live.

another problem with this dynamic is that donations to food banks often come from inventory surpluses at major grocers. those surpluses are all being bought up by retail consumers now. as a result, there is an emerging food shortage among food banks at the same time that demand for food assistance is doubling or tripling because of high unemployment. https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2020/06/16/coronavirus-food-banks-hunger-serfaty-lead-dnt-vpx.cnn

one survey just showed that 1/4 of california's population is now experiencing food insecurity. that's quite drastic when compared to levels seen in 2008. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/06/pandemic-food-banks-hunger/613036/

i'm sure the situation is worse globally but a lot of americans will go hungry this year. if the feds stop extending unemployment benefits and if food banks can't sustain themselves, things could get ugly rather quickly.

[darewaller]

Your last question is kind of funny lol. But anyway, cryptocurrency can only help in the area where it's already helping, and that is transaction.

Most people have chosen to be buying what they need online and have it delivered to their doorsteps, though the lockdown has been eased in most places. And to be sincere the lockdown was useless to me, because there was no point in doing it since the virus didn't stop there but kept on spreading, and we were also hurting our economy, so what's the point of it? What pisses me off the most is that a lot of companies now want to sack their staff.

[Kez1817]

Your last question is kind of funny lol. But anyway, cryptocurrency can only help in the area where it's already helping, and that is transaction.

Most people have chosen to be buying what they need online and have it delivered to their doorsteps, though the lockdown has been eased in most places. And to be sincere the lockdown was useless to me, because there was no point in doing it since the virus didn't stop there but kept on spreading, and we were also hurting our economy, so what's the point of it? What pisses me off the most is that a lot of companies now want to sack their staff.

I think bitcoin could help in any way like if there are people who owned a large amount of bitcoin and with a kind heart to donate to the government just to help government different sectors to stand on end. It will help for the financial funds of the government and if it does happen ,this could be a way for the government to accept bitcoin and they will realize that bitcoin is essential to our economy like our fiat currency.It will not guaranty,Just my own opinion.

Anyway,lockdowns could help to prevent the spreading of virus if people will collaborate with the government procedures. Not all people now has a capability to buy what they need because of lack of financial.Most of them relying on other people's donations because the relief goods from the government is not enough.

[Wexnident]

Better stop asking help to objects mate. Crypto can't help this in anyway. Only human beings that would donate could help, or the government doing some big movement out there that could possibly benefit both sides though in this case, since they haven't been doing much, you can already assume that they themselves are having a pretty hard time. Time is the only solution to this problem and anything we do can't change that. We can help each other but that's pretty much similar to a band-aid solution for now.

I think bitcoin could help in any way like if there are people who owned a large amount of bitcoin and with a kind heart to donate to the government just to help government different sectors to stand on end. It will help for the financial funds of the government and if it does happen ,this could be a way for the government to accept bitcoin and they will realize that bitcoin is essential to our economy like our fiat currency.It will not guaranty,Just my own opinion.

That doesn't make "Bitcoin" a helper. It's the owner of the "Bitcoin" that helped. Stop undermining the efforts of others as an effect of using Crypto to help others, it's like your saying that those that donated money(fiat) to donations are actually the "Government" helping and not those individuals themselves.