Toilet paper shortages, profiteering from hand sanitizer and empty shelves in grocery stores. Thanks to COVID-19, governments in most industrialized nations are preparing for shortages of life’s necessities. If they fail, riots over food may be inevitable. 

Some wonder if we are responding appropriately to COVID-19, and it’s clear that recent events expose a fundamental flaw in the global systems that bring us our daily bread. We live in a wondrous age when global supply chains seamlessly link farmers and consumers using the principles of “just enough, just in time.” 

For years, companies have worked hard to keep inventories low, timing shipments to balance supply and demand using knife-edge accuracy. In many ways, this system is a miracle. Low-cost food is one outcome. And if there’s a problem in one part of the supply chain, the global system is good at finding alternatives. (Mangoes from Asia gone bad? Try the mangoes from Central America!) 

But with this abundance — and convenience — comes a hidden cost that COVID-19 has exposed: a loss of resilience. Our global food system depends on the tendrils of international trade to wrap the world in an ever more complex system of buyers, sellers, processors and retailers, all of whom are motivated to keep costs low and operations lean.

Across the nation, tempers are flaring over the continued lockdowns in many parts of America, and also on the requirement to wear masks in public. I wrote previously about the possibility of civil unrest over the lockdowns, and unfortunately, it appears that’s where we’re headed. The longer the lockdowns are continued, the more likely it is that we are going to see violence erupt. 

People seem unable or unwilling to respect the opinions of others with regard to COVID19, which has affected every family differently. Some are devastated by the loss of or risk to loved ones, while others are struggling to put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads. Others are rightfully concerned about the losses of liberty that we’re seeing. All of these concerns are valid, and not mutually exclusive.

A lot of people still don’t have the money they were promised. Back when the lockdowns began and President Trump announced a “two-week plan” to flatten the curve, a lot of promises were made by the federal government to help people weather the economic disaster caused by shutting down businesses. 30 million Americans have become unemployed since the middle of March. Unfortunately, many of those promises have not been kept. 

Whether it’s due to antiquated application processes or shady business practices by large banks and publicly held corporations, the money just has not arrived for many people – and those folks are beginning to become desperate. People in many states, including New Jersey, Maine, and Pennsylvania report they haven’t yet gotten a dime from unemployment. In fact, a whopping 71% of jobless Americans haven’t gotten their unemployment payments from March. Lines at food banks are literally miles long in some areas. Rents and mortgages are not being paid. 

Anger is increasing. Soon it’s going to bubble over into rage and when it does, we could see unrest and crime like we haven’t seen in this country in centuries.

With meat shortages roiling the U.S., some Wendy’s Co. restaurants have taken burgers -- their hallmark item -- off the menu. 

Customers have taken to Twitter to complain they couldn’t order burgers from the restaurant, which touts its beef as fresh and never frozen in its marketing. 

A check on Wendy’s app showed that only chicken items were available for takeout or delivery orders from at least some of its stores in California. The situation has prompted a number of customers to ask “Where’s the beef?” on social media, invoking a Wendy’s catch phrase from the 1980s that poked fun of the small burgers sold by other chains. 

North America’s meat-supply chain has fallen apart as outbreaks shutter slaughterhouses, heightening the prospect that pork, beef and chicken may go missing from grocery shelves and restaurant menus. About a dozen slaughterhouses shut last month because of infections among employees jammed together on processing lines.