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The coronavirus pandemic is driving an increase in sales of underground bunkers and survival kits.
A US company, managing what is considered the “world’s largest bunker community survival, “reports a 500% increase in the past year, with a 2,000% increase in inquiries.
Alive now has almost a million members worldwide, and at least 1,000 in the UK.
Tom Soulsby lives in one of Vivos’s 575 bunkers in South Dakota. Photo: The Vivos Group
It occurs as the British increasingly turn to vendors of survival supplies catering to “preparers” – a broad term used to describe people preparing for worst-case scenarios.
Crime in the UK and in many parts of the world has decreased during the course of the pandemic – but that has not reassured concerned preparers.
Some of Vivos’ clients have even gone so far as to move into their bunkers.
When Atlanta closed in March, Tom and Mary Soulsby moved to a shelter in South Dakota, which was originally built by the government on a former military base.
Soulsby told Sky News that his “immunosuppressed” wife was “terrified” by the increase in cases and that they wanted to get away from the “millions of people who could infect us in days.”
Tom Soulsby has made a bunker in South Dakota his home
“More than anything, the main protection you need is from people,” said the 70-year-old Windows server engineer, who now works remotely.
It is not alone COVID-19 they wanted protection against the threat of any event that could disrupt America’s food supply chain and cause widespread “social unrest.”
“I don’t think it’s more paranoid than having a fire extinguisher in your house,” he said.
He believes that the probability of a solar flare hitting Earth “during our lifetime” is “very high” and would cause all electronic devices to stop working.
Many Vivos bunkers are sold as empty warehouses. Photo: The Vivos Group
Like many Vivos clients, Soulsby does not trust the government to protect him in the event of a major disaster.
In the UK, the coronavirus and the risk of Brexit-related trade disruption has led people to buy products like freeze-dried food.
Justin Jones, a UK Prepping Shop preparer and sales director, said his sales have risen 487% in the last three months, with many first-time buyers.
A new living bunker complex in Germany will have capacity for 10,000 people. Photo: The Vivos Group
“I don’t think people expected there to be empty stores,” he told Sky News. “He’s always laughed at him when coaches have talked about this in the past. It came true and now we have a nation of coaches.”
Michael Mills, a preparedness expert and professor of criminology at the University of Kent, told Sky News that a “declining faith in institutions” has accompanied the rise of the preparedness movement.
He said: “Ensuring that the individual or a small group can support themselves appears to be a profitable idea and a foundation of security in a world where other sources of security appear to be disappearing or absent.”
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