Doctors don’t need any shouting from the windows. We need what’s behind your windows, in your living room, hoarded for an apocalypse that will occur only if we do not have the resources needed to fight this pandemic. If you are isolating yourself, then you do not need an arsenal of defenses. Basic social distancing and hand hygiene are sufficient. Those who don’t have the luxury of isolating, the people you will rely on if you get sick, require that arsenal. Not all of it. But for our good, though really for yours, please contribute your hoarded supplies.

You can’t possibly go through that big bottle of hand sanitizer, but keep it anyway. That second and third bottle, though — please put them to better use. I have not seen a single bottle on my floor at the hospital, and some scavengers have been observed coming to the hospital to fill their home bottles from our supplies. Bring us your extra masks. The critical shortage requires us to use a single mask for multiple patients until it is contaminated or damaged. You do not need five of them to go for a walk. Many of our own stockpiles have grown legs and walked away.

About those boxes of toilet paper: Do you really need that much? How many years of hand soap do you need in your bathroom? Will you go through that many bags of zinc lozenges while sitting unexposed on your couch? The amount of acetaminophen you have hoarded would be toxic if you took half of it.