The reports were quite awful, as I am sure that you remember from those early days after the Problem. The food shortage was extreme; the riots had caused fires that destroyed large sections of most every city, causing great losses of life. Because of the food and water shortage, there was a lack of proper sanitation, so there were also reports of scattered serious infections from various sicknesses. The hospitals were already overwhelmed with patients from the fires and riots, and medicine was in short supply due to distribution problems (the transportation system was effectively non-functional because of the lack of fuel). The lack of sanitation was causing the rapid spread of diseases such as diarrhea. And there was a severe shortage of medicines to treat those illnesses.
I was eating my dinner during the news. Well, I started eating. But I lost my appetite as I listened to the news. It only got worse. The same thing was happening all around the country. Communications with the rest of the world was a bit spotty, but the reports from other countries weren't much better.
What really stunned me was the loss of life. There were lots of causes: fire, floods due to failures of some dams (the dam operators had gone home), rioting, and diseases. News reporters seemed to always exaggerate things, but they were reporting about a 25% death rate already, with projections through the winter going as high as 48%. And that was just in Canada and the United States. The numbers were worse in the rest of the world.
As I heard those predictions from the news station, I put down my fork on the plate of my half-eaten dinner. I listened to the news reports for about a half hour. The reports were all the same, other than the announcements about food distribution points that they were trying to set up for those that could get to them.
I turned off the radio. I didn't need to hear this. It was too depressing. I carefully put my uneaten dinner into a plastic container; I didn't need to waste any food. I put the leftovers in the small refrigerator, which was well insulated and powered by my backup power. It was a chest-type container, with the lid on the top instead of the front. That helped to keep the cold air in, which reduced the power consumption of the refrigerator. I didn't open it very often, and I usually ate the leftovers for the next meal, so the food didn't have a change to get spoiled, or to develop any nasty germs that would cause me problems. I was very careful about food preparation and storage, because I didn't need to get sick out here in this remote area. I also only fixed what I was going to eat, being careful with the portions. There weren't usually any leftovers to worry about spoilage. But I am careful with food storage. It helps that I always have been basically healthy. I can't afford to get sick.