Central government notices on social media (weixin, weibo, and douyin) accounts have advised citizens to stock up on staple food.

No further explanation has been given yet.

This is a general recommendation that was done to cover possible supply problems that could be caused by Covid restrictions, flooding and other natural disasters and electricity supply brakes.

This after they noticed that the general public relies nowadays on a steady flow of products from shops and does not have any stock at home anymore like it used to be. And therefore any supply disruption straight away leads to a problem.

Warning: stocks in freezers and fridges are affected by electricity supply brakes as well.

It's ALWAYS a good idea to have emergency rations in case of ... well, emergencies.

1. Water. Having a couple of extra bottles for the water cooler always a good idea. A few years ago when over 10k water meters froze during a cold snap - we were left with no water for roughly 2 weeks, while the city tried to procure and install enough water meters, so we were brush out teeth and nominal hygienic cleaning (warmed wet towels) and flushing the toilet with um...drinking water for several days.
2. Dry goods such as crackers, pasta, rice, various dried meats and seafood (usually reserved as snacks), etc.
3. Canned goods and preserves such as canned peaches (with juice), canned fish (tuna, albacore, etc), fruit preserves (strawberry, et al).
4. First Aid Kit (bandages, alcohol swabs, tape, scissors or a sharp blade), etc.
5. Camping supplies - sleeping bags, cookware and fuel for portable heaters and stoves, gloves, etc. Portable fuel and cookware useful for when power and or natural gas supplies are cut off.
6. Wet wipes aka diaper wipes - for hygiene purposes.

Fortunately, the PLA is always first on scene during natural disasters - but it still takes them several days to ramp up...and then there's the famous panic buying which rapidly wipes out store shelves.

Don't forget to buy a portable water filter.

You're probably right, lemon.

All good suggestions.

In the US we are being told that getting vaccinated will end the supply chain problem. Biden’s Energy secretary Jennifer Granholm on skyrocketing prices of goods:

"[Economists say] there is a transitory nature to the inflation problem…We wanna make sure we get everybody vaccinated so we can unclog the bottlenecks that we’ve been seeing.”

The Chinese government is more rational.