Properly masked and drenched in Purell, they are railing against a tech press that they feel mocked them as late as February for reducing travel and not shaking hands. They are — of course they are — making a slew of Covid-related start-up investments. And a coolheaded blog called The Prepared, with features like “Prepping Checklist for Beginners” and “Rational Reasons You Should Prepare,” is emerging as the voice of a movement.

John Ramey, a longtime Silicon Valley entrepreneur, started the site in 2018. “People are realizing the last few stable decades have been a fluke,” he told me by phone, from somewhere in the Rocky Mountains. “It’s the coronavirus now, but people have been watching climate change, inequality, late-stage capitalism, post-World War II systems falling apart. Our institutions have dropped the ball.”…

On Feb. 13, when Vox published an article headlined “‘No handshakes, please’: The tech industry is terrified of the coronavirus,” many tech preppers became incensed, convinced they were being mocked — and that the public was not listening. Much of the mainstream news coverage at the time relied on the World Health Organization and government messaging that discouraged mask-wearing and downplayed the virus’s risks.

But the tech prepper ranks grew.