More than a half dozen people come into Kurt Wilson’s Hayden store every day looking for respiratory masks to prevent exposure to the coronavirus.

“At least one an hour,” said Wilson, who owns Survival Enterprises along Government Way.

He doesn’t sell the masks, but advises customers to try local hardware stores or pharmacies.

“All they need is a dust mask or a painter’s mask,” he said.

Wilson, who has been in the survival business for 35 years, worked as a gunsmith for 25 years, runs a weekly radio program, and opened the Hayden store six years ago. He said Wednesday that his store sells a variety of supplements and survival equipment.

CBD oil derived from hemp is a popular item, as well as food tablets that provide 20 calories — mostly protein and sugar — and side items such as enzymes, immune boosters, vitamins and oil of oregano.

“It’s the most potent antibiotic there is,” Wilson said.

He sells Tunisian olive oil as well, to dilute the oregano oil, because taken alone, even a drop can make you sick, he said.

And he sells silver water, which when sprinkled on a bandana and held over the mouth and nose kills bacteria, he said.

Mostly, though, Wilson deals in information.

“I know everything there is to know about preparedness,” Wilson said.

He teaches a course on long-term food storage. It’s available for free on his website, called “The Armchair Survivalist,” which includes a cornucopia of information, a catalog and links to Wilson’s podcasts.

Modern survival isn’t what we think it is, he said.

“People think it’s learning how to make a fire by knocking together stones in the woods and having a bunch of guns and bullets,” he said.

Hold on, hoss.

Survival is more academic than that, he said.

“Survival means living in more amenable conditions and taking what you learn and applying it in emergency situations,” he said.

How to fix a car, maintain firearms, store food, water and stay healthy are among the contents in a modern survivalist almanac.

When it comes to preparedness, Wilson has an opinion: It should have happened long ago, he said.

Catching up, he said, may be “too little, too late.”

Wilson said he has monitored the Wuhan biomedical facility in China for two years, since he learned the government had built the facility.

“I have people at the department of homeland security, people in China, in the U.S., in Romania …,” he said.

His 35 years in the industry has helped him develop sources that provide information that he double-checks for veracity before he uses it on his podcasts, he said.

He isn’t surprised at the outbreak and said it was a matter of time.

The big story, he said, is the economy.

More than half of the goods sold in the U.S. come from China and much of the medicine, even if it isn’t made in China, uses products from China, he said.

Trade with China has pretty much stopped, he said. And the markets show it.

“There will be shortages,” he said.

Except in his store.

He doesn’t sell China-made.

He does deal in Trump re-election ball caps, and old style MAGA hats and a sign on the door warns that “snowflakes” — people who are easily offended, he said — won’t like his business.

“We’re not politically correct,” he said.

A woman perusing the shelves in the small store at 9360 N. Government Way asked if Wilson sells food.

For bulk food he gives her a recommendation, written on a piece of paper.

“That’s the best they make, so far,” he said.

And then someone comes in asking for masks.