It's a self-fulfilling prophecy kinda thing, sadly. All it takes is one news story, not even in your country, saying that shops are running out of toilet roll (which is different to there being a toilet roll shortage, but that's hard to explain in a tabloid) and people will panic. They'll go and buy more than they normally would. Sure, you've got some buying a bajillion rolls in an attempt to profiteer, but you've also got the people buying four or five packs just in case there's none in the shop when they would normally need to stock up again - and given how bulky bog roll is, that's all it takes. Incidentally, between my wife and my two young daughters we get through a surprising amount of loo roll...
One theory is that the loo roll panic buying is down to people planning on self isolating and spending days on end on the internet. People only have so many socks you know.
I mean, I'm given to understand ladies use it far more often than us blokes, so I'd expect your house to use more than mine! I dunno, I find this whole situation infuriating. I'm not a doctor, though, so I'm quite sure my frustration is misaligned.
It started as herd mentality (not to be confused with herd infection). A psycologist exlained it to being linked to the fact that loo roll is bulky therefore you can only fit so much on a supermarmet shelf. People shopping see a limited amount of loo roll on the shelf because, due to that bulk, it is easy to see whats not there (i.e. see the gaps on the shelf). They then thought "I'd better stock up before it goes" (despite there being a literal truckload out back in the supermarket) and, coupled with social media posting pictures of empty shelves, the domino fell. Australia is a perfect example of an irrational thought turning into this herd mentality, ably assisted by anti-social meeja. But then again, they are Australians after all.
The pasta logistics is the interesting one to me: is it a similar memetic panic-buy to toilet roll, or are actual sales at relatively normal volumes but JIT supply dramatically reduced due to source production halt (Italy on lockdown).
I'd like some sort of official statement along the lines of be sensible about those that are at risk, otherwise just chill the frak out. Face masks are only useful if someone has it so they don't spread it around, you can clean your hands without hand sanitiser, it won't cause the runs so don't hoard bog roll and you can make fresh pasta if you're that desperate. I don't remember a mass buy out of rice when this all started.
Or a consequence of the fact that the panic buying is only speculative rather than driven by immediate need: Scenario 1 (You are certain you won't be able to obtain additional food for say the next three days): You can panic buy a very diverse range of food (as you won't have problems with it spoiling before you get around to using it). Scenario 2 (You are panic buying based on speculation about what may or may not happen in a week or month): Then you are limited to food that won't go bad (like pasta, rice or tinned food), because buying anything that goes bad would be wasting money.
I think it's not JIT because of the following: 1. Dried pasta is made in Italy for most supermarket brand purposes 2. So is most of fresh pasta (sic!) 3. Fresh pasta is more JIT sensitive (given lockdown has been going for a few days and that it has a couple of days shelf life, shortages should come through) 4. It's actually easier to buy fresh pasta than dried (verified empirically last weekend on my weekly shop, also confirmable on most of the online supermarkets)
Yesterday, Italy was almost at 25 000 cases which is about 10 000 more cases than what their healthcare system can cope with. What’s worse, it’s only the beginning. Apparently, Twitter tracked down his storage and notified the AG
Looks like the Gov are asking everyone to socially isolate, not really a problem for me as I've done that for 20 odd years.
...and how many won't do it because they've been fed 'keep calm and carry on' and 'we survived ww2, where's your blitz spirit' for most of the last decade.
If they don't test then the numbers of new cases starts falling and BoJo the Clown can claim that the Tories are beating coronavirus. Simples.
I'm seeing some credibility to the theory that we're living in the universe that ended up with two Donald Trumps, and no one is sure which one is the most ****ing stupid.
^ yup You don't test, you don't have cases. It's exactly why Trump held back testing in the US for so long and probably why numbers for many African countries are just starting to come in.
It looks like Japan is doing that too, hence their reported cases also being noticeably on the low side [though some can also be attributed to japan being japan]
Also cynically minded of me maybe but the whole 'adivsing' that pubs/theatres and whatnot close... rather than insisting they do... If it's govt mandated, then the govt is probably on the hook for compensating businesses... whereas if it's only 'govt advice', they probably don't... EDIT: Hadn't considered insurance paying out or not - Tweet— Twitter API (@user) date
