Keep calm and stop the coronavirus panic-buying in supermarkets – Andrew Vine

CORONAVIRUS hasn’t yet severely disrupted most people’s everyday lives, but the panic-buying it has sparked just might.
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At the weekend, in a branch of Morrisons, I watched with sinking heart as a staff member trying to restock empty shelves with toilet rolls couldn’t even get them off the pallet before they were snatched by shoppers.

Everyone who has set foot in any supermarket over the past week will have probably seen something similar. And they’ll be familiar with the new reality – shelves stripped of toilet paper, handwash and paracetamol, and people at checkouts with massive quantities of tinned food, rice, pasta and long-life milk.

A shortage of UHT milk in supermarkets is one of many examples of 'panic buying' over coronavirus.A shortage of UHT milk in supermarkets is one of many examples of 'panic buying' over coronavirus.
A shortage of UHT milk in supermarkets is one of many examples of 'panic buying' over coronavirus.

What on Earth has happened to people’s sense of proportion?

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This isn’t the middle ages and the Black Death scything down the population. It’s a public health issue that is being dealt with in a sensible and measured way by the Government, and people panic-buying need to get that into their heads.

Because if they don’t, and carry on stockpiling, the shortages they fear are going to become a self-fulfilling prophecy that makes life difficult for others, especially older people who rely on a weekly supermarket shop for all their needs.

And it’s already causing problems. The owner of a West Yorkshire care home for the elderly told me she is having difficulty obtaining hand-sanitiser gel from her wholesaler.

The NHS has taken on extra staff in its 111 call centre to deal with coronavirus.The NHS has taken on extra staff in its 111 call centre to deal with coronavirus.
The NHS has taken on extra staff in its 111 call centre to deal with coronavirus.

Her staff need it as part of their daily routine, and it has assumed even greater importance as visitors are now asked to use it before meeting residents.

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There is a sense of rising hysteria about coronavirus which could make matters a lot worse than they need to be. Instead of going about their business as usual, people are getting jumpy.

Public panic is to be seen in the pictures of commuters wearing bags or boxes over their heads – even a gas mask in one image – to protect themselves.

And there is no surer way of feeding mass panic than people stripping supermarket shelves of everything they can lay their hands on. It doesn’t seem to occur to these hoarders that they’re talking themselves into a state of paranoia, as well as exhibiting a disgraceful degree of selfishness.

A fan in a mask at last weekend's Manchester Derby as cases of coronavirus escalate.A fan in a mask at last weekend's Manchester Derby as cases of coronavirus escalate.
A fan in a mask at last weekend's Manchester Derby as cases of coronavirus escalate.

How much is ever going to be enough to have stockpiled? What if it runs out? Better go and buy another 30 toilet rolls just in case, and so the whole vicious cycle feeds itself.

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The familiar online hullaballoo and rumour mill are as unhelpful as usual, being in full spate about not being able to find enough food, prompting the Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, to insist last week that supplies will be maintained.

Of course they will, but only if people are sensible. Panic-buying is as contagious as the virus itself, and if shoppers see shelves being emptied, they are going start piling in as well out of anxiety at not being able to get supplies later on.

They should calm down and listen to the Chief Medical Officer, the admirably authoritative Professor Chris Whitty, and his assessment of what coronavirus really means to Britain.

Few people sit at tables outside a bar in the center of Turin, Italy, as the coronavirus death toll rises.Few people sit at tables outside a bar in the center of Turin, Italy, as the coronavirus death toll rises.
Few people sit at tables outside a bar in the center of Turin, Italy, as the coronavirus death toll rises.

Although he has been at pains to stress the threat to the nation’s health and the ability of the NHS to cope, most people who catch it won’t even need to be hospitalised, and face nothing worse than a miserable couple of weeks akin to being laid low with a nasty winter cold.

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We simply don’t need to hunker down behind a barricade of toilet rolls and tins of corned beef to stave off the grim reaper. Prof Whitty told MPs death from coronavirus is “very, very unlikely”, even in elderly people with pre-existing medical problems that make them more vulnerable.

To help convince people of this, the Government could do worse than re-broadcast an interview I heard with an American who caught coronavirus aboard a cruise ship.

So what was it like, asked the interviewer, plainly expecting a harrowing tale of being at death’s door before a long, slow haul back to health.

Nothing of the sort. He had a slight fever for 24 hours, a cough, a few days of feeling generally under the weather and then he was fine. And that was it. He stayed at home to avoid passing the bug on – as many of us do when we have a cold – and didn’t need to go to hospital.

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The only way to face up to civil emergencies, whether they be terrorist attacks or a new illness, is to carry on as normal. And that means stopping the panic-buying, because every hoard amounts to piling up problems for other people.

There’s more than enough to be concerned about over the spread of coronavirus without making life yet more difficult by causing shortages in the shops. Like countless others, I drink my tea from a mug emblazoned with the wartime slogan, “Keep calm and carry on”. It’s a philosophy the panic-buyers should embrace.