I read recently an article explaining “Why are people panic buying and why toilet paper?” which has a line in it – “If we had an international sign for panic it would be a traffic warning sign with a toilet paper roll in the middle.”
Given that such a sign doesn’t exist, I thought I’d make one.
The png file below is linked to a scalable SVG version that you can print out to remind yourself that panic buying doesn’t help anyone and is in fact counter-productive.
Listening to the expert opinions shows that panic buying is brought on by people not knowing how long a public health emergency will last, which is (at the present time) essentially true.
However, the supply chains and logistics of retail are scaled in a way to deal with ‘normal’ demand, so all panic buying does is prevent the fair distribution of goods to those people who may need them most.
The good news is that panic buying ‘generally’ calms down after about a month, when ‘most people’ realise that the supermarkets are still, in fact, getting daily deliveries.
As for why toilet paper – “…because toilet paper has a longer shelf-life than many food items, is prominently featured in aisles and is big in size, we are psychologically drawn to purchasing it in times of crisis. The bigger they are, the more important we think they are.” – when in reality, according to the toilet roll usage calculators here and here it’s about one roll per person/week.
So to everyone reading this:
Stay safe.
Don’t be stupid.
We’re all in this together.
xx
