People seem to think that toilet paper, beans and hand sanitiser work against the coronavirus, in the same way that holy water supposedly fends off demons.

Both are equally plausible at this point.

Your lifetime supply of beans, toilet paper and sanitiser isn’t going to save you – countrywide good hygiene practises and World Health Organisation approved measures will. 

And yet, it has become necessary for retailers to place signs on empty shelves telling people to calm down.

Per TimesLIVE:

President Cyril Ramaphosa’s grave announcement on Sunday night appears to have switched many coronavirus fence-sitters into full-on paranoid mode, with a sharp increase reported in online grocery sales and panic buying clearing many supermarket shelves.

Pick n Pay has started to limit the sale of heavily in demand items in the store.

“Where stocks are temporarily low due to heavy customer demand, we will be temporarily limiting the number of certain products per customer. Signage in-store and online will guide them on what these are,” said a spokesperson.

Photo credit: Aron Hyman

“Understandably, as customers read and act on the advice they are receiving, they are buying more household cleaning and personal hygiene products.”

Photo credit: Aron Hyman

“We’ve seen demand for these products increase over the past week.”

Shoprite and Spar have also noticed an uptick in panic buying. Spar has received countless calls from panicked customers over the last week.

“Most want to know about our own-brand soap Germex and where to get it. I also had a call from a customer to say a cashier had coughed [once] and she wanted her sent home,” she said.

The weird thing is, it’s not just the beans flying off the shelves. People are clearing out the perishable foods as well. Prof Gunnar Sigge, head of Stellenbosch University’s food science department had the following to say about the situation:

“Many of those perishable foods don’t freeze well, so much of it currently being ‘stock-piled’ in panic now may actually go to waste. This is further compounding the selfish and wasteful behaviour of some consumers,” he said.

According to fin24, panic buying is completely unnecessary, because, despite port closures, food and other supplies will still be delivered to South African shores.

The recently announced port closures are only meant to limit the movement of people and will not affect the flow of goods to the country, Trade and Industry Minister Ebrahim Patel has said.

At the briefing on Monday, Patel said that the two ports closed to passengers, Saldanha and Mossel Bay will still let goods in, which means that export and import of goods will still be possible.

Patel said that government’s intention is to keep the movement of goods in the economy flowing. If government wanted to limit the flow of goods it would have closed the Cape Town, Durban and Port Elizabeth ports, which normally process cargo, said Trade Law Centre researcher Willemien Viljoen

This is not s siege situation.

As Pick n Pay so eloquently put it – “please think before you buy”.

[sources:timeslive]&fin24]