Toilet paper, canned food: What explains coronavirus panic buying

First it was the masks, then hand sanitisers. Now it seems the novel coronavirus outbreak has people rushing to stock up, among other things, an essential item: toilet paper.

Shelves have been emptied across the world. In Australia, a newspaper helpfully printed out an extra eight pages as a “backup loo roll”. Fights have broken out, trolleys piled high, and across the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, most supermarkets imposed a cap to limit the number of rolls a person could buy.

Dubbed #ToiletPaperPanic and #ToiletPaperApocalypse online, there is no shortage of videos capturing the mass hysteria that has swept up globally as shelves are cleared. Canned goods, water bottles and pasta shelves have similarly been emptied out.

So, why are we seeing panic buying across the globe?

“Panic buying and hoarding of supplies is obviously not desirable, but it’s understandable, particularly when people see images of cities, regions and even whole countries in lockdown,” Michael Baker, professor of public health at the University of Otago in Wellington, New Zealand, told Al Jazeera.

While panic buying was not seen in response to the most recent influenza pandemic in 2009, Baker said the ongoing crisis is similar to a behavioural response during a natural disaster.

“The difference this time is that people now see COVID-19 as a real threat, one that will last for months, and they may not have confidence in the authorities to contain it.”

Dubbed #ToiletPaperPanic and #ToiletPaperApocalypse online, there is no shortage of videos capturing the mass hysteria that has swept up globally as shelves are cleared. Canned goods, water bottles and pasta shelves have similarly been emptied out.

So, why are we seeing panic buying across the globe?

“Panic buying and hoarding of supplies is obviously not desirable, but it’s understandable, particularly when people see images of cities, regions and even whole countries in lockdown,” Michael Baker, professor of public health at the University of Otago in Wellington, New Zealand, told Al Jazeera.

While panic buying was not seen in response to the most recent influenza pandemic in 2009, Baker said the ongoing crisis is similar to a behavioural response during a natural disaster.

“The difference this time is that people now see COVID-19 as a real threat, one that will last for months, and they may not have confidence in the authorities to contain it.”