is panic-buying selfish?

[cherryx30x]

so I'm sure this is going to be a very mixed opinion but hard hat at the ready. I'm not talking adding a few extra tins of soup to your trolley.

but to take packs and packs of nappies. and all the vitamins. all the medication like paracetomal and calpol?

someone on my facebook was unable to get calpol for her toddler who is actually ill because people had bought the lot in a blind panic. like she said her kid now has to suffer with a temperature because people have bought it over a virus they may not even get and that may only cause them a cough on the mildest end.

I think its extremely over the top to be wiping out the alcohol gel sanitizers (again I know someone with a premature baby who always has them on hand as she has to be a lot more careful who has been unable to find any anywhere), nappies, baby wipes, medications and vitamins

sorry but to me this is just selfish and takes away from people who actually need them. educate yourself and follow basic hygiene- dont wipe out the stores of stuff you probably wont even need and take away from those who currently actually need them

• [Please note, thread title edited by MNHQ - was originally 'Is prepping selfish?']

Melj - so, you are saying that as a result of self-service tills shops are now having to employ more people than they did before and increase the wage bill and pay for new tills? Well that doesn't make good business sense to me, and as Judge Judy always says "if it doesn't make sense, it's probably not true".

If you are going to get Coronavirus you will get it no matter how prepared you are and no matter how many times you antibac your hands and wash them!

Thinking like the above is exactly how you get coronavirus and it’s statements like will make coronavirus more likely to spread.

The one unanimous piece of advice is to wash hands, with soap and hot water for 20 seconds. This could not be pushed out any harder than it is already.

Do you happen to think it’s complete coincidence that nurses/ doctors scrub so thoroughly before operations? Or is that complete nonsense too and should that be scrapped aswell? I mean if a patient on the operating table is going to contract complications from viruses in the operating theatre, there’s nothing the medical staff can do is there?

Stupidity honestly knows no bounds at times.

@SciFiRules

"You have not understood the issue. The point is that "just in time supply lines" don't cope with people "prepping" even 2-3 weeks breaks the system. Peppers should (2-3% of the population with money and too much time) cause shortages that they then crow about surviving."

That's not true - at least not how I understand prepping (and have done it). I've been buying perhaps a couple of items each time I've gone shopping for the last few months. Yes, I'm very lucky to be able to do that, and I know too well what it's like not to be able to.

But there's no way that that kind of prepping causes any shortages. If it's done over several weeks (or in most people's cases, a year or so, because of the Brexit deadline keeping shifting) then it really has no impact at all. The government themselves have said everyone should ideally have a couple of weeks' supply in in case of isolation. People who've been prepping (and I'm not talking hundreds of cans and endless loo roll, just enough food/over the counter medicine to last a few weeks if the worst happens) aren't clearing the shelves now, or causing any shortages at all.

TBH, I get the feeling that the amount I have in now after prepping is probably what a lot of households have in anyway as a general shop!

Saying all that, anyone who's selling hand gel or medicines or other stuff at inflated prices now should be prosecuted.

Agree, @duffeldaisy. Prepping in this house has been done across this last year. A few extra bits here and there.
Happy to have not been in a supermarket all week, adding to the chaos.
It's time people went back to the old ways a bit more, and kept stores in as much as possible. I know that can be difficult as newer homes lack the storage space, but most of us can be inventive if we try.
Last summer I was reading a lot of criticism about 'preppers' causing shortages, but that's rubbish. It's last minute buying that causes shortages.
I too have been on my beam ends and it is so worth creating a bit of a safety net at home, because if nothing else, this last week has shown how fragile our systems are, and how much we take for granted. We've become quite spoilt over the last 30 years or so.

Coronavirus isn't transmitted via predestination. You're thinking of Calvinism

😀

When did taking personal responsibility for yourself and your children become something bad? As soon as I saw how awful things have become italy I bought enough baby bits for our toddler and extra food/toiletries for ourselves so last in case of shortages or quarantine. Panic buying all the loo roll in sainsburys is ridiculous but I probably have 100+ rolls in a wardrobe upstairs from Amazon. We are not well off but will adjust our budget for the rest of the year. I'd rather sacrifice a holiday than have my child go without basics. I also have a chronic respiratory condition so will be avoiding the shops.

We've become quite spoilt over the last 30 years or so.

We have. This is where the scorn and rage from people who think if they run out of stuff they'll always just be able to get everything they need in a Tesco order comes from. The refusal to even think about the possibility that this might not be a 100% guaranteed solution and the undercurrent of anger that anyone might even suggest it.

I also find it astonishing how many people worry about pasta and loo roll but dont have a first aid kit in their house and haven't ever done a first aid course.

Something like covid just goes to show crazy many of the british public are.
I have immunity issues and cant go out very much. DH and I ho on a proper shop about once every 6 weeks and he of son get other bits like milk and veg as needed. We always by a box of penne, one of spaghetti multiple cleaning products to ladt etc, if the shelves are low however I will not clear the last stock. There us however only a certain amount you can actually use up so I am baffled what people are doing. DH went to 2 supermarkets last week, not a single pack of pasta, rice cleaning product or kitchen rolls. We had 2 days of weird food as had none of the carbs left in the house!
Has it even occurred to the lunatics people still need food now whilst they are stashing away for some mythical armageddon? .what do people seriously think is going to happen???

I have no idea what they think is going to happen. All I know is, if people bought a little more sensibly, we would not have empty shelves.

Of course, buy an extra packet of pasta or whatever, but I've seen people pushing two trolleys round, it's like Christmas on speed

Yes selfish!

Tomorrow even before the store opens I'm going to make sure I have the bits I need before customers swarm the Isles. I will have a better chance and just store them out the back till I go and pay later on

Me and DH did our normal shop yesterday. We went to Morrisons, Lidl and Wilkinsons (we only shop every 6 weeks or so apart from fruit and veg). No shortages in any of them. Plenty of loo roll, pain killers, hand wash and hand sanitiser, pasta (not that we bought any of those items).

I would hope that this will make people who normally only have a couple of days food in the house think about having more of a store. Then they would not have to go out and panic buy would they?

As I have said before, I cannot understand people that have so little food in. Even if you do not have much money buying 1 or 2 extra tinned items or things like a bag of pasta or rice hardly costs much and if you do that each time you shop it's not long before you have a store.

Also unless you live in a bedsit there must be somewhere you can store food - under the bed, on the top of cupboards, the bottom of wardrobes, under the stairs, even the loft

Aldi was busy and fully stocked apart from hand sanitizer but Tesco looked like it has been ransacked!

No pasta in our Tesco last night. Came home from a run today and developed the worst tension headache- DH went to Boots for paracetamol as I was really struggling- none left.

Obviously you can only buy a couple of boxes at a time, so I reckon this is less a case of individuals clearing the shelves as everyone adding a box to their basket when they might not have normally.

I don’t understand the panic buying tbh. We live very rurally and always have good stocks of most things. I buy sensibly all year to ensure we’ve got enough supplies to last us for at least 2 months at a time and I only do a big shop every 6 weeks when we head to Costco. I don’t have hand sanitiser as we’ve never had the need to use it as soap and water are more than adequate. DH has had messages and calls offering him silly amounts of money for antibacterial supplies people know he has though! These supplies most certainly will not be used by us or sold but they will used for the purposes they are normally used for every day. People have gone a bit nuts over the Coronavirus tbh.

"she said her kid now has to suffer with a temperature because people have bought it over a virus they may not even get"

Nope...her kid is suffering because she wasnt organised and didnt have any in herself. Calpol is something you always have in when you have little ones.

I went into the city centre this afternoon. I went to Superdrug, Tesco Metro, a small Poundland, B&M Bargains, Wilko and M&S.

None of them had hand gel as expected. I didn't check in M&S for any items except food, but all of the others had plenty of everything - I didn't see any empty shelves, except Superdrug where there was one shelf that was empty of paracetamol. There were paracetamol in there, just not every brand. There was paracetamol in all the other shops too. There were loads of different medicines, Calpol, vitamins, tissues, anti-bac, anti-bac wipes, TCP. Food looked normal, I couldn't see any gaps anywhere.

So, panic buying hasn't begun where I live, despite all the scaremongering going on. I think someone wants there to be panic buying. The economy should be booming if everyone is buying everything, surely?

Nope...her kid is suffering because she wasnt organised and didnt have any in herself. Calpol is something you always have in when you have little ones.

Unless fever poses a particular danger to an individual, it could be better to let it run its course. Calpol is not something we've ever had in just in case. In this instance we'll think more carefully than usual about whether we medicate with antipyretics.
Here's good old John Campbell explaining why

You really shouldn't be as cavalier as that with kids as they might end up with febrile convulsions.

Sorry @Neverenoughcoffee I'm 4 kids in and I would never be without Calpol. Never mind John Whatsisname.

I'm sorry that the woman with the baby couldn't get Calpol but it's one of those restricted things isn't it? it is on my Tesco Order. So I don't really think it's about 'other people' buying up all the stocks.

What do you think? Ive never seen so much crap written anywhere else but here

It is very selfish I have a disabled child who is nine and in nappies full time ( although we are working on getting him out of them) we get pull ups on the NHS but we never get enough and I buy age 8-15 night time pull ups when he runs out ,and I'm struggling to find them because some selfish bastards have bought up all the stock

@x2boys we are in a similar position, DS is younger though and we have to use the junior health nappies from Tesco (only ones big enough that I can find in shops) they are all sold out in our local store, never have I ever seen them run out but they have now. So having to travel to other stores, god knows what we will do if they all run out.

It's honestly utterly ridiculous.

It is ridiculous @Tiredmumno1 fortunately I get his NHS delivery on Wednesday and he's doing quite well.with his toilet training so fingers crossed he will be out of nappies soon but im.so pissed off with this selfish way of thinking .