Just witnessed the future in Asda car park!

[Buttybach]

Just witnessed an elderly lady telling a man in a face mask that "he should be staying at home if he has it"

He then told her that he didn't have it and it was a precaution.

He sounded like he was Italian so she shouted "I bet you have been to Italy"

He then flew into a tirade shouting that she should be self isolating as she was over 70 - and to quote him "you're all going to F**ing die if you don't!

As I walked away they were still screaming at each other from their cars!

Is this the future! We will all be turning on each other!

I saw a tussle over loo roll between two women in Sainsbury's this morning.

@moondance19. No, the scarves won’t work. The CV is 1/900th of the width of a human hair. They’ll just go straight through a scarf’s fibre. and flapping a scarf around your face increases your chances of getting the virus 🦠 in your mouth.

I am the only one who has does a bit of bulk buying

Yes but if that's your normal shopping behaviour you're not really causing a problem.

@Conny848 with respect you nan was a child during the war and may well have had a softened experience (as many will tone down what’s going on at the moment to their own kids) and she may have rose tinted spectacles. The generation before her, who’ve died, don’t all describe those experiences and crime, looting were common. As an example my grandmother (would be 110 if alive) told me of having her wedding and engagement rings stolen from her when they evacuated London during the blitz.

Our big Tesco was christmas level busy, but most people seemed to be behaving decently towards each other. Lines were crazy when I got there, only 30 minutes after opening. No pasta, rice, canned soup, canned pasta sauces, hand gel, etc and a lot of tinned goods, long life milk, frozen fruit and veg almost gone.

Definitely noticed people are more angry at the moment. There’s this undertone of stress and anxiety amongst many people. Horrible situation and it’s bringing out the worst in some people

I went in the local Co-op earlier for some bread rolls. They had plenty of pasta so I picked a packet of that up too.
Got to the till and no one else queuing up. The assistant said to me "You're not a regular customer are you?"
I explained that I am but normally I use the self service tills. She said "Well I've never seen you in here before"

So I'm wondering if that's what the Co-op's new policy is going to be. If you're not a recognised regular customer then you're banned from buying pasta, just in case you're one of those dirty bastard panic buyers.

We now have the people helping out those who were flooded adding those self isolating. And our local running groups are also coordinating help for the elderly.

We, local community group and food bank, have been fully re stocked and have drivers offering to deliver to our most vulnerable clients. We are now using the empty office space next door for supermarket deliveries. Tesco support us and had told us they were inundated with new customers. We are very rural so it was causing issues. We exchanged taking deliveries for additional stock.

Dog walking and we were laughing about staying a whole lead length apart, just on case. Most dog walkers here are over 70 and they too are offering help to more vulnerable neighbours.

Having said that there has been a bit of shouting in the local Coop. But nothing all that bad!

I was dreading doing the weekly shop after seeing pictures of empty shelves my friends were facing in Bristol and Birmingham.

Our local Aldi was busier than normal but not horrendously so. We probably spent about 10 mins more than usual queuing, and there were lots of families where each parent had a trolley, but staff were sticking to the four items only rule.

There was a growing collection of stuff by each till where checkout staff had taken items off people. We managed to get what we need for the week, only slightly less choice than normal.

Our town have also set up multiple Facebook groups by area to support each other, and a local printing company has printed over 10,000 leaflets free of charge to put through doors with contact details on if people need help.

@Alice02132354

Care to explain? Maybe I need coffee, but that makes no sense to me🤨

Fear makes rational people do irrational things.

JoanieCash you are right. I remember my mother talking about how much she enjoyed the war, earning good money, dating GIs and enjoying herself. My gran said for her it was a constant worry about what was going to happen next, how she was going to make rations feed them for a week and as the war went on the worry of her son being old enough for the army.

There was the blackmarket with people profiteering and people with money able to get stuff that ordinary people couldn't.

I think we've seen to much propaganda about it all. I remember the 50s and wouldn't want to go back.

The reality is it's survival of the fittest in all senses . Anyone who can barge their way around Tescos and take the last of the food and push the less able and eldery out of their way will "win the food".

The more vulerable - elderly, mobility issues, poor etc simply won't keep up with thepanic buying in this country. Nothing can stop it unless we get full blow rationing.

A lot of supermarkets home delivery services pick the stock of the shelves - when there is none left - those inself isolation won't get what they need. Therefore people will not bother with self isolation if they can get away with it.

It's all about I'm alright jack. It's a survival instinct - altruism is thrown to the kerb.

I'm in Japan and we are a bit ahead of you in covid terms. Our shops have really started returning to normal the last few days. Most places now have toilet paper and tissues back in. Still not much hand gel or face masks, but the reality is that there is no shortage of toilet paper or pasta, etc. It will take maybe another week and supply should catch up for the UK too, I think.

I’m horrified to read these awful stories, I must be really fortunate as I visited an M&S superstore yesterday and the food hall was fairly busy but everyone was shopping normally and appeared to be quite calm. The only thing missing from the shelves were loo rolls and hand gel, apart from that they were very well stocked.

I did an Asda shop this morning, just a regular shop to pick up fresh veg and meat/fish etc for dinners this week, there was a guy having a go at a staff member about how they had no toilet rolls and how could they have let that happen, not one on the shelf of any brand??? In his trolley he had about 20 bags of dried pasta! Really had to bite my tongue and not point out to him that people had done with toilet roll what he was doing with pasta, buying far more than they need!

By 11:15 the queues were halfway down the shop, I've never seen it like that before, even over Christmas.

Let me make clear that I absolutely do not condone this ridiculous panic buying.

I think a lot of it is down to fear. People are scared of what’s coming and this is the only thing that they feel they can do....a lot of people just read the DM and watch the early evening news. The Govt has made people feel even less in control of their destiny by the wish washy response.

If people had something firm to focus on then it would take their minds off the shopping.

Just my thoughts

@itsgettingweird. I’m sorry to hear about DS. I think that I would stop taking kids to supermarkets anywhere that’s a bit crazy. If you can - admittedly difficult if you’re a single parent & can’t get deliveries.

I had a Tesco delivery this morning - pretty normal weekly shopping, a bit more ready made custard than most people would order, & things I don’t normally buy chocolate/biscuits, but only a normal amount for most peoples shop. The youngish, well built, guy looked shattered, he was wearing big thick black gloves, but had to extract a finger for the hand held device -which he asked me to sign (even though I’d hit an email saying we wouldn’t be asked) I laughed about the substitutions. I couldn’t explain why. Whoever had shopped had substituted Tesco tampons for lillets - but clearly not familiar with the size differences. Let’s just say my neighbour with teens can benefit from those!! (Not worth the hassle to get a refund) and it’ll help them out a little.

Waitrose was fine on Friday, but it’s mostly elderly that shop there anyway - haven’t been near a shop all weekend-thankfully.

Will go for fresh veg tomorrow -early on, should be pretty much deserted I think.

[Actually just realised that two Dettol sprays turned up 😳 I was fully expecting them not to. Both are for my elderly Aunty, so I’m pleased about that!!]

I'm living in Andalusia and much less worried about panic buying/looting /law and order than I would be if I was back in London.

I can't speak for Madrid but round here, people are better behaved and will not mess around with Guardia Civil.

In our little village in very rural england I can see out of my window lots of people going out walking, kids playing everywhere and a gang of people nattering outside the local shop which is now stocked with toilet rolls daily after the shop owner put a sign up saying one packet of 4 rolls per customer.
The pharmacy has lots of paracetemol, I asked my neighbour to buy some for me and post it through the letterbox as she was going out.
Nobody is shouting at each other or getting hysterical.
I think it's a city/large town thing, in small communities where people all know each other this doesn't seem to be happening.

@AmelieTaylor
Well I don't think people realise that there is a delayed effect in catching the virus, developing symptoms and then developing SERIOUS symptoms.

There is a huge number of people carrying the virus in my opinion and a lot of those people don't even realise they have it. Today and yesterday everyone's piled into the supermarkets to stock up and a lot of people have picked it up. Those number will only show up a couple of weeks from now... ie. dead people.

@KeepYourWigOn I'm also Worcs, and equally fine when I've been supermarket shopping this weekend.

There was a bit of camaraderie around the loo roll section, although there was only one brand there, and not much of it. People chatting a bit, self-deprecating about buying stuff. Very few people with full trollies. I did hear that another supermarket at the other end of town looks like locusts have been through it, though.

Supermarkets and government telling people not to panic buy because the shelves will remain stocked... the whole point is that even if the shelves are fully stocked, people don’t want to have to go to the shops and risk catching the virus. They want to fill their cupboards now and not go out again.

I was in morrisons yesterday just getting what we couldn't on the online shop. Anyways asked oldest to.hold something shes 10. She shouted I'm not holding it i dont want your corona virus! My god I was horrified! Ppl look at u funny lol

I have to say I haven’t encountered any awful behaviour yet. Popped to Lidl for a couple of bits yesterday for stir-fry last night and roast dinner today. They were completely out of loo roll and pasta but no busier than usual. People seemed to be in good humour and the checkout assistants and customers were quite cheerfully making jokes about panic buying. Popped into my local Sainsbury’s this morning for fresh bread rolls and again it was business as usual and more jokey comments at the tills. Some of the experiences you lot have had sound pretty dire. Let’s all try to be nice to each other and maybe it’ll run off.