Certainly up til now I'd agree, but given the now very real potential for having to self-isolate, I'm definitely thinking about ensuring I've got enough tinned/dry/frozen stuff to see me through 2 weeks. Admittedly as I've only got to feed myself, this won't be much, but because I only ever tend to buy a week's worth of groceries at a time it would be prudent for me to ensure that if I had to self-isolate I'd still be able to eat! At this stage, stocking up on things like that becomes less 'panic buying' and more taking sensible precautions.
Home delivery is not a practical option because a) it's going to become less available as more and more people self-isolate, both because of increased demand and reduced number of drivers/pickers and b) Most supermarkets will only do deliveries for baskets of £40 or more, which would be difficult to achieve when buying for myself to last 2 weeks - there'd be a lot of dries anyway as most fresh stuff won't last that long!
The problem is that many people are buying way more than a couple of week's worth of food. Some people seem to be planning for the apocalypse.
I get perhaps buying some pasta, but people are clearly buying more than that to be clearing shelves to the extent which is happening.
Meanwhile my local station and train into London is a complete ghost town, very considerable reduction in usage compared to normal. Feels like being back in the 80s again!
Exactly, for most households two weeks shopping is double what they would normally buy. From what I've witnessed this week, some people could be opening up their own convivence stores.
Something else worries me here. Everyone seems to assume that they must all buy at the same time, but the virus isn't going to work that way. Plenty of people will not get any symptoms at the same time, some won't get any at all. So why aren't friends and family simply thinking outside the box here. Organise amongst yourselves, if one household isolates, others could do the shopping for them. You know the way proactive families and communities do. Oh yeah, I forgot, we don't do this in the UK anymore.
My family at least has already discussed this, and this is what will happen if needs be. OK, it won't work for absolutely everyone, buy I'm happy to wager that a good proportion of those panic buyers could easily do that if they stepped outside their insular little bubbles once in a blue moon.
. Although my local corner shop still has a fair few, they've put a "1 per person" rule in on loo roll and hand wash, although in theory there's nothing stopping an individual to get a friend or family member to go in and get another pack for them.
