Remember the early days of the pandemic, and the worries about shortages of toilet paper, paper towels? (And, in my household, there was also worry about baby wipes and baby food.) Concerned about the slim pickings of the quick picker upper, I went to Restaurant Depot to get those paper towel rolls you see in restaurant bathrooms—the big brown ones that aren’t perforated. My wife won’t let me live it down.

Now, in year three of the pandemic, people are worrying yet again about food. Pictures of empty grocery shelves are popping up on social media, sometimes with a Russia-in-the-late-Cold-War feel to them. Some supermarkets are responding with a little trolling.

Which raises two big questions: Is this a serious national problem, or a local problem blown out of proportion by news media and social media? And, with the pandemic still not yet over, how can we expect this situation to develop in the weeks and months ahead?

https://www.thebulwark.com/about-those-empty-grocery-shelves/

https://publichealth.uams.edu/blog/coph-news/covid-19-forecasts-projections-and-impact-assessments-january-2022/

Summary points are:

The models are forecasting an increase in new daily COVID-19 cases in the state — forecast to increase from 9,529 cases on Jan. 18 to 22,672 on Feb. 15.
The 30-day models continue to show Arkansans between ages 35 and 59 will have the highest number of COVID-19 diagnoses — forecast to increase by 150,731 cumulative cases by Feb. 15.
COVID-19 cases in children 17 and younger are forecast to increase nearly 89% by Feb. 15, adding 112,844 cumulative cases.
The model forecasts an increase in daily hospitalizations over the next 15 days, from 96 to 180 new admissions per day.
The 30-day model is forecasting an average of 12 COVID-19 deaths per day for the next two weeks.
The models are showing we should expect COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths to continue to increase through Feb. 15. Models are based on past data and do not account for increases or decreases since the data were pulled on Jan. 17. The Omicron surge is not over.