Toilet paper

[RockRaven]

32. I think that there are two or three things going on.

One is panicky/irrational emergency preparation. Nobody's ever prepared for a pandemic before. But maybe they've prepared for regional flooding or a hurricane or a winter storm-pocaypse or earthquakes or whatever. So they are trying to prepare for the pandemic like they would prepare for getting snowed in, even though the preparation should be pretty different if you soberly think about it.

Then there is the psychological factor of the helplessness inherent in this situation. In reality, there is very little the person of average means can do to prepare for a pandemic. Logistically, most don't have the resources to stockpile more than a year's worth of everything and successfully completely cut off their home from the outside world for that length of time. There is also the issue of not knowing what exactly one should do to be perfectly prepared. So in the absence of being able to do what would actually work, one copes with the anxiety by doing what one can. Buying toilet paper, or bottled water, or hand sanitizer, or household cleaners, etc is all the potential preparations available to some people, so that is what they do to feel like they've safe-guarded themselves in whatever small way they can.

It reminds me of people who want their doctor, or their lawyer, or their politician to JUST DO SOMETHING in response to a problem. Even when the evidence shows that in the circumstance in question there is no known action which would help, people still get upset at the inaction. Only that anxiety and demand for action is turned inward in this case.

The third thing is people see other people panic-buying and worry that there is going to be a shortage, so decide that they ought to stock-up also just to get ahead of any supply problems. [Full disclosure: the day I first saw our local store shelves were devoid of hand sanitizer I went home and ordered some on-line (at non-yet-gouged pricing) because at that point I didn't know when I would next be able to get any. Unlike toilet paper, this seems actually to be a problem, since it has been a few weeks and the shelves are still empty and on-line sources are raising prices and/or out of stock.]