Rationing and robbery: Coronavirus outbreak sparks toilet roll panic
SYDNEY/TOKYO: In Australia, major grocers have restricted supplies to one pack per person. In Japan, rolls are chained to the wall in public toilets. In Hong Kong, armed robbers carried out a heist as supplies were delivered to a supermarket.
Toilet paper has emerged as the unlikely No.1 stockpiling target for people across Asia who are worried that the spread of the coronavirus epidemic will lead to supply shortages.
While other household products - including disinfectants, tissues and staples like rice and pasta - have also proved popular, it is the humble toilet roll that has inspired showdowns in supermarket aisles and countless social media memes.
The demand has caught many shoppers and sellers short, but psychologists say hoarding is a natural human reaction in times of high anxiety - and a desire to ensure sufficient supplies for lavatory visits in particular is not too much of a surprise.
“When we’re buying stuff, things close to the body are very comforting, whether that be food, body care or in this case toilet paper,” Adam Ferrier, a Melbourne-based psychologist who specializes in consumer behavior, told Reuters.
“The size of toilet paper makes it feel like a substantial, big purchase. It makes it feel like you’re doing something. It taps back into that need for control. If you’re buying a hefty big pack of toilet paper, you kind of feel like you’re ‘stocking up’. You signify to yourself that you’re in control.”
Photos posted on social media showed plenty of shoppers in Asia seeking control this week as they pushed precariously overloaded carts to checkout counters after stripping shelves bare.
In Australia, police were called out to settle grocery aisle disputes, a delivery truck catching fire due to a mechanical fault made national headlines, and outback newspaper The NT News published an eight-page liftout of blank paper saying the move was to give the nation what it wanted.
“It’s been a wild week. Everyone’s been on the edge of their seat looking at what’s happening,” said Simon Griffiths, co-founder of Who Gives A Crap, a social enterprise that sells recycled toilet paper and gives half its profit to sanitation-related charity.
The company had to suspend store sales and new subscriptions on Wednesday when sales volumes jumped 1100% the day before.
SOCIAL MEDIA ROLE
In Japan, the economy ministry has launched a publicity campaign to urge calm, posting daily photos on its Twitter account of delivery trucks carrying toilet rolls arriving full at their destinations and of replenished store aisles.
“We wanted to send a message for consumers to understand that inventory was arriving,” ministry spokesman Yasushi Nozawa told Reuters, adding that while there was no shortage of supply of toilet rolls, distribution networks were struggling to keep up.
“Inventory has piled up at warehouses,” he said. “We have requested a doubling of daily delivery capacity from 20 million rolls to 40 million.”
It’s not the first time Japan has succumbed to toilet paper fever. During the global oil crisis of 1973, there were violent scenes in some stores as people rushed to buy bathroom tissue, fearing disruption to production.
Singapore-based academics Roland Bouffanais and Lim Sun Sun said this time around, social media played a major role in making the worries of a toilet paper crunch “propagate like a wildfire.”
“Collective behaviours among humans are remarkably similar to processes in the animal kingdom such as schooling among fish and flocking among birds,” they wrote in an editorial about toilet roll hoarding in the Straits Times newspaper.
STACKING UP
The situation has also led to some unusually frank comments by Asian politicians.
Singapore Trade Minister Chan Chun Sing was reported by local media as calling the panic buying idiotic in a meeting with business leaders, quipping: “Why stock toilet paper? If you eat all the rice and instant noodles you confirm diarrhea.” – Reuters
بلاول بھٹو زرداری کا حمزہ شہباز شریف کو رہائی پر مبارکباد کا ٹیلی فون
وزیر اعظم اگلے دو روز پارلیمنٹ ہاؤس میں ارکان سے ملاقاتیں کرینگے
حکومت کا آئندہ پندرہ روز کے لیے پیٹرولیم مصنوعات کی قیمتیں برقرار رکھنے کا فیصلہ۔ وزارت خزانہ
اسلام آباد:ر آصف علی زرداری اب سے کچھ دیر بعد اسلام آباد پہنچیں گے
پولیس اسٹیشن گلبہار کی حدود شیخ آباد نمبر 3 دو فریقین کے درمیان فائرنگ۔ 2 افراد جاں بحق
آصف علی زرداری سینیٹ انتخابات کیلئے سرگرم
نیلم جہلم ہائیڈرو پاورپلانٹ کی ترسیلی لائنوں اور پاورہاؤس کی سالانہ مرمت کامیابی کے ساتھ مکمل
سینیٹ الیکشن کی آمد سیاسی ملاقاتوں میں تیزی
پی ڈی ایم کی پلیٹ فارم سے ہم متحدہ اپوزیشن ہیں۔ پارلیمانی لیڈر سردار بابک
بیورو کریٹ ملک کو اچھی طرح چلائیں تو ملک جنت بن سکتا ہے۔ احسن اقبال
یوسف رضا گیلانی کا پاکستان مسلم لیگ (ضیاء) کے سربراہ محمد اعجاز الحق کو ٹیلیفون
اٹارنی جنرل آف پاکستان میں کووڈ ٹو تشخیص ہونے کا انکشاف
وفاقی حکومت کا پیٹرولیم مصنوعات کی قیمت نہ بڑھانے کا فیصلہ
وزیراعظم نے قلعہ نندنہ میں البیرونی ہیری ٹیج ٹریل کا افتتاح کردیا
سرعام نہتےشہریوں کوبےدردی سےشہید کرناافسوسناک ہے،مولانا فضل الرحمان
حریم شاہ نےبلاول بھٹو زرداری سےمحبت کا اظہارکردیا
اسد خان اچکزئی کےقتل کیخلاف صوبےبھر میں مکمل شٹرڈاؤن ہڑتال
پمز: کورونا ویکسین نہ لگوانے والے ہیلتھ ورکرز کو وارننگ
وزیر صحت خیبرپختونخوا نے جولائی تک 30 لاکھ افراد کی کورونا ویکسینیشن کرنے کی نوید سنادی
دوبارہ شادی کا خیال ذہن میں نہیں آسکتا، ریتھک روشن