For some reason, they've also started panic-buying toilet paper.But despite the photos of empty shelves popping up on social media, is there in fact any risk to the nation’s toilet paper pipeline?
The short answer: no.
"It’s not like suddenly all the toilet paper factories in the world are burning down," said Willy Shih, a professor at Harvard Business School who studies manufacturing supply chains. "They’re still cranking this stuff out."
If anything, toilet paper supplies are suffering from being too steady, Shih says. Typically, demand for the product is flat proportional to the population ‐ there is no hot season for toilet paper. That means that factories are designed to run as efficiently as possible around the clock to produce a constant stream of product, with little room for increase or decrease.When that constant supply meets a spike in demand, shoppers suddenly run into empty shelves.
Toilet paper is also distinct from products such as hand sanitizer and coronavirus test kits, where increased use means that there is a genuine risk of shortages. Barring a new craze for mummy costumes, the actual use of toilet paper is unlikely to increase.
And, by the way...
Only people who are at higher risk of serious illness from the virus, either from age or other medical conditions, are truly in need of stockpiling enough toilet paper to last for the duration of the outbreak, since going back out to the store for fresh rolls may put their safety at risk (though delivery services should be available as supplies replenish).
Other countries with severe outbreaks have not suffered total shutdowns of stores or illness rates that disabled the logistics and paper industries. In Italy and parts of China that went into full lockdown, grocery stores remained open, as did factories producing essential products.