
Ask HN: Have you observed any Covid-19 related panic buying yet? - mothsonasloth
I&#x27;m based in Scotland, UK.<p>We haven&#x27;t officially reported any infections from COVID-19 yet and currently there doesn&#x27;t appear to be any panic buying.<p>I went to three separate retail districts:<p>* The first one is predominantly a discount &#x2F; family retail park. Shelves were at about 80% stock in the afternoon, and staff were actively restocking.<p>* The second was a large supermarket (Tesco), this was in the evening and despite being busy, it was still well stocked.<p>* The third and final place was a town centre, with many small shops (pharmacies, kiosks and grocery convenience shops). Some were low on daily sundries (toilet paper, ready meals, milk and bread). Perhaps because it was local, its just lazy people.<p>So, what have you observed in your corner of the world?<p>When responding please try in this format, so we have useful data:<p>* Location<p>* Area type (urban, suburban, countryside, very rural)<p>* Shop type (bulk, megastore, supermarket, retail park, medium &#x2F; small)<p>* Water supply - high &#x2F; low<p>* Food supply - high &#x2F; low<p>* Sanitary supply - high &#x2F; low
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schappim
My wife and I run an electronics boutique.

Our entire stock of industrial non-contact IR thermometers was purchased by a
single guy who said he wanted to send them back to China.

My wife explained that they were for industrial use (out about half a degree),
and not accurate enough for medical use. He purchased them anyway. :-\

~~~
forkexec
They're often off by more than that. I briefly thought I had a 100.5 fever
from one of those laser pointer + IR sensors when it was 98.6 by a proper
thermometer.

~~~
schappim
Sorry, I should have noted that these were "non-stone-cutter-degrees"[1] (i.e.
ºC).

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoSLiHKrzRU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoSLiHKrzRU)

~~~
forkexec
I saw that episode when it originally ran. Hehe. Also, where I worked had
Simpsons' character names as hostnames. Can you guess the industry?

PS: I'm not Homer.

------
TheAlchemist
Paris, France

People are definitely stocking up on supplies - I wouldn't say panic, just
prevention.

Went to local big hypermarket and several non-perishable food (pasta, rice,
canned corn) were out of stock (which for made a pretty impressive picture -
here is one I found on the net from this shop:
[https://twitter.com/jeanmgodard/status/1234044230034763776](https://twitter.com/jeanmgodard/status/1234044230034763776)
). From what I hear, it was definitely not like this everywhere, but still -
it's one of the bigger ones in this part of Paris suburbs.

------
MandieD
Mid-sized Edeka (mid-range grocery store) that serves a near-in suburban
Nuremberg neighborhood, Saturday (shops are usually closed Sundays in
Germany):

Water supply: did not note that or beer/other shelf-stable non-alcoholic
bottle drinks, as it’s in a different part of the store, and we had enough
already and are confident in our ability to purify tap on the off-chance that
becomes necessary. Wine/booze stocks in the main part of the store looked
plentiful :)

Food supply: the cheaper varieties of rice, pasta, flour, tomato products
(canned and paste) and cooking oil were cleared out, but the pricier stuff was
still at normal Saturday stock levels. Normal levels of fresh produce, with
somewhat fewer potatoes, bananas and apples. Cheaper dairy was ransacked, but
like dry goods, premium options remained.

Sanitary supply: all the cheap toilet paper and paper towels were gone, but
more expensive varieties were generally available.

Note: this was the day after the first public reports of COVID-19 cases in
Nuremberg and Erlangen. I’m delighted to have been doing my bulk shopping in
smaller amounts throughout the past two weeks, aside from a final top-up on
Friday, when my rather full shopping cart at the Rewe (other mid-sized, mid-
market grocery store) got some stares.

What a difference a day makes!

------
Jugurtha
Location: Algiers

Area type: Urban. Protests gathering million people, packed together, every
friday and coming up with funny songs about Corona virus. The people here
laugh about practically everything, especially themselves which they love to
do.

I couldn't understand the rest of the questions. Life is just normal. Corona
for people here is just like Ebola, Zika, or other "diseases": they just heard
about it and the Italian guy who's got it here. Of course, people started
talking in Italian to signify they have the virus. Also ordering Corona in
coffee shops, trolling people pretending they have Corona, and any funny or
not funny joke you can imagine. I'll spare you the obvious bar jokes.

However, I regularly have to go to Paris for work, a two hour flight, and I'm
probably going this week. I usually try to keep it as short as possible (get-
in-get-out-life-is-too-short-for-intercontinental-meetings-even-though-in-
person-meeings-are-highly-valuable style not to disturb "Real Engineering Work
(TM)") and I'm thinking of making this trip as short as a no-trip.

Then again, I'm going to present a project named ПRAVDA so who am I to judge.

------
mstolpm
Vienna, Austria - Friday around noon, multiple supermarkets, urban

Water: didn't notice (tap water is perfectly fine here), but pallets of canned
beer, soft drinks or energy drinks (???) in nearly every shopping cart.

Food: no "panic", but (nearly) empty shelfs for the cheaper varieties of dried
pasta, rice, flour, sugar, canned chili con carne / goulash and so on.
Shopping carts fuller than normal. But no shortage for almost all other
products.

Sanitary: low stock on toilet paper, almost no stock on soap and sanitizer.

Supermarkets more crowded than normally at this time, shopping carts fuller
than normal. People even joked when queuing at the cashier that this is just
their normal weekend shopping (piling 60 rolls of toilet paper on top of the
cart).

This was shortly after the Austrian government presented rules for handling
COVID-19 and told people there is no reason to panic, while journalists
reported on the first "Hamsterkäufe", low stock and rising prices. Half a week
before Austria had no confirmed cases, now its 8 in Vienna and 14 in whole
Austria, but likely to rise with new announcements on Monday.

------
csnewb
I'm a Bay Area resident. I went to Costco today at 9:00 AM and it was an
absolute shitshow.

~~~
anonsivalley652
Isn't that a normal Sunday at most Costcos? ;@) (That's why I go on a
weekday.)

Hint: Costco (COST), Clorox (CLX) and Pfizer (PFE; makes Purell) stocks seem
like very short-term value-investing strategies (unless they're losing money
elsewhere) because of both the market dip and they're having crazy sales
numbers. It's probably a good idea to buy some stocks in general during this
temporary downturn, because the odds that it will turn into a recession are
very low and it will most likely bounce back.

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vanusa
Let's just speak of "increased levels" of buying, please.

Depending on where you live - it is not objectively reflective of "panic" to
start stocking up on some of these supplies.

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rolisz
* Romania, Northwestern part * Urban * Megastore * Water supply - high * Food supply - high * Sanitary supply - high

I went to Auchan yesterday and they had a sign at the entrance saying that
people shouldn't buy more than they need.

However, news reporting from Bucharest said that several big shops had the
food supply running low. But then there were other pictures on Facebook
showing how one TV channel emptied an aisle just for the pictures, so I take
news reports with a big grain of salt.

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dot1x
* Location: Ireland, Dublin

* Area type (urban, suburban, countryside, very rural) -- Urban

* Shop type (bulk, megastore, supermarket, retail park, medium / small) -- Any

* Water supply - high

* Food supply - high

* Sanitary supply - low

In Dublin the only thing missing is hand sanitizer. I had to navigate 5-6
pharmacies until I found one offering "hospital grade" hand sanitizer, sold at
16 EUR per 500ml (expensive AF).

LIDL, Tesco, Aldi are all well stocked with no problems finding anything.

------
marvel_boy
Spanish doctor caught trying to steal 300 masks from hospital [1]
[https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/11056572/spanish-doctor-
caught...](https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/11056572/spanish-doctor-caught-
stealing-masks-costa-del-sol-hospital-coronavirus/)

------
fhars
There were only one and a half sixpack of Corona left in the local
supermarket.

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forkexec
When the first cases were reported in China, there was panic-buying of face
masks predominantly by Asian and Caucasians Americans at a Walgreens
pharmacy/hypermart in Palo Alto, California.

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JMTQp8lwXL
California, Urban supermarket. Food, water, and sanitary supply high.

------
qzx_pierri
One of my buddies reads InfoWars daily and said he’s been preparing, but if I
didn’t watch the news/read social media, I don’t even think I would know about
the virus

~~~
anonsivalley652
_Conspiracy level: Tin Foil Hat_

 _Pseudo-science level: Strong_

 _Overall, InfoWars /Alex Jones is a crackpot, tin foil hat level conspiracy
website that also strongly promotes pseudoscience. The amount of fake news and
debunked conspiracy claims, as well as extreme right wing bias, renders
InfoWars a non-credible source on any level._

[https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/infowars-alex-
jones](https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/infowars-alex-jones)

------
planetzero
My Local Cosco was packed this weekend (US-midwest). I've been there on other
weekends and it's not that bad. Many disinfectant-related products were sold
out.

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thewizardofaus
From speaking to people working in retail 4 weeks ago; a large portion of
items that have "been cleared out" locally were being sent overseas to China.

------
jacquesm
Dettol and other hand sanitizers sold out completely here in large (chain)
supermarkets, checked 3 of them. That's just one small town though.

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phendrenad2
The local Costco has significantly less bottled water than a few weeks ago,
however I really need more data points to call it a negative trendline.

~~~
mothsonasloth
Thanks, can you try and edit in the format I suggested.

~~~
NicoJuicy
Then use Amazon workers ;)

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cappell
* Munich, Germany

* Urban

* Megastore

* Water supply: high

* Food supply: high

* Sanitary supply: low

In Munich Pasta, Tomato sauce, toilet paper and sanitizer are sold out or
pretty hard to get. People are prepping and buying larger units than usual.

------
NicoJuicy
No panic buying at all :) ( Belgium)

2 female collegues are worried ( one from Canada and 1 planned to cancel her
trip to Romania), 25 employees in total.

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rogerkirkness
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

Suburban

Megastore

Water: larger quantities starting to sell out

Food: increased purchasing but most SKUs still have stock

Sanitary: weirdly low but not sold out

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Satwell2
Brooklyn, NY

Urban

Bulk

The Costco here had an hour wait to get into the store yesterday.

