Masks were the first to go. Then, hand sanitizers. Goa may still be in the clear as far as coronavirus is concerned, but that hasn’t stopped people from implementing caution. With Narendra Modi’s appeal for a ‘janata curfew’ and the uncertainty ahead, many were seen buying and stocking up for ‘the winter that is coming.’ What could this panic buying mean for the state, and what exactly are Goans hoarding?
Citizens across the world are starting to panic buy as fears over the spread of Covid-19 grow.
Although not as manic as seen in Japan and the US, Goans are mostly seen purchasing food items with long shelf lives like canned foods, biscuits, rice, atta. Purchases of disinfectants and toiletry supplies such as soaps, detergents, toilet paper, etc has also seen an upsurge. The idea behind this is to basically delay their consequent trip to the grocery stores again.
According to Reuters, the health departments in Hawaii and Minnesota advised their residents to stock up on supplies, with the former advising people to prepare as they did for hurricanes, with a 14-day supply of food, water and other daily necessities.
However, the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) also said there was no need for healthy Americans to stockpile any supplies, even as shoppers thronged the shops.
Shoppers at a supermarket in Virginia cleared the shelves of non-perishables such as pasta. Social media users across are posting pictures of the goods they managed to get their hands on.
Then Costco ran out of toilet paper for the first time in history.
Even in Goa, supermarkets are piling up, not just with stock but with people as well as shoppers stock up to survive without a trip back to the market.
In South Goa, the markets are flooded with people buying provisions like onion, red chillies, tamarind, pulses in bulk, much like the stocking that happens before the monsoons.
Following the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s address to the nation on Thursday, people were senn coming out of their homes in large numbers late Thursday evening to stock up seemingly envisioning a notion of a very uncertain period in the future and thus preparing for the supposed worst that is to come.
But what can this mean for the state? How are we planning to handle the oncoming crisis. And with many unpaid employees on the rise, how will the citizens take care of themselves. Panic and fear across the globe
n Store shelves are being stripped bare all around the world
n Supermarkets in the UK have started rationing items
n A delivery man in Hong Kong, was reportedly robbed at knife-point of hundreds of toilet-paper rolls
n Australia has seen brawls break out at supermarkets prompting police to taser one man
n France effectively nationalized all production of face masks after people began depleting the supply
