Is It a Pandemic Yet?

Re:Is It a Pandemic Yet? by jonplackett on Monday February 24, 2020 @10:26AM (#22404765)

You’re not taking into account panic buying / ordering. If it gets bad where you are people are just going to order as much as they can and then there won’t be enough - this already happened with masks here in the UK and we only have a few cases. I had to send some to Hong Kong for a family member a few weeks back and paid £20 for packs of 20 for proper n95 respirators. They’re now sold out online and everywhere despite being £15 EACH.

Stock up now while no-one is panicking yet. Don’t waste money buying weird stuff - Just get stuff you’ll use anyway over the next few months.

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Re:Is It a Pandemic Yet? by mytailorisrich on Monday February 24, 2020 @10:37AM (#22404879)

> Stock up now while no-one is panicking yet

That's what triggers panic buying... It's a snowball effect.

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Re:Is It a Pandemic Yet? by jerf on Monday February 24, 2020 @10:54AM (#22405109)

Call it tragedy of the commons, call it whatever you like; your not buying stuff now isn't going to prevent a run later.

Socially, you're probably still better off buying sooner rather than later, because that means the system has more time to restock and ship things around for people later. If you're part of the end pile up, you're another stresser at the worst time.

As evidence of this... the ideal time to stock up with emergency supplies was months or even a couple of years ago, when it would bother nobody. I've buffed up some supplies a bit, but I wasn't starting from scratch because I've been keeping stuff on hand for a while now. Giving the system months or years of headstart is better than weeks, but weeks or even a single week is better than nothing.

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Re:Is It a Pandemic Yet? by jonplackett on Tuesday February 25, 2020 @03:53AM (#22411748)

Thanks for this comeback - exactly. Ordering a few extra tins of beans and spaghetti is hardly going to create a snowball effect if you do it now. Food isn’t in short supply in general, it just may become in relatively short supply in the shops near you. They’ll reorder more by tomorrow with no issues. It’s just about having it in your house VS in a storage centre some place.

Masks is slightly different I will agree. They are genuinely in short supply and medical workers need them more.

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