Residents in Greater Sydney, the Blue Mountains, the Central Coast, and Wollongong were placed into a two-week lockdown on Saturday after NSW’s Covid-19 outbreak reached 82 cases. Shortly after the lockdown was announced, supermarkets across the lockdown areas were flooded with panicked shoppers, despite shopping for essentials being one of the four reasons to leave home under the new restrictions. Not to panic-buy calls from NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian appear to have been completely ignored as shoppers rushed to supermarkets before the lockdown. Ignoring calls, not panic buying, shoppers quickly cleared shelves across multiple stores, with toilet paper again becoming a hot commodity.
Other staples such as bread, meat, rice, and pasta are also targeted. Photos and videos have emerged online showing trolleys stacked with rolls of toilet paper and stores packed with people. On Friday, Coles introduced temporary restrictions on toilet paper for the City of Sydney, Randwick, Waverley, and Woollahra local government areas. The move came after the first set of lockdown restrictions for those areas were announced, with limits of two packs of toilet paper per customer.
Woolworths is yet to announce any new product limits for NSW. The supermarket chain is yet to announce if those limits will be extended to include the new lockdown areas. When announcing the lockdown, M.s Berejiklian assured residents there was “no need to panic buy”, noting that supermarkets would be open throughout the lockdown period. “You’re allowed outside to purchase goods, essential goods,s and services,s, and I appreciate people following these instructions,” she said during Saturday’s press conference.
“There is no need to panic buy. All the shops will be open every day of the week. “There is no curfew. You can leave your home at any stage to purchase any essential goods you need, which is a given.” She urged people to be “thoughtful and considerate” about their fellow citizens, emphasizing that there was no reason to do so rush out and stock up. There were also reports of panic buying on Thursday before any lockdown restrictions had even been announced.
As Sydney’s Covid-19 cluster rose, multiple shoppers were reporting their local Coles or Woolies had either been stripped bare or were running low on toilet paper. Condemnation of the panic buying has swifswiftlyn with several tweets pleading with people not to stockpile. “I am still wondering why people think toilet paper needs to be completely collected off the shelf every time there is a lockdown?” one person said. “This happened even when the shopsguaranteede that millions of rolls more were in he pipeline and no one would ever run out. Madness.” “Not panic buying toilet paper again, Sydney,” another person wrote.
