South Australia’s COVID-19 blockade triggers panic in supermarket shopping

Images and videos circulating on social media show long lines in supermarkets and shelves stripped of toilet paper rolls.

Panic buying began Tuesday, a day before the announcement of the Marshall blockade, as the Adelaide cluster grew. Nine news items reported that supplies of handkerchiefs, meat and eggs were running low in some stores on Wednesday afternoon, while at least one supermarket ran out of toilet paper.

Woolworths and Coles on Wednesday announced two-article limits on products including meat, canned foods, toilet paper, milk, rice, pasta, hand sanitizer and masks.

Woolworths’ general manager in South Australia, Karl Weber, said supermarkets in the state had high stock levels and reminded shoppers that supermarkets would remain open during the lockdown.

“We know this is an anxious time for our South Australian customers, but we encourage everyone to continue shopping as they usually would and to buy only what they need,” he said.

South Australia Police Commissioner Grant Stevens has warned people against buying panic. “People don’t need to rush to supermarkets,” he said.

“And if you go shopping this afternoon, you should expect that you will be handled by supermarket staff and we will have police officers waiting to assist if we see civil unrest and we should act.

The head of the South Australian retail trade union begged the government to deploy police to protect the safety of shop workers.

“The state government announcement is causing chaos,” said SDA Secretary of State Josh Peak. “There’s a rush to the shops.”

He said shoppers should stop buying panic because supermarkets would remain open even during the lockdown.

A similar rush in food and supplies occurred across the country in March, when a nationwide lockdown was enforced in the early stages of the pandemic. The phenomenon, which also occurred abroad, prompted supermarkets to set limits on the number of certain goods that an individual could purchase.

The state’s Chief Health Officer, Nicola Spurrier, has called on South Australians to pay attention to frail people during the lockdown, which will keep residents confined to their homes for less than essential reasons.

“My advice is, if you have vulnerable family members, then older people or people with chronic illnesses, call them,” she said.

“What can we do to support you and that’s the kind of community spirit I know Southern Australians have.”

South Australian police are keen to enforce strict restrictions that include only one person per family being allowed to leave the house once a day. Exercise will also not be allowed outside people’s homes.

“Time is of the essence. And we need to act quickly and decisively, we can’t wait to see how bad it gets,” Marshall said.

“We need a circuit breaker to keep up with this. We need room for a contact-tracing blitz to protect the elderly, to protect the vulnerable, to protect our entire community.”

Why do people panic?

Australians use about 88 rolls of toilet paper per person, or just under two rolls per week, throughout the year, according to data from German market research firm Statista. This means that a family of four would need around 15 rolls for a 14-day quarantine period.

In early March, the trending topics on Twitter in Australia were #toiletpapergate and #toiletpapercrisis, as people hoarded bathroom essentials.

David Savage, a behavioral economics expert at Newcastle University, said two key factors in human behavior lead to panic buying: loss aversion and herd behavior. Dr Savage said the images of empty supermarket shelves lead people to believe there will be a shortage and that humans are “loss averse.”

Once people see empty shelves, the herd theory comes into play, he said. This pushes more people to buy toilet paper, for example, because they have instinctive faith in the judgment of others who buy much earlier than they do.

“And when herd behavior kicks in and loss aversion begins, everyone is involved,” said Dr. Savage.

In addition to this, humans like to feel in control of situations, especially when a potential risk is involved, he said.

He said it was not irrational for large groups of people to want to feel in control of a risky situation, saying stocking up on household items and drugs was an understandable reaction.

“When disasters happen, we see very strong patterns of behavior,” he said.

with Nick Bonyhady, Robyn Grace