Stop Panicking: stop panic buying, and stop stockpiling food!

Stop Panicking: stop panic buying, and stop stockpiling food!

To anyone who, before now, didn’t fully understand the concept of “the tragedy of the commons”, look around you to what is happening in Ireland during the spread of Covid-19, which the World Health Organisation has recently classified as a pandemic.


It sounds scary when something is classified with a word as powerful as “pandemic”. Add a tense movie-thriller-sounding qualifying word to pandemic, such as Covid-19, and there is plenty of reason to let your thoughts disappear down a movie script dystopian style rabbit hole of horror scenarios.

The irony of the situation is that the only horror that is likely to occur form panic-driven stockpiling of food and (bizarrely) toiletries will be to the old, sick and vulnerable in society, who are the ones that we must surely try our hardest to protect. They are after all the ones most likely to suffer most during the pandemic.



Stop Panicking

Most of us will be fine whether we contract the virus or not, and life will go on. But the old, sick and vulnerable, who need food and supplies as much as the rest of us, but are left wanting because of healthy people panic buying, will be the ones whose potential suffering will be compounded by what is essentially lack of informed decision making.


Stop Panic Buying
It’s a simple thing to use words in our heads to rationalise anything. Bulk buying of food and goods for what we might think is “survival” during the Covid-19 pandemic is a perfect example of this. It’s easy to rationalise anything with words. Words without informed substance, in this context, however, can be meaningless self-perpetuating panic drivers. The words we use to rationalise decisions must be based in reliable knowledge.


When a pilot says they're going to fly you to America you don’t call their bluff and take over the plane to try to fly it yourself. They're the expert and their words hold weight when they speak them. Listen to the experts. All of the advice of experts points to the fact, and to the empirically unfolding facts, that if you are healthy and under the age of 70 you will very likely be fine.


Stop panic buying and leave unnecessary food and supplies in the shops so that there are supplies for those less capable of bulk buying.


Stop Stockpiling Food

Supply chains will continue to operate, and shops will continue to provide. But shops and supply chains might not be able to replenish quickly enough to provide for those that cannot bulk buy. If this happens then as a society we are responsible for, at the very least, causing the old, sick and vulnerable further unnecessary hardship and stress.


Get informed about what is happening. If you know a neighbour who is bulk buying or might not fully understand the situation then explain the situation to them and point them to government and HSE websites.


“The tragedy of the commons” is when there is enough for everybody but a small number takes more for whatever reason, in this case unnecessary Covid-19 panic. This reduces the amount available to everyone thus inciting more people to take more for themselves leaving more people at risk of not having enough. This process becomes a destructive spiral.


Don’t panic, and Stop panic buying.