Since the COVID-19 outbreak started, prices of personal protective equipment has surged due to the high demand and often, hoarding. The cost of surgical masks have increased by 20-fold, and many factories that once made shoes and cars have been turned into mask factories.
Now, China makes over 200 million face masks a day, over 20 times the amount in February. However, only 600,000 of those masks are N95 masks, the one health-care workers use. The World Health Organization estimates that 89 million medical marks are required each month, 76 million examination gloves, and 1.6 million goggles per month for international demand. According to the World Health Organization, the industry would have to increase manufacturing by 40% in order to meet this global demand.
According to the TIME, sales of aerosol disinfectants have increased 512% since last year, thermometers have increased 498%, and fresh meat alternatives, rising 280%.
And with the increase of hoarding among products such as toilet paper and hand sanitizer, companies are having to face the bullwhip effect. Since panic buying causes a magnified demand, the impact is moved up in the supply chain as customers feel the consequence of empty aisles. Once these retailers lose potential sales due to the lack of supply, these companies will often suffer financially and in terms of their employees. This unnecessary hoarding signals “false demand,” and thus retailers aren’t able to maintain steady inventory without demand date or visibility across their supply chain. For example, Costco Australia sold 192,000 rolls of toilet paper in only 30 minutes. This panic buying is not only putting factory workers and other workers into hours of overtime during a pandemic but most likely, toilet paper won’t be restocked on the shelves for some time.
All to say, panic buying isn't going to save lives. It is estimated that a family of four quarantined in their home would need 16 rolls per month on average. So during this pandemic, there's no need for individuals to go out and purchase a 100 rolls at a time. Instead of hoarding to feel at ease, we should be thinking about the countless, overworked workers having to restock our shelves.
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I definitely see how panic buying is becoming a problem not just for people who are looking for resources but also for the factory workers. I think something people should also be remembering is that if half the population has all the resources and the other half has nothing, that will still cause problems for the people with all the products. For example, if a small part of the population bought all of the hand sanitizer and cleaning supplies, they will be the only ones able to keep themselves and everything clean. But would good is that if everyone else around them is unable to do the same, then those people will just spread the virus to more people. I hope people realize this and stop hoarding resources, we're all in this together.
ReplyDeleteOnce the epidemic ends, will there be a large decline in demand for these things since the supply will go back to normal but everyone will already have a lot of it? It would seem that once everyone already has a stash of these products, the demand would go down since they wouldn't buy more of it while they already have a surplus of it.
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