Toilet paper is disappearing around the globe, and nobody is taking it sitting down.
The New York Post reported that it has triggered fistfights in supermarket aisles in Australia,
where one family inadvertently contributed to the crisis by ordering 48 boxes of toilet
paper instead of 48 rolls, roughly 12 years' worth.
"Now she's sitting comfortably on more than 2,000 rolls."
The BBC reported on an audacious armed robbery at dawn in Hong Kong.
And in Japan, Sora News said that one shopkeeper decided the only way to protect his restroom
from desperate toilet paper thieves was to draw up traditional curses to protect his
stash of spare loo rolls.
All over the world news of the potentially widespread COVID-19 coronavirus infection
has sent folks to supermarkets and drugstores looking to hoard essentials from face masks
and hand sanitizers, to non-perishable food items like canned goods, oat milk, ramen...and,
yes, toilet paper.
Shoppers in different countries were driven by different reasons for buying out toilet
paper.
In China, folks who had no access to surgical masks went for toilet paper because, as Australian
academic Nitika Garg said,
"There's a thinking that toilet paper can be substituted for tissues and napkins and
to make makeshift masks."
In Taiwan, toilet paper flew off the shelves because there were rumors that the island's
paper stocks were being used to make surgical masks, which would subsequently affect toilet
paper supplies.
Authorities later had to deny that this was the case.
In the case of countries like the United States, Canada, and Australia, panic-buying and the
need to hold on to as much toilet paper one can carry is most likely driven by fear of
the unknown, not by any proven or actual need for more toilet paper.
Clinical psychologist Steven Taylor explained to CNN,
"When people are told something dangerous is coming, but all you need to do is wash
your hands, the action doesn't seem proportionate to the threat.
Special danger needs special precautions."
It doesn't help that news reports showing empty shelves urge people to believe that
they're missing out if they don't go out and get more toilet paper right now.
"There is an element of where you actually do get drawn into that, a psychology where
you might fear like you may miss out.
A fear of missing out."
In Ireland, shoppers admitted to The Irish Times that all the panic-buying was admittedly
over the top, but they were doing it anyway.
Researchers at INSEAD Singapore, where the city's toilet paper supplies were compromised
early on in the crisis, said the panic-buying there was also driven by an element of retail
therapy; except instead of spending money on the latest gadgets and fashion, folks bought
useful items as shopping for those things reinforced their sense of control over the
crisis.
People are also spurred by the idea that a community coronavirus outbreak could result
in quarantine or a lockdown, which will impose restrictions on their freedom of movement.
Psychologist Baruch Fischhoff told CNN:
"Unless people have seen...official promises that everyone will be taken care of, they
are left to guess at the probability of needing the extra toilet paper, sooner rather than
later.
The fact that there are no official promises might increase those probabilities."
More than anything else, there is a need to have a sense of control over a situation whose
outcome no one can currently predict, and buying toilet paper could be one way of getting
to grips with an unknown.
Fischhoff said:
"Depending on how people estimate the chances of needing the toilet paper, the hassle might
be worth it.
If it gave them the feeling that they had done everything that they could, it might
free them to think about other things than coronavirus."
But for some folks who think a lockdown is imminent, the fact that they went all out
to build their toilet paper stash was totally worth it.
Frank Farley, former president of the American Psychological Association told CNN:
"[The novel coronavirus] is engendering a sort of survivalist psychology, where we must
live as much as possible at home and thus must 'stock up' on essentials, and that certainly
includes toilet paper.
After all, if we run out of [toilet paper], what do we replace it with?"
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