Nowadays the topic of coronavirus appears in each radio, TV and newspaper. The whole world lives on dramatical situation with coronavirus. I suppose that most of people are stressed and afraid of being infected by coronavirus. In most European countries national borders have been closed. In some countries people must not to leave their homes unless they want to buy the most necessary products. Panic buying helps people feel in control of the situation. They think that if they buy more products they will be safer than others. On the one hand I can understand, that, if they buy, for example, a lot of pasta, rice and cans, they can stay home, but, on the other hand, I do not understand them because they stay in a very long queue where the probability of being infected is much more higher than in case of a small supermarket. In my opinion it is essential part of life of a human being, that, if human being is afraid of something , she/he tries to make some activities to avoid it but in most cases it does not do better. They do it to have peace of mind and feel that they did something. To sum up, I think that buy two packs of pasta more is okay, but buying twenty two packs of pasta is a little bit strange!
The situations presented in this article are similar to those I experienced myself. On Wednesday last week my university has been closed for students. After work I went to shop to buy some products. When I passed the entrance door I saw many people inside and empty shelves. Depth in my soul I smiled. I don't know why. Maybe because for me it was too early for preparations and making food supplies. This day on the internet and read that in Poland above twenty people was infected by a virus. The next week I spent in home and worked remotely. In these days I wrote on a messenger with my friend and he told my that his fridge is full. He was prepared to stay at home for 2 or more weeks. I think that closing school and a lot of information from the world caused fear in people. One day may mom sent me a voice message. In this message I heard that our government will close cities. Some days later I read on the Internet that this message was a fake message. In Germany it was similar. My aunt wrote that in shops are empty shelves and the toilet paper is difficult to get. A week later situation was returned to normal and shelves were full with products. Yesterday I was in shop and I could buy everything that I needed. The shopping panic has a negative consequence for product price. This products that protect us or are necessary to live disappear faster form the shelves. Producers know that we will buy their products because we need them and for every price. A good example are protection mask. Before virus outbreak we could buy it for low price and now the price is 2 or more times higher. All people need to stay calm and cooperate together to fight with virus.
WOW, maybe I'm weird, or maybe the whole world is crazy. One of the musicians - the classic sang "This world is strange", it's great to panic and sell 150-200% of the produced goods. PEOPLE !!!, don't get crazy !!! As a colleague wrote earlier, life will return to normal! I hope ;-), and if not like in many movies we can watch, the water world, the lord of fire, the world will change and we will have to live on and fight ... Maybe you think "old grandfather" maybe yes, maybe no, but when I started my "adult life" these years ago I didn't think it would be so hard. I wish you peace and love. We'll see if we can finish these studies.
What some people do is way beyond what we should be doing in this situation. When people see a struggle for toilet paper or empty shelves in shops, they unfortunately join the collective panic. The supply of all products is not at risk, and I think restricting access to the basic products that are needed for life would be the last thing the government can do. Unfortunately that is the nature of man and the constant worrying information from all available media does not help in this situation. I don't get paranoid myself and actually do more shopping but only to visit the shops as little as possible. I see that the situation in the shops is slowly returning to normal and people are trying to be very careful and try to keep their distance.
The situation describe in the article is universal for people around the world, because of our psychological predisposition. In a face of a threat we react automatically, when you are uncertain about tomorrow you will want to do everything that is possible to be prepare to survive, to ensure your family will have all of the basic supplies. Even though I think that some people overreact, gatering supplies for few months, this winds up spirals of fear and make other people buy more then they planed just to have as much as others. In this time I’m in favor of restricting amount of first need product per person to bring some peace in people. This state of emergency will end some day soon and people will be left with tons of pasta they can't look at any more.
The article deals with the psychological behavior of a person in an emergency. Everywhere you can see the same mechanisms guiding man. You can see how information "rules" people, prices and the economy. Lack of basic items caused a sudden increase in prices in my opinion not entirely justified, because after a week the shelves are full and higher prices persist. I am very curious how people will use up all their supplies and whether mass waste of expired or unnecessary products will be awaiting us. Making excessive stocks is not economical and ecological.
We're living the news now. Based only on pictures and headlines from the media you can get depressed, paranoid and wait for the end of the world. It is worth reading the opinions of experts who dealt with this topic before this world problem arose. At the end of 2019, a mysterious virus appeared, which caused an epidemic of pneumonia in people. Coronaviruses are responsible for causing respiratory diseases. They are common in nature. It is believed that these microorganisms are responsible for about 30% of colds in humans. The infection spreads from human to human mainly by aerogenic route (drip, aerosol). Taking into account the incubation period, it can be concluded that the most dangerous are the infected persons who are in the incubation period of the disease; they sow the virus shortly before the occurrence of the fever. With every form of disease, we are dealing with the sowing of the virus. Infection resistance occurs as with most coronavirus infections about 7-14 days after infection. The main route for the spread of the disease is the aerosol (drip) route. Therefore, the most important thing to follow is to avoid clusters of people. This means reducing travel by bus, train and plane. The virus is very sensitive to the ultraviolet radiation emitted by the sun. These rays quickly destroy the genetic material (genome) of the virus, resulting in its inactivation. For this reason, most of the epidemics associated with pulmonary coronaviruses end in May and June. Based on human experience, it can be concluded that before vaccines against these diseases became widely available, the problem of these diseases had already expired by itself. Based on past experience, the strength of ultraviolet rays should be believed. It is to be hoped that the problem will be largely contained in May, or at the latest in June; when it will be bright. According to many experts, the eradication of the epidemic will also be supported by a dynamically growing, every week, percentage of people with immunity to infectious diseases, it is to be hoped that above all those who have developed the disease without symptomatic
In my city, when the government announced the first case of the infected in Poland, ALL flours, rice, cereals, meat, milk, cleaning products and toilet paper disappeared from store shelves. It was just unlucky that on this day we went for ordinary weekly shopping and found empty shelves. We had to go through five stores to find what we wanted to buy and do at least minimal stocks, because we did not know if this state would not last longer, so we also fell into this spiral of fear for a moment. Fortunately, a few days later, all stores were restocked, but the number of buyers drastically decreased. It pains me that many people see profit opportunity in the current situation and raise prices horrendously for some products, especially poultry. In these times, we should help ourselves, not prey on others. Unfortunately, not only in Poland we could notice such panic. I know from friends that the South Korean government has imposed restrictions on pharmacies because of a deficit in face masks, that each person can only buy two face masks a week, and every day different age rang eis allowed to buy to keep people from besieging pharmacies. People around the world, as soon as they learned that the virus had reached their country, fueled by specially pessimistic visions of the media went crazy. I saw a lot of photos with empty store shelves. In times of crisis that we have encountered, we should remain calm and approach everything rationally. There is no shortage of food in our country, and if we are not in forced quarantine, we can go to the store and buy the most necessary things. I hope that people somehow consume their huge purchases and all the food they bought does not spoil.
There was also an interesting article about that behavior in crisis: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/science-and-philosophy/202003/why-toilet-paper. The primary culprit is a cultural phenomenon that economists, psychologists, and political scientists have called the bandwagon effect. The bandwagon, as explained, is an effect (or contagion effect) is a phenomenon in which the rate at which the spread of ideas, behavior, and trends rises with the rate of others adopting the trend. It is a vicious circle; media (and social media) shows that there is no toilet paper in stores, so we are nervous about that, and we are buying way too much. Funny enough, it applies to all nations worldwide.
I'm shocked how people react for pandemic in Poland...that's horrible! The article describe situation on the whole world but for me the most important is our behaviour in our country. I can't understand why people trying to buy EVERYTHING and much more than they need. What was point of that behawiour? To stay at home at least one month?! It's just imposiible or people buy also a few fridges to their flats. In my opinion everyone should buy like in normal day but plan meals for a few days. I have nothing more to add...let's stay calm, stay home, and everything will end well.
I'm used shopping by dozens in my local shop. 12-pack of milk, 12-pack of dog food, 12-pack of cola etc. Now I'm joined by all those `amateurs`, and am part of the crowd - but as usual, for different reasons :-) . What the article does not point out, is that shops and whole supply chain is tuned for some base load. If there is a surge of demand only by couple of percents, it temporarily stalls the system, and we see empty shelves. Similar thing with queues: shops are optimized for usual throughput, and anything above this causes spikes in queues length. Long queues can be observed before all major holidays, even though it's not surprise to anyone. When caused by unexpected event, such problems can trigger anxiety for even most calm consumers.
The situation we are in is extremely strange. About 150 people died of flu last year, including nearly 78% for ominous A / H1N1. For the same illness, in 2009 about 24 percent of people in the world got sick and 284,000 people died. I do not remember that there was a lack of toilet paper in stores then. Also It seems sad to lose a job by thousands of people or even hundreds of thousands but as they say nature hates the vacuum and there will be a place for them in the new upcoming reality
Nowadays the topic of coronavirus appears in each radio, TV and newspaper. The whole world lives on dramatical situation with coronavirus. I suppose that most of people are stressed and afraid of being infected by coronavirus. In most European countries national borders have been closed. In some countries people must not to leave their homes unless they want to buy the most necessary products. Panic buying helps people feel in control of the situation. They think that if they buy more products they will be safer than others. On the one hand I can understand, that, if they buy, for example, a lot of pasta, rice and cans, they can stay home, but, on the other hand, I do not understand them because they stay in a very long queue where the probability of being infected is much more higher than in case of a small supermarket. In my opinion it is essential part of life of a human being, that, if human being is afraid of something , she/he tries to make some activities to avoid it but in most cases it does not do better. They do it to have peace of mind and feel that they did something. To sum up, I think that buy two packs of pasta more is okay, but buying twenty two packs of pasta is a little bit strange!
ReplyDeleteThe situations presented in this article are similar to those I experienced myself. On Wednesday last week my university has been closed for students. After work I went to shop to buy some products. When I passed the entrance door I saw many people inside and empty shelves. Depth in my soul I smiled. I don't know why. Maybe because for me it was too early for preparations and making food supplies. This day on the internet and read that in Poland above twenty people was infected by a virus. The next week I spent in home and worked remotely. In these days I wrote on a messenger with my friend and he told my that his fridge is full. He was prepared to stay at home for 2 or more weeks. I think that closing school and a lot of information from the world caused fear in people. One day may mom sent me a voice message. In this message I heard that our government will close cities. Some days later I read on the Internet that this message was a fake message. In Germany it was similar. My aunt wrote that in shops are empty shelves and the toilet paper is difficult to get. A week later situation was returned to normal and shelves were full with products. Yesterday I was in shop and I could buy everything that I needed. The shopping panic has a negative consequence for product price. This products that protect us or are necessary to live disappear faster form the shelves. Producers know that we will buy their products because we need them and for every price. A good example are protection mask. Before virus outbreak we could buy it for low price and now the price is 2 or more times higher.
ReplyDeleteAll people need to stay calm and cooperate together to fight with virus.
WOW, maybe I'm weird, or maybe the whole world is crazy. One of the musicians - the classic sang "This world is strange", it's great to panic and sell 150-200% of the produced goods. PEOPLE !!!, don't get crazy !!! As a colleague wrote earlier, life will return to normal! I hope ;-), and if not like in many movies we can watch, the water world, the lord of fire, the world will change and we will have to live on and fight ... Maybe you think "old grandfather" maybe yes, maybe no, but when I started my "adult life" these years ago I didn't think it would be so hard. I wish you peace and love. We'll see if we can finish these studies.
ReplyDeleteWhat some people do is way beyond what we should be doing in this situation. When people see a struggle for toilet paper or empty shelves in shops, they unfortunately join the collective panic. The supply of all products is not at risk, and I think restricting access to the basic products that are needed for life would be the last thing the government can do. Unfortunately that is the nature of man and the constant worrying information from all available media does not help in this situation. I don't get paranoid myself and actually do more shopping but only to visit the shops as little as possible. I see that the situation in the shops is slowly returning to normal and people are trying to be very careful and try to keep their distance.
ReplyDeleteThe situation describe in the article is universal for people around the world, because of our psychological predisposition. In a face of a threat we react automatically, when you are uncertain about tomorrow you will want to do everything that is possible to be prepare to survive, to ensure your family will have all of the basic supplies.
ReplyDeleteEven though I think that some people overreact, gatering supplies for few months, this winds up spirals of fear and make other people buy more then they planed just to have as much as others. In this time I’m in favor of restricting amount of first need product per person to bring some peace in people. This state of emergency will end some day soon and people will be left with tons of pasta they can't look at any more.
The article deals with the psychological behavior of a person in an emergency. Everywhere you can see the same mechanisms guiding man. You can see how information "rules" people, prices and the economy. Lack of basic items caused a sudden increase in prices in my opinion not entirely justified, because after a week the shelves are full and higher prices persist. I am very curious how people will use up all their supplies and whether mass waste of expired or unnecessary products will be awaiting us. Making excessive stocks is not economical and ecological.
ReplyDeleteWe're living the news now. Based only on pictures and headlines from the media you can get depressed, paranoid and wait for the end of the world. It is worth reading the opinions of experts who dealt with this topic before this world problem arose.
ReplyDeleteAt the end of 2019, a mysterious virus appeared, which caused an epidemic of pneumonia in people. Coronaviruses are responsible for causing respiratory diseases. They are common in nature. It is believed that these microorganisms are responsible for about 30% of colds in humans. The infection spreads from human to human mainly by aerogenic route (drip, aerosol). Taking into account the incubation period, it can be concluded that the most dangerous are the infected persons who are in the incubation period of the disease; they sow the virus shortly before the occurrence of the fever. With every form of disease, we are dealing with the sowing of the virus. Infection resistance occurs as with most coronavirus infections about 7-14 days after infection. The main route for the spread of the disease is the aerosol (drip) route. Therefore, the most important thing to follow is to avoid clusters of people. This means reducing travel by bus, train and plane. The virus is very sensitive to the ultraviolet radiation emitted by the sun. These rays quickly destroy the genetic material (genome) of the virus, resulting in its inactivation. For this reason, most of the epidemics associated with pulmonary coronaviruses end in May and June. Based on human experience, it can be concluded that before vaccines against these diseases became widely available, the problem of these diseases had already expired by itself.
Based on past experience, the strength of ultraviolet rays should be believed. It is to be hoped that the problem will be largely contained in May, or at the latest in June; when it will be bright.
According to many experts, the eradication of the epidemic will also be supported by a dynamically growing, every week, percentage of people with immunity to infectious diseases, it is to be hoped that above all those who have developed the disease without symptomatic
In my city, when the government announced the first case of the infected in Poland, ALL flours, rice, cereals, meat, milk, cleaning products and toilet paper disappeared from store shelves. It was just unlucky that on this day we went for ordinary weekly shopping and found empty shelves. We had to go through five stores to find what we wanted to buy and do at least minimal stocks, because we did not know if this state would not last longer, so we also fell into this spiral of fear for a moment. Fortunately, a few days later, all stores were restocked, but the number of buyers drastically decreased. It pains me that many people see profit opportunity in the current situation and raise prices horrendously for some products, especially poultry. In these times, we should help ourselves, not prey on others. Unfortunately, not only in Poland we could notice such panic. I know from friends that the South Korean government has imposed restrictions on pharmacies because of a deficit in face masks, that each person can only buy two face masks a week, and every day different age rang eis allowed to buy to keep people from besieging pharmacies. People around the world, as soon as they learned that the virus had reached their country, fueled by specially pessimistic visions of the media went crazy. I saw a lot of photos with empty store shelves. In times of crisis that we have encountered, we should remain calm and approach everything rationally. There is no shortage of food in our country, and if we are not in forced quarantine, we can go to the store and buy the most necessary things. I hope that people somehow consume their huge purchases and all the food they bought does not spoil.
ReplyDeleteThere was also an interesting article about that behavior in crisis: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/science-and-philosophy/202003/why-toilet-paper.
ReplyDeleteThe primary culprit is a cultural phenomenon that economists, psychologists, and political scientists have called the bandwagon effect. The bandwagon, as explained, is an effect (or contagion effect) is a phenomenon in which the rate at which the spread of ideas, behavior, and trends rises with the rate of others adopting the trend. It is a vicious circle; media (and social media) shows that there is no toilet paper in stores, so we are nervous about that, and we are buying way too much. Funny enough, it applies to all nations worldwide.
I'm shocked how people react for pandemic in Poland...that's horrible! The article describe situation on the whole world but for me the most important is our behaviour in our country. I can't understand why people trying to buy EVERYTHING and much more than they need. What was point of that behawiour? To stay at home at least one month?! It's just imposiible or people buy also a few fridges to their flats.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion everyone should buy like in normal day but plan meals for a few days. I have nothing more to add...let's stay calm, stay home, and everything will end well.
I'm used shopping by dozens in my local shop. 12-pack of milk, 12-pack of dog food, 12-pack of cola etc. Now I'm joined by all those `amateurs`, and am part of the crowd - but as usual, for different reasons :-) .
ReplyDeleteWhat the article does not point out, is that shops and whole supply chain is tuned for some base load. If there is a surge of demand only by couple of percents, it temporarily stalls the system, and we see empty shelves. Similar thing with queues: shops are optimized for usual throughput, and anything above this causes spikes in queues length. Long queues can be observed before all major holidays, even though it's not surprise to anyone. When caused by unexpected event, such problems can trigger anxiety for even most calm consumers.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThe situation we are in is extremely strange.
ReplyDeleteAbout 150 people died of flu last year, including nearly 78% for ominous A / H1N1. For the same illness, in 2009 about 24 percent of people in the world got sick and 284,000 people died.
I do not remember that there was a lack of toilet paper in stores then. Also It seems sad to lose a job by thousands of people or even hundreds of thousands but as they say nature hates the vacuum and there will be a place for them in the new upcoming reality