TOILET PAPER

People started taking coronavirus seriously when they saw the empty store shelves. I remember the surprise I felt, walking into my local grocery store a few days before social distancing measures went into effect, and finding it cleaned out of toilet paper. Suddenly the vague threat of a global crisis felt much more real, because here, it seemed, was proof of the crisis in action.

Apparently many people had determined that they would soon be sequestered at home, incapable of shopping for supplies, and were compelled to stockpile. Weeks later, toilet paper remains stubbornly difficult to come by.

Why toilet paper? As the New York Times observed in a report about the sudden run on supplies, toilet paper, unlike hand sanitizer, face masks and other items that have been scarce as a result of the pandemic, “is not likely to be used more by Americans who are stricken with respiratory symptoms even as the coronavirus spreads.” There is no concrete reason we need more than usual. Toilet paper will not help prevent the spread of COVID-19, and as grocery stores and pharmacies remain open, it will remain available at an ordinary rate.

So how to account for the surge in demand? It started with a hoax — a viral tweet, originating in Japan, that claimed the country would soon run out of toilet paper because it comes from China, where the disruptions to supply chains would exhaust supplies. China is, in fact, the largest exporter of toilet paper in the world, and some of the government mandates enacted to suppress the disease did delay regular toilet paper shipments.

But the delays were brief, and the existing supplies ample — everything would have been fine had the hoax not changed consumer behaviour. Spurred on by the tweets, the Japanese flocked to stores and cleared shelves. Pictures of those empty shelves went viral, driving people to panic- buy TP in markets around the world. Alarm bred more alarm; fear of scarcity created scarcity.

Johann Christoph Michalski, chief executive of major toilet paper manufacturer Vinda International Holdings, told the South China Morning Post last month that the crisis was a self-fulfilling prophecy. Toilet paper shortages “were actually created by panic buying, rather than the ability of the industry to provide products.”