The Reasons not to Hoard

Don’t be like this dragon.

It took me awhile to come to the conclusion that extreme stocking up and hoarding hurts everyone. My initial response as you can see in my diary was to do a large grocery shopping. Then I sat down with the models and realized that this crisis was likely to go on for months. I don’t know about you but I can’t store enough food to last me months. And even if I could stash that much food away I would still be reentering a society that harbors COVID-19.

My current approach is to plan our trips and get enough basic supplies so that we’re not having to make multiple trips when a single trip would have sufficed. How frequently we shop depends on the shelf life of Milk, fruits, and vegetables. We shop as frequently as needed to keep those perishable items in stock and get the staples at those times. We don’t need three months worth of toilet paper.

One person’s act of hoarding means that some other poor soul is running around having lots of touches and lots of interactions and increasing their chances of infection in order to get this one commodity that should be readily available.  Their increased chances of infection will in the end increase your chances of infection. So hoarding is not only selfish it is over a course of this outbreak self defeating.

(Furthermore with respect to toilet paper it’s not necessary for survival.  If worse comes to worse and you run out, wash your butt in the shower rather than fight someone for TP.)

Trader Joe’s a couple of days before the shelter in place order came through. It looks worse than it is… stores have been diligent about restocking.