Preparation and panic

When I heard that New Zealand had reported its first case of COVID-19, I didn’t rush to the supermarket and buy extra toilet paper. It did not cross my mind. In fact, it didn’t cross my mind to do anything at all. I heard it on the car radio when I was on my way to walk the dog, and the only thing I felt was a vague sense of annoyance. I remember thinking that New Zealand had been quick to shut the border to visitors from China and I wondered if we hadn’t been quite so quick to respond to the presence of disease in other countries. I wondered whether there were certain prejudices involved in that decision.

That was about it. I didn’t feel anxious. I didn’t wonder if I should get prepared. I didn’t head to social media or phone friends and family to discuss it. I did know that the arrival in New Zealand of the “Wuhan coronavirus”, as it was then being called, was significant, because we had previously escaped cases of bird flu, SARS, Ebola and MERS. These outbreaks had resulted in no shortage of frightening reports in the media, but they hadn’t penetrated our remote, South Pacific bubble. But even with the arrival of a case on our shores, I still had a comfortable feeling of complacency.

Clearly, not everyone felt the same. My parents had already decided not to plan any travel to the northern hemisphere for the coming year – a precaution I considered wise. My brother, in Sydney, was becoming increasingly concerned and asked them to postpone their planned Easter visit there. Less than a fortnight after New Zealand’s first case, my father had already decided to enter self-isolation and signed up for online supermarket shopping. And, of course, the media was starting to fill up with discussion of panic buying.

It seems to be a common feature of disasters that the media start to talk about panic. There are, for example, references to ‘scenes of panic’ after every major earthquake in a coastal area, as people run for higher ground. It’s a pet peeve of mine, these comments about panic. Because anyone who runs for higher ground after a major earthquake, especially somewhere like Indonesia where more than 220,000 died after the 2004 tsunami, is not panicking. They are taking appropriate and sensible precautions against a very real threat. They are doing exactly what our government advises us to do when there is a major earthquake – get away from the coast. But when a precaution turns out to be unnecessary in hindsight, the media is always quick with comments about panic.

As a result, I was sceptical that what we were seeing was actually ‘panic’ buying. If you can ever recall a time that you really did panic, you will understand that going to the supermarket and stocking up on toilet paper and pasta looks quite different from panic. Real panic is overwhelming and paralysing, and it’s almost impossible to respond to a situation appropriately when you are panicking.

A lot of what we saw at New Zealand’s supermarkets following the arrival of COVID-19 was actually people taking recommended precautions in case of a disaster, but perhaps taking it further than necessary and being rather selfish about it. Certainly, there were references to people buying absurd quantities of certain goods, more than they could realistically use in many months. Undoubtedly, it caused problems for people who kept shopping normally or those who could not afford to stockpile. And there were certain behaviours seen both in New Zealand and overseas which did border on panic, such as the women who were filmed fighting over a pack of toilet paper in an Australian supermarket, when their trolleys were already piled high with it. But, when the media started talking about panic, I remembered that Civil Defence advises that we should have water, food and – yes – toilet paper for about 2 weeks stored, in case of something like the earthquakes which hit Christchurch.

I have one telling example which illustrates why not all of this so-called panic buying was foolish. Since the advice has been, as much as possible, for the elderly to stay home even more than the rest of us, I offered to shop for an older couple who live nearby. While they are very appreciative, they don’t actually need very much. Their requests are largely for fruit, vegetables and milk. In the weeks that I have been shopping for them, they haven’t needed me to buy toilet paper or other easily stored goods. With no local family and clearly at high risk from Covid-19, they weren’t panic buying. They were simply being sensible.