I believe Pandemic is here but not being officially announced due to limiting panic and keeping the economy afloat

I work in logistics management for a major supermarket.
At the store level it’s difficult to tell, the obvious products are selling out such as disinfectant and hand sanitiser.

But at the distribution level we’ve noticed (at least for my company) a significant increase in sales, not just the fore mentioned products but across the board.
Even perishables are selling up to 10% above last years metrics. We even have stores running out of bread because our purchasing systems have no clear data to determine allocation because the demand is unprecedented. People are going crazy and buying more and more.

The business is doing strange things too.
This time of year not many businesses hire new employees due to the Christmas downturn, but ours is contracting new employees.
The business always runs lean, but now we’re deliberately running more employees than needed.
To me it’s as if the business is anticipating a labour problem in future, and I’ve never seen anything like this in my 8 years with the business.
Sick leave has increased, but it could be just due to overwork.

Noticing these things compelled me to begin treating the topic more seriously (which is why I now follow this sub).
Most people on the surface don’t seem to take it seriously, they’ll joke about it; but seeing firsthand a distinct change in consumer behaviour tells me that everyone is nervous about this.

/r/China_Flu Thread Parent