[Serious] When did COVID-19 get real for you?

I was still in the mentality that toilet roll hoarding was one big meme and people were panicking about nothing. I thought that this was a Chinese flu that would never effect me in the UK.

Then I went to go get a weekly grocery shop about a week and a half ago. I slowly broke down.

  • No trollies, except the weird kind with a baby-shelf.
  • Store was packed. People shoving and pushing eachother.
  • Meat shelves low stock, but not critical (yet).
  • No pasta, rice, cooking sauces, milk.
  • Only a couple of loaves of bread left.
  • No ibuprofen. No painkillers at all actually.
  • Baked beans at super low stock.
  • No toilet paper, hand sanitiser, hand soap.
  • I had to circle back around to the world foods section for another reason. Someone had restocked the rice section with 10kg bags. I grabbed one, even though it's awkward to store and expensive as fuck.
  • I grabbed four tins of chopped tomatoes. For a family of five, this is 2 meals worth. A woman confronted at me, asking if I 'really need all of those'. There was plenty on the damn shelf still.
  • One family was causing a lot of congestion. A couple with five kids had three trollies in a conga-line with all their kids holding hands and clinging to the trollies. They bought all the bottled water, nappies, rice and kitchen rolls they could grab. When I was losing my car, they were nearby loadong a van. When the trollies were empty, they went back in.
  • Someone tried to take my bag of rice out of my trolley.
  • I sat hyperventilating in my car afterward.

A week later, I went back. This time, entire departments were cleaned out. Meat, alcohol, medicines, soaps, ready meals, fruit and vege, pet food. A 3 item limit was imposed. People walking around with their faces covered.

We could only buy three tins of dog food for our two dogs. The multipacks were cleaned out. We had to pick foods we normally wouldn't just because there was nothing else. Very little fresh food, no toiletries. No chance of getting any toilet roll.

It terrified me.

/r/AskReddit Thread