Written by Micah Jewell (Features Writer) These last few weeks have been some of the most hectic times, not just for hospitals, but also for all grocery stores. For some people that means driving almost 100 miles to try and buy the last roll of toilet paper or hand sanitizer left. All of a sudden, there is a deadly outbreak! This virus is lethal, it can and will be the cause of death for many people. Natural reactions would be to freak out, but this does not mean that you should buy all the food that you could possibly need, simply because you are scared that if you don’t then there will not be any food left.
What people don’t realize is that the stores are still going to be open, and that restaurants and farmers’ markets are still open for now. One of the biggest retailers in the United States has been doing better now than ever. Walmart is one of the biggest bargain stores in America and so far, they have not run out of toilet paper. Toilet paper is the biggest purchase of Americans in the last couple of weeks other than hand sanitizer or face masks. Scientists at U.S.C said the reason Americans are trying to hoard toilet paper is because that is the natural instinct of humans is to stay clean and not be having to live within our own waste. So many people believe that the stores will eventually close and they won’t have anything to wipe with. There are also people who had bought tons of it, just so they could sell it online for way more then what the original price was. This was actually just considered to be illegal, and those who continue could face a fine up to a thousand dollars or even jail time.
America is the only country that is hoarding these products. In Italy, where COVID-19 is hitting the hardest besides in Wuhan, people are not hoarding toilet paper and still have more than enough. It is not just toilet paper being bought in excess, it is food too. Walmart is now telling its customers that they can not buy more than a certain amount of each food item. For example, Bessy Miller from Arkansas had bought over 200 eggs at Walmart and did an interview with the local news station where they asked Bessy if she knew that those 200 eggs were going to go bad within the next week, she stared with a blank look on her face. Before you blindly go buying food, you might want to make sure that you will eat it before it rots because if not, you will end up wasting all that food that someone else could have eaten. You would also would be wasting your money on food that you didn’t even end up eating.
In many stores across the country, they have only been letting citizens of sixty or older in the store ensure the cleanest and bacteria-free experience for the customers. At most stores clean at the end of the day or before they let in the customers inside in the morning. And then at eleven or so, they will let the rest of the elderly customers inside to do their shopping. The best way to abode the crowds and still be safe is to go a couple of times a week to a store and buy foods that don’t go bad for years such as, granola bars, canned foods, or uncooked pastas.
The Claw 