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It’s another gorgeous sunny day in Washington, DC. Spring isn’t just finally here, it’s been here all winter, which has been kinda cool and kinda creepy all at the same time. And now, capping off the weirdest winter in memory, the Coronavirus is here, and people are finally panicking.
I dropped by the local Harris Teeter grocery store on Thursday morning, just to pick up a few small things I needed. Nobody was there, and all that was missing was toilet paper.
A few hours later, people were in a panic. The check-out lines snaked throughout the entire store, and shelves began to empty out. I went by the same store 48 hours later, at 930am this morning, and a lot of shelves were empty, far beyond toilet paper. I also had a scary moment where a woman in front of me coughed right in front of the V8 I was about to buy. (She, rightly, coughed into her elbow, but I waited a bit anyway.)
Here’s a quick tour.
Produce was 50-50. A lot was missing — it may be hard to tell in the photo, but probably 70% of the back shelves are empty. The bananas were empty too when I arrived, but they must have just gotten a large shipment in the last few minutes:
A lot of apples were gone.
Frozen fruit was well-picked-over.
Poultry was gone. As was all red meat.
Italian sausages and bratwurst, gone.
Much of the juice aisle was empty.
Yoghurt was pretty popular too.
Frozen veggies, obliterated.
Almond milk was also gone. (Okay, millennial.)
Not surprisingly, cold medicines were gone.
But oddly, a lot of beer and wine was still there.
And even half the employees of the month were missing!
There’s definitely a prisoner’s dilemma aspect to all of this. But in a way, there is a good aspect to the hoarding, in so far as people are finally taking the threat seriously. The only problem: It may be too late to put a serious dent in the spread. We’ve been living in the eye of the hurricane for weeks, convincing ourselves that the warm sunny days meant the storm was yet to come — and it was already here.
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