Do you feel the need to stock up on hand sanitiser and soap?
Sales of hand sanitiser in supermarkets more than tripled last month as worried customers flocked to protect themselves from coronavirus.
Supermarkets have placed restrictions on items including pasta, anti-bacterial wipes and hand soap in a bid to prevent shoppers from stockpiling amid coronavirus fears.
Shelves across the country have been emptied of goods, including toilet paper, after Public Health England urged members of the public to “plan ahead” for if they had to self-isolate for a couple of weeks.
Sales of hand sanitiser soared by 255% during February, according to new data from Kantar Worldpanel.
Meanwhile, liquid soap sales increased 7% and household cleaning products rose 10%.
Fraser McKevitt, head of retail and consumer insight at Kantar, said: “Given the media focus around the outbreak of Covid-19 in February, it’s unsurprising to see shoppers prudently protecting themselves from illness.”
Sales of face masks have also soared. However, Public Health England has said that for the general public, facemasks are not considered to be effective to protect them from becoming infected.
But when worn by those who may already be infected with the virus, masks can help reduce the spread.
PHE added specialist masks are included in protective equipment for appropriately-trained health professionals dealing with high-risk individuals or cases.
“Face masks play a very important role in clinical settings, such as hospitals,” said Dr Jake Dunning, PHE’s head of emerging infections and zoonoses.
“However, there is very little evidence of widespread benefit from their use outside of these clinical settings.”
The coronavirus outbreak has led pharmacy chains to limit the sale of hand sanitiser amid concerns products could be sold for inflated prices online.
A spokeswoman for Boots, the UK’s largest chemist chain, said it had seen an increase in the sale of hand sanitisers, but it still had stock available in its warehouses for online sale and in stores.
She also confirmed that there is currently a limit of two hand sanitisers per customer to ensure as many people as possible have access to the products.
A source told the PA news agency that Boots is concerned some of its products could be re-sold online.
The company has seen protective products of the kind it sells, for example face masks, appear on websites such as Amazon at prices far greater than those retailed by Boots.
A spokesman for LloydsPharmacy, which runs over 1,500 UK pharmacies, said it too was limiting the sale of hand gel products to two per person both online and in store.
“We know that having access to products like hand gels is extremely important to our customers, so we are doing everything we can to ensure availability, despite increasing demand and supply challenges,” he said.
Are you concerned about Coronavirus? Have you started stockpiling hand sanitiser, soap and face masks as a precaution? Share your views in the comments below
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We don't tolerate swearing, and reserve the right to remove any posts which we feel may offend others... let's keep it friendly!
Having said that no one should be socially active at present.I also think all the anti bacterial issue is successful through encouraging fear and not necessarily an awareness to keep surfaces clean anyway. Or am I wrong?
Hand sanitizer only masks the germs and also dries skin out which causes exscema.
and my daughter has asthma, so we will just try to be careful and avoid other people's sniffs and sneezes. That is the best we can do
.Que Sera Sera. With so many people in the world today this pandemic was going to happen sometime ,its not the first time!
If I recall correctly you too live out in a remote spot. I believe that fact to be our best protection against this virus - that there are very few others close by to infect us.
We too have stocked up for about two weeks. Need to feed two Border Collies as well!
Take good care of you both, and post something here often so we know you're OK.
Lionel
I haven't forgotten the dogs! We have two collies as well, Best Burglar deterrents ever! and great companions. We hope to get out across the fields again when they dry out a bit.
Meanwhile will keep my soap box handy and chip in now and again.
Purplehat (Do you know the poem "Warning" by Jenny Joseph - I love it!!!
My personal favourite is Sea Fever by John Masefield, the Sea Poet. Many years ago, after his solo trip around the world by yacht, I dared telephone Francis Chichester's number in London. The next day I met him in what he called his 'kennel,' a fourth floor room full of charts and all sorts of boyish things. His wife, Sheila brought us coffee.
That man had a lot of time for a sixteen year old. He taught me to find and value the romance of life. To embrace life, whatever it brings us, and have a love affair with, well, life. His attitudes have stood me in good stead ever since. Now almost seventy, I still am in love with whatever life holds.
Maybe I'm just being silly. I don't care much.
Ah ... Collies, yes, I've kept them for fifty years, some I worked when a shepherd in the north and some are house dogs. Today we have a fourteen year old bred here and a tenth month old bitch. As I see them playing together I'm left in wonder ... it's one of the most touching things in life. The old teaching the young. Would that it were so with we humans.
Yes, they are the very best companions. The rather skewed picture aside my name is my best dog ever, a blue merle boy. My friend, even in the darkest of days, he was my friend. We knew each other so well. Sadly he died last June. He is badly missed in this household, he was such a big character.
Keep posting PurpleHat, let us know all is well with you. Just talk about dogs, in fact anything, but keep posting.
Back to dogs, I mated my Jill to an Australian Merle last year. the result was 7 gorgeous pups 4 merle and 3 black and white. Our house was a mad house for twelve weeks as you can imagine. One was bought by a professional trainer and is doing very well All went to great homes, I would not do it again it was a one off and hard work for Jill as well as me!. They bought me a new carpet, chair and settee for which I am very grateful.
This is getting quite a conversation!
Farming was, and still is, poorly paid, but it's a life second to none. So I grew our fruit and veg, Still do. My wife and I now have a former Council house in a North Suffolk hamlet set on one tenth an acre that I cultivate by hand. I think this year will be the last full cultivation. My wife takes care of the 'pretties' and I grow the food.
We bred from our previous generation of Collies. A bitch was bought for my boy and he availed himself of her willingness one Sunday morning at 7am outside our bedroom door. The bitch headed downstairs to the water bowl with my lad in a tie! Coming downstairs backwards while so discommoded wasn't his forte. However, they produced three puppies, an absolutely superb Blue Merle dog for which we got a very handsome price, a runt and a black one who just wouldn't leave this house. He's beside me at this moment.
I've never seen an animal shed tears before, but the bitch knew her life long companion wasn't coming home. She wept for some time and died after a massive heart attack ten days later.
When the fourteen year old goes to his rest we'll have another lad to go with the young bitch, but they will be our last. My wife has MS so longer dog walks across fields is becoming too much for her. But there's a good side. We're very informally linked to a former C of E convent a few miles away. It's now a sprawling home for about twenty homeless men and women. They've shared in our young puppy, take her off in the convent's extensive grounds, play with her. Some of the men are tough lads, been in drink and drugs, in an out of jail but that little scrap has melted the hearts of even the hardest of them.
Sometimes the very best of moments are where we least expect to find them.
Yes, this is indeed quite a conversation.
History, married the love of my life when I was 19, Lost him to cancer in 2000. 1951-1955 emigrated to Rhodesia loved the country but could not stand Apartheid. He built all the V's from Viscount to VC10 and finished on Concorde. Proud of all those Big Birds!. Now adopted Welsh ( by my Son in law) Love the Welsh Mountains, get told off if I call them Hills!.
Is there a connection between hand sanitizer and toilet rolls, perhaps those in the know can tell us if the next virus will be diarrhoea.
Yes I have bought a few extra supplies in case either of us has to be isolated.
Yes I am being careful who I come into contact with.
I consider this being sensible, not panicking, careful not selfish. Thank you .
Quite in the face of the current trend of scare mongering the shop was busy, shelves were fully stocked with no glaring omissions. Hand santizer, packet pain killers etc., were in plentiful supply. In fact, business as usual.
I guess that's full credit to Morrisons, or is it that we rural folk in the East are less easily spooked?
People in my little hamlet expect the first cases to have come through Norwich airport or from the 'weekend cottage' brigade visiting via the M11/A11.
Wherever you are Tr1sh, just take good care.
Local gossips know nothing so it isn't me!
It's also worth noting that apparently good old soap and water is far more effective, than off-the-shelf hand sanitisers.