Toilet Paper

CJones said:
Wife just got back from picking up the grocery order. We were able to get TP on this order for the first time in 3 weeks (luckily we had just bought a 'mega pack' before this whole thing started). It's funny seeing how the product shortages have shifted over time.

Immediately there was a run on flour and sugar. I guess everyone decided to become Suzy Homemaker.
Then there was a shortage of yeast. I guess the newbies learned that you can't really make bread without a leavening agent.
NOW, there is a shortage of Bisquick and frozen pizzas. I guess the transition from "I'm going to learn to cook!" to "Oh crap... I didn't know I needed that ingredient." to "This sucks.. All you're getting is pre-mix pancakes and frozen pizza." has come full circle.

The one that is a little worrisome is the shortage of flour. That stuff is likely production planned like a commodity - very flat and consistent consumption rate from year to year. If there is a spike in the demand for consumer-packaged flour, it's not like the flour makers can just get some more wheat to make flour - once the silos are empty, it's a waiting game until next growing season.
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This is why I have a ton of raw wheat and my own grinder. No flour shortage for me.
 
I went to Publix on Saturday. The only things in short supply were flour and toilet paper, plus the perennially unavailable disinfecting wipes.

Since the chances of surface contact transmission appear to be very low. those wipes should be reserved for those who have an infected person in the house.
 
NoHeat said:
The epidemic must bad there in Gallup, and really bad on the reservation.

And to think, just a few weeks ago NM was one of a few states with no cases yet.
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With such a high R0; new hot spots are inevitable. You therefore need to fast contact tracing (ideally mostly done via some tech to avoid man power limitations) and a lot of testing...
Yeah, that is why massive amounts of testing and surveillance programs for the virus are required to reopen.

Tim
 
NoHeat said:
The epidemic must bad there in Gallup, and really bad on the reservation.

And to think, just a few weeks ago NM was one of a few states with no cases yet.
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The number of cases has something to do with the amount of money the hospital will receive for having a large amount of cases. One thing to remember, Gallup is about 25K folks, but there are the Navajo, Zuni and Hopi reservations surrounding Gallup. Altogether the three reservations have over 400K first Americans living there, with the Navajo claiming another 47K Navajo in the area not living on the reservation. Guess where their medical center is. Gallup Indian Medical Center (GIMC) is a 99 bed hospital that has a tough time keeping staffed on slow days. They have to have a certain number of nurses to care for the people, so without being able to fully staff shifts means that a lot of people are flown out to hospitals with elevated care facilities that can handle additional patients. Of course all of the patients being flown out now are diagnosed as having the Chinese virus. More money to add to the hospital budget.

The first Americans are a family people. It is not unusual to have 3 possibly 4 generations living in one house. And other family members will build additional housing on the property as they marry and start adding children. Social distancing.?? Not accepted in the Navajo culture. But when they come to town they will keep their distance from others.

Forgot to add: There is a second hospital here for those folks that are not Indian. RMCHCS, which stands for Rehoboth McKinley Christian Health Care Services. It is a 66 bed hospital. One nurse I know that works there say business hasn't changed much at all. She had to take some days off last week because they did not have enough patients to keep everyone working.
 
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tspear said:
With such a high R0; new hot spots are inevitable. You therefore need to fast contact tracing (ideally mostly done via some tech to avoid man power limitations) and a lot of testing...
Yeah, that is why massive amounts of testing and surveillance programs for the virus are required to reopen.

Tim
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We are having one in Hall County right now. There is a lot of chicken processing done there and those who work in that field have been hit hard. The case rate per population there is close to four times that of the heavily populated counties that make up the Atlanta metro area. It is, however, less than half the rate in Dougherty County, which is where the town of Albany is located.

If you look at the GIS data that Johns Hopkins is providing for the U. S. , you can find lots of rural counties that are seeing substantial numbers of cases per population. Up until last week, there were three reasons why: the county contained a reservation, a meat packing facility, or a prison. Now, it's spreading throughout other counties as well. There are a number of counties in Iowa that have higher infection rates than does Cook County Illinois, where Chicago is located, and it's spreading extensively throughout the southeast.
 
FormerHangie said:
The only things in short supply were flour and toilet paper, plus the perennially unavailable disinfecting wipes.
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If the supermarket has a bakery department that's been idled or reduced due to the pandemic, you can ask them for flour. Some stand alone bakeries have also been selling flour.
 
FormerHangie said:
We are having one in Hall County right now. There is a lot of chicken processing done there and those who work in that field have been hit hard. The case rate per population there is close to four times that of the heavily populated counties that make up the Atlanta metro area. It is, however, less than half the rate in Dougherty County, which is where the town of Albany is located.

If you look at the GIS data that Johns Hopkins is providing for the U. S. , you can find lots of rural counties that are seeing substantial numbers of cases per population. Up until last week, there were three reasons why: the county contained a reservation, a meat packing facility, or a prison. Now, it's spreading throughout other counties as well. There are a number of counties in Iowa that have higher infection rates than does Cook County Illinois, where Chicago is located, and it's spreading extensively throughout the southeast.
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The Albany, GA scenario will be reviewed in CDC training for years to come. Two funerals lead to an outbreak that is being dealt with weeks later.
 
Costco last night, no meat of any kind, no TP or paper towels.
 
I'm heading to my local Sam's this afternoon for something to put into the smoker this weekend. Will report back. If they don't have any brisket or pork butts it's going to be leftover chili for Mother's Day.

Something to think about with meat packing plants: in a lot of cases, they employ quite a few immigrants and many of them will share apartments, so spread may be happening within the employee population but outside of the plant.
 
Matthew said:
Something to think about with meat packing plants: in a lot of cases, they employ quite a few immigrants and many of them will share apartments, so spread may be happening within the employee population but outside of the plant.
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Bingo. It's not the working conditions within the facility, it's the living conditions that the workers go home to. I would not be surprised to see some of the packers start rolling in temporary housing setups on-site to keep workers spread apart more than they would be at home.
 
CJones said:
Bingo. It's not the working conditions within the facility, it's the living conditions that the workers go home to. I would not be surprised to see some of the packers start rolling in temporary housing setups on-site to keep workers spread apart more than they would be at home.
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It is both. True PPE or spacing or other measures have not been taking at the plants. No need historically to do so.
And now the cost to retrofit is prohibitive.

Tim
 
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Matthew said:
...Something to think about with meat packing plants: in a lot of cases, they employ quite a few immigrants and many of them will share apartments, so spread may be happening within the employee population but outside of the plant.
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CJones said:
Bingo. It's not the working conditions within the facility, it's the living conditions that the workers go home to. I would not be surprised to see some of the packers start rolling in temporary housing setups on-site to keep workers spread apart more than they would be at home.
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tspear said:
It is both. True PPE or spacing or other measures have not been taking at the plants. No need historically to do so.
And now the cost to retrofit is prohibitive.

Tim
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Another factor is that some of the meat packing plants are in states that have not adopted many (or any?) measures to slow community transmission of the disease.
 
Palmpilot said:
Another factor is that some of the meat packing plants are in states that have not adopted many (or any?) measures to slow community transmission of the disease.
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Maybe some of them. KS has had a shutdown, statewide, for at least the last 30-45 days. There are a couple of outbreaks centered around meat packing plant facilities.

https://www.coronavirus.kdheks.gov/160/COVID-19-in-Kansas

Look in s/w KS (largest city, and total county population):

Ford Co (Dodge City) pop 34000, has a National plant
Finney Co (Garden City) pop 36000 has a Tyson plant

Seward Co (Liberal) pop 21000 - I'm not sure what their connection is to the outside world, but I *think* they have some connection to the beef industry as most counties out there do.

There are a couple of other counties in the center that show higher than the rest of the state:

Sedgwick Co (Wichita) pop 512000
Lyon Co (Emporia) pop 33000

With the >10x population of Sedgwick Co compared to the rest of the above counties, I'd expect a greater number of positive cases.

I'm not sure what's going on in Lyon Co, though.

It's also possible that these numbers are related to the number of tests each county has done.

The other counties in the N/E are either suburbs of KC, have large prison populations (Leavenworth), or were hit especially hard in nursing homes. Two of those counties, Johnson and Wyandotte, are shut down for an additional week even as the State reopened yesterday.

edit:

Lyon Co (Emporia) pop 3300 has a Tyson plant
Seward Co (Liberal) pop 21000 has National plant

So, the major breakouts in my state are centered around meat plants and locations with prisons and nursing homes.
 
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Sam’s has a good selection of bbq meat: briskets, butts, loins, and ribs. The briskets had been picked through so I had to get a small one.

No chicken, whole or parts, in sight.

And no ground beef.

Plenty of TP and paper goods.

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asicer said:
What about turkey and/or duck?

If they have chuck and/or sirloin I wouldn't mind grinding my own.
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Turkey and duck? Sounds like that one weekend in North Carolina back in the 80’s.

(That probably was in the frozen section, I didn’t check.)

They did have several large cuts of beef. I was going to look at their tri-tips but forgot.
 
My local Kroger is still MIA on all paper products, cleaning product, bread, and most meats. Also the local ice cream brand is almost nonexistent. I had to "settle" for a different flavor quart. I still refuse to let my girlfriend drag me to the Blue Bell cult!!
 
RJM62 said:
The shortage isn't hard to understand, though, even aside from the hoarding. Paper pulp is made primarily from sawdust, shavings, and wood chips from sawmills (plus a relatively small amount of post-consumer recycled paper), not whole trees. With both new construction and renovations way down, there's less need for wood, which means less work for sawmills, which means less sawdust, shavings, and wood chips for paper production.
Rich
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That will be news to the folks that run the woodyard and the chipper in a papermill. Paper is made from whole trees, usually grown specifically for paper. Fast growing, long fibers. It's chipped at the mill and goes into the digester that turns it into pulp.
 
The shortage of TP is, solely and exclusively, the result of over-buying and hoarding.
 
SCCutler said:
The shortage of TP is, solely and exclusively, the result of over-buying and hoarding.
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There have been estimates that at least some of it might be due to people needing more of the home market products because of the lockdowns. (Actually, some articles and blogs have claimed that that is the SOLE reason for the shortage - a claim I dismiss because the shortages predated most of the lockdowns.)

But I agree that by far, the most important reason for the shortage of TP is what has been called "panic buying" - basically, people buying more than they need out of a belief that others are doing the same, and that therefore, there will be a shortage. A perfect example of people's behavior bringing about exactly the thing they fear.
 
azure said:
There have been estimates that at least some of it might be due to people needing more of the home market products because of the lockdowns. (Actually, some articles and blogs have claimed that that is the SOLE reason for the shortage - a claim I dismiss because the shortages predated most of the lockdowns.)

But I agree that by far, the most important reason for the shortage of TP is what has been called "panic buying" - basically, people buying more than they need out of a belief that others are doing the same, and that therefore, there will be a shortage. A perfect example of people's behavior bringing about exactly the thing they fear.
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It's both. Before the lockdowns, restaurants, hotels, airports, convention centers, Disney etc. had a fall off in demand, people crapped at home more. Somewhere it got in a few peoples head that lockdowns were coming and they figured, better buy TP. Both of those caused shelves to empty, which then drove people that might not hoard ordinarily to start hoarding. The manufacturers make enough total TP, but they can't easily shift from commercial packaging to retail packaging. All the while, the consumption changed not one bit.
 
Palmpilot said:
I don't know, maybe diarrhea is one of the side effects of Covid-19. ;)
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It is indeed one way that Covid can present.

OTOH, an offsetting factor for the public as a whole is reduced food poisoning from restaurant dining.
 
Hang 4 said:
It's both. Before the lockdowns, restaurants, hotels, airports, convention centers, Disney etc. had a fall off in demand, people crapped at home more. Somewhere it got in a few peoples head that lockdowns were coming and they figured, better buy TP. Both of those caused shelves to empty, which then drove people that might not hoard ordinarily to start hoarding. The manufacturers make enough total TP, but they can't easily shift from commercial packaging to retail packaging. All the while, the consumption changed not one bit.
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Yes, it could be both. I can buy the explanation that people started stocking up in anticipation of lockdowns because those measures were being imposed in other countries. I can also buy the idea that once people weren't using the facilities at work, the demand for the retail product rose, and that IN ADDITION TO the continuing panic buying taxed the supply chain. What I can't buy is the idea that the shortage is ENTIRELY because people are crapping at home more and therefore taxing the retail supply chain, simply because of the timing - there were shortages in early March, while the first state lockdowns started on March 21 (Illinois and New Jersey). There may have been employers who encouraged their staff to work from home before that, but I'd need proof that it was widespread enough by early March to account for the shortages that were being seen even then.

I still suspect that panic buying is the main reason. I predict that the shortages will continue even after things start to open up and people go back to work - because they are self-perpetuating as people buy in large quantities whenever the product appears (unless vendors prevent it), because they expect a shortage due to similar behavior by others.
 
Hang 4 said:
It's both. Before the lockdowns, restaurants, hotels, airports, convention centers, Disney etc. had a fall off in demand, people crapped at home more. Somewhere it got in a few peoples head that lockdowns were coming and they figured, better buy TP. Both of those caused shelves to empty, which then drove people that might not hoard ordinarily to start hoarding. The manufacturers make enough total TP, but they can't easily shift from commercial packaging to retail packaging. All the while, the consumption changed not one bit.
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so....how do you consume so much TP? o_O
 
I was walking my dog this morning and a neighbor has a basket of TP by the sidewalk with a sign saying to take one if you need it. Wow. That’s right neighborly of them!
 
I base my absolute certainty of cause on my observation of aggressive panic buyers in action with my own two eyeballs. Simply nuts.

As for the "shortage because too much consumer need instead of industrial," try to buy TP from commercial suppliers now. If available, generally limited to sales to pre-existing customers.

It's hoarding.
 
SCCutler said:
I base my absolute certainty of cause on my observation of aggressive panic buyers in action with my own two eyeballs. Simply nuts.

As for the "shortage because too much consumer need instead of industrial," try to buy TP from commercial suppliers now. If available, generally limited to sales to pre-existing customers.

It's hoarding.
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If businesses can't get TP from commercial suppliers, then why are restaurants giving out rolls of toilet paper when people pick up their orders?
 
TP shortage must be over.

Last night someone TPd the neighbor’s house.

Scavengers might have already picked it clean in the last 15 minutes, though.
 
I think before any one is allowed to buy beef, they must eat all the dammed toilet paper they hoarded!

fly to the scene of the incident, or be recovered at the scene of the tragedy
 
There was toilet paper and paper towels at Big Lots last week limited to 1 package per customer. I went to Dollar Tree yesterday and there was plenty of toilet paper, paper towels and cleaning supplies. The only thing that was out of stock was liquid hand soap. They did have plenty of liquid dish soap and bar soap though.
 
Spring is here - nice, soft leaves will soon be out.
 
It’s interesting how this TP, and then various foods, and whatever shortages follow an almost linear timeline in your areas, since we did our closures earlier.

We haven’t seen any of it for a number of weeks now. Supply chains all got whipsawed by hoarders, and then recovered.

I think the only thing still out of stock most everywhere is Clorox wipes and there’s alternatives. That’s probably a manufacturing / supply issue of just can’t make em fast enough.
 
denverpilot said:
It’s interesting how this TP, and then various foods, and whatever shortages follow an almost linear timeline in your areas, since we did our closures earlier.

We haven’t seen any of it for a number of weeks now. Supply chains all got whipsawed by hoarders, and then recovered.

I think the only thing still out of stock most everywhere is Clorox wipes and there’s alternatives. That’s probably a manufacturing / supply issue of just can’t make em fast enough.
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What about sterilizing alcohol?
 
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