Personally, I don’t know what you’d call it. Friday evening just gone was my usual weekly shopping time. My local supermarket was out of anything Paracetamol based (inc Calpol) This was a bit of a pain because I had a 5 year old with a fever plus my Wife and I were both feeling rough (Daughters school has Hand Foot and Mouth doing the rounds at the moment).
When I finally found somewhere with Calpol I bought 2 bottles because there’s 10 doses of Calpol in a bottle (2.5 days worth) and Hand Foot and Mouth usually lasts a week because I didn’t want to risk not being able to buy anymore 2 days later. Is that panic buying?
The one thing I did consider buying, is a box of paracetamol. As it happens, Aldi’s shelves were completely empty of paracetamol. I often don’t have any in the house, tend to do my shopping on a daily basis and buy stuff as and when I need it.
But you know, it’s forecast that you have a roughly 50/50 chance of becoming ill in the coming weeks or months, it’s a completely sensible thing to have in the house. In that respect it’s no different to the thousands of people out buying Turkeys the week before Xmas. It’s not panic buying, it’s preparing for an event.
There’s a large spectrum here, with plenty of people in a genuine panic, but we all sit somewhere within it thinking about various levels of preparation. And as it’s an unplanned event, unlike Xmas, the shops, supermarkets and suppliers are all unprepared. It’s not an issue created entirely by feral members of society as it’s usually portrayed.