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Comment by foota | Hacker News Reader

How long can our country continue to purchase at the current rate before everyone has built a stockpile?

What percentage of meals were previously consumed outside the home, at workplaces, schools and daycares? Add all of those to the baseline grocery shopping rates pre-coronavirus, add on some anxiety factor, and you'll have the new baseline.

Similar for toilet paper in stores. Previously you spent 8-12 hours at work using your company's supply, now you have to use and buy your own. The in-home usage per day has pretty much doubled and shifted to retail.

> now you have to use and buy your own.

Yeah, but the office was buying it at Costco too, and now they aren't. The total demand for TP hasn't increased, it's just shifted. Once everyone has a stockpile at home, they won't buy it anymore.

Same with food. The restaurants were buying it and now consumers are instead. The demand is shifting but the level is the same.

Don't consumers have more food waste than restaurants? I believe I read something about that a while ago.

You're right for TP though. Imho that was simply a reaction to people understanding "you might have to be quarantined at home" as "you can't go out or get things delivered during that time, ever", and preparing adequately. Once they have their stash and/or realize that quarantined doesn't mean post-apocalyptic head-for-the-bunker, they'll relax and return to normal rates. It's important to quickly stock the shelves though, empty shelves make people nervous, and they'll overreact when they're nervous, buying more than they need ("the government and companies can't handle this situation, better stock up") and thus increase the problem.

Any future movies that take place in an apocalypse and don’t reference toilet paper are going to have real fidelity issues.

There was also a "everyone else is stripping the shelves bare, I better get some" reaction. I've tried to avoid buying more than I think I genuinely need, but my idea of what I genuinely need definitively shifted when I saw I could not easily get relative essentials near me because other people were buying as much as they could possibly get.

I've stuck with a relatively conservative 2-3 week supply of noodles and rice, and the kind of toilet paper supply I'd normally buy anyway but where I'd previously be ok with waiting until I had a couple of rolls left before reordering. But that is mentally more effort than just panic-buying - I'm ok with 2-3 weeks because I've kept a close eye on supplies and know I can still top up, but if I'd just panic bought everything I could get my hands on I wouldn't have needed to put the effort into keeping track.

And even millions of people trying to be similarly restrained but accounting for the reality that others aren't still has a massive negative effect.

Overall I agree with you that it needs to bottom out soon, though. And I also very much agree about the psychological effect of keeping shelves look stocked.

> Yeah, but the office was buying it at Costco too, and now they aren't.

office depot delivers TP with the copier paper and kleenex. IME that's been more common than costco for any business large enough to have an office manager.

So office depot can sell it to the public, or the shipments can be redirected to costco. It's a pretty minor adjustment either way.

Well,if people would only be buying to consume it.Ebay has pages and pages of listing of toilet paper now. How I hope we'll beat the virus sooner than all those bastards trying to sell it.

I think a lot of people were also building a "if I'm sick for a month" stash. But yeah, once past that things return to normal.

There seem to be articles saying that COVID-19 sometimes manifests with digestive symptoms first, and those symptoms are usually (85%) diarrhea.

> Similar for toilet paper in stores. Previously you spent 8-12 hours at work using your company's supply,

You've missed one possible mitigating factor. Many people save their more... erm... resource-demanding toilet activities for home. ;-)

If we're talking hypotheticals without any data, there is an opposing possibility. Some people poop at work on purpose- I prefer to get paid while pooping instead of losing leisure time. I suppose it depends on how clean your work bathrooms are or your fear of public bathrooms. I know I'm not the only one pooping at work, I regularly see occupied stalls.

Apropos: https://youtu.be/137Ei0C3Vdg?t=100

I honestly have no idea what you are trying to say here. Are you saying that many people only poop at home?

Ever notice how many animals poop wherever and whenever they need? Humans are one of the few species with a socially mediated pooping reflex--that is, the urge to defecate is attenuated when around other people. This attenuation is stronger for some people than others. At the extreme end of the spectrum, some are very nearly physically incapable of defecating in the presence of other people.

It's surely a cultural one, yes? Eg, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanitation_in_ancient_Rome#Pub... :

> Public latrines date back to the 2nd century BC. Whether intentionally or not, they became places to socialise. Long bench-like seats with keyhole-shaped openings cut in rows offered little privacy.

Or from https://ask.metafilter.com/235727/Have-humans-always-sought-... :

> When I lived in China, I had the experience of using many, many public restrooms which were basically just a big concrete trench in a room. Occasionally there would be small dividers but not always. So practically speaking, pooping would sometimes be quite the communal activity.

Yes, on the whole it's cultural as culture informs us as to what is public or private. And no doubt individual behaviors can change, though the degree to which they can readily change for any particular adult is the sticking point. Culture isn't the only dimension--the strength of the physiological response (which is rooted in genetics) undoubtedly varies. For all we know, maybe 10% of Romans were secretly midnight poopers and perplexed at how people could chat while doing their business. Such covert behavior would naturally go unnoticed by others.

It's easier to point to young children as an example. The second link, for example, includes:

> I have a child who could not poo if someone was in the room or he was being watched, so a soon as he could move for privacy, he did. ... Many other kids will at least need to avert their eyes and at least pretend they have some semblance of privacy. Others will let go while grinning at you.

FWIW, my 3-year-old son loves to watch me poop, and will run into the bathroom when I need to go. And I let him, and don't find it difficult to poop.

I do have a hard time getting a sense for how much is "rooted in genetics" beyond the simple fact that we are living creatures.

Some people are scared of flying. Others are not. This cannot be a direct result of genetic selection, for obvious reasons.

Some children love certain foods, while a sibling does not. This too cannot be explained by simple genetics.

So given examples like the Romans, and Chinese and (again from the second link) "About a billion people -- 15% of the world's population -- practise open defecation" and "In the Samoan house there are no walls... the beaches are used openly as latrines." - how meaningful is it to say it's 'rooted in genetics', any more than we can say that at some level English is rooted in genetics?

Dogs seem to be super picky about where exactly they’ll poop. Ours when he has to go will only go in the nearby park (not on the sidewalk or the street on the way there). And then he sniffs around for five minutes or so before finding the perfect spot. I think his social cues are largely about smell.

Does your office not have bathrooms to allow people to poop in privacy?

Define privacy. American-style stalls don't permit very much privacy, though in any event "private" is in the mind of the person. That's what makes it interesting--a person's feeling of privacy mediates a very basic physiological function.

Wow! Talk about an open office! But as anecdata my wife avoids pooping at work or at public toilets, so saves it up for home, whereas I will just go if I need to and there is a non-disgusting toilet available.

I used to live 5 min from school.In 12 years, I never,even once, went for a big one there,because the toilets were disgusting.

Hilarious, but I've known numerous people who will only use the company bathrooms as a last resort.

Some of us do the opposite :P

The old saying goes "Boss makes a dollar, I make a dime, that's why I shit on company time."

>The base in-home usage per day has pretty much doubled.

And the base work, day care, and restaurant usage has plummeted. That's the thing about logistics and supply, a person can only use so much toilet paper for example. Once you've delivered 4 or 5 times the supply necessary for the population of a city, you're wasting effort. There is a distribution problem in that supply node, not really a logistics problem with the system.

We have distribution inefficiencies in many of our "supply nodes", no question. But these are not inefficiencies that airlines, or even traditional freight companies, can solve.

I did think about this. There probably is some adjustment that needs to happen with the supply chains, but to some degree it's just changing the endpoints a little bit.

Restaurants buy their food also. There should be some decrease in restaurant supplies, although I suspect the prepared food has much more water content.

I'm not sure anyone is tracking this in an accessible way, but school meals almost everywhere are likely still available. Schools have large minimum orders sizes and federal/state funding is tied around providing food, so they're highly incentivized to figure out how to distribute it in order to get the cashflow to pay off those contractual obligations.

In my city, those meals are currently available for curbside pickup for students.

Restaurants are still open.

In some states, yes, but not for much longer.

We're already testing the waters on how much the public will tolerate. We have to keep the supply lines running or people will stop complying.

In which states will they not be? They’re considered essential even in shelter in place states

California has one of the stricter shelter-in-place orders and everything connected to food supply, including prepared food, is essential. Restaurants are delivery/takeout only, but still operating.

Now, it's probably true that on average the share of food consumed from restaurants has dropped, but the sector isn't closed down.

I'd imagine though that people are still eating roughly the same amount of food, so if restaurant sales have dropped then grocery store sales must have gone up (which I guess they did given the hoarding).

And the toilet paper that was in work is getting used how?

Who uses industrial/commercial toilet paper in their homes? The factories can stop creating more but the existing supply is locked in large rolls most people don't use in their homes. Even not in large rolls it's not as nice as most toilet paper people use in their houses.

I do. Rolls last longer. The paper doesn't shred so readily. You need more sheets, but less total mass. You can wipe mirrors and sinks without leaving paper residue behind.

Put it on the shelves anyway. Most people aren’t going to be picky when the option is that or your hand.

there's always the poop sponge!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xylospongium

The work toilet paper is more likely to be 1-ply recycled toilet paper in large rolls than what people would buy for a home. The factories that produce commercial TP may not be able to convert to the preferred residential products quickly.

If grocery stores run out of 2-ply but still offer 1-ply, people will buy 1-ply for home.

It is probably the same factory making it.

For example, Andrex (apparently Cottonelle in the USA) is owned by Kimberly Clark, which also sells commercial products.

All they have to do is make smaller rolls and people will still buy it if there's a shortage, regardless of ply.

The point is that it's a different flow of resources, e.g. retail distribution vs commercial property management supply.

The average person needs 7 gallons of water, 28 cans of meat, and 14 cans of fruit per 2 weeks. For a month long stockpile that comes out to 21 gallons of water, 84 cans of protein, and 42 cans of fruit. However everyone is probably stocking up on bananas and potatoes and fresh meats which will start to go bad after a week.

Two cans of meat per day? Is this a diet that has no starch in it, or something?

> However everyone is probably stocking up on bananas and potatoes and fresh meats which will start to go bad after a week.

I doubt people are overbuying bananas too much, but more importantly meat can go in the freezer and something is wrong with your potatoes.

Water comes from the tap? It’s not the end of the world, dude; it’s just a high-anxiety staycation.

"Cans of meat"? I don't think I ever buy meat in cans...

Tuna and chicken are pretty common in cans. Spam is another example.

In any case I bought a couple weeks worth over a month ago when I saw what was coming.

That measurement is pretty bad anyways.

Maybe they'll provide better units we can actually discuss on.

This.

Logistics has a built in circuit breaker. Whether you're talking about military use cases or civilian use cases. At some point, you will just have too much on the ground. No more will fit. At that point, it's a question of distributing the oversupply of what's already there in a fashion appropriate to the purpose of the day.

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