Whether or not you buy into the whole "don't hoard toilet paper" thing, COVID-19 has ensured that, where once there was Angel Soft on supermarket shelves, there is now only silence. All of this raises the question, "What the heck is going on?" Well, we have an answer to that.
The reasoning behind the recent toilet paper boom is multifaceted and layered, much like toilet paper itself. In an interview with Time, Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the George Washington University School of Medicine Mary Alvord stated that the draw towards toilet paper in times of crisis is practically a primal instinct. She explained:
"We all eat and we all sleep and we all poop. It's a basic need to take care of ourselves. There is comfort in knowing that it's there."
The problem? It's not there. "It" being the availability of toilet paper, of course. While disasters like hurricanes and tornadoes are relatively predictable, appearing at around the same time every year, the novel coronavirus popped up fast and mean. Additionally, it wasn't until it had already spread that authorities at the federal level acknowledged that the virus posed any kind of threat, which led to a flashpoint of panic-buying when the gravity of the situation was felt all at once.
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