Quote Originally Posted by iris lilies
Steve, I absolutely agree that any attempt to ration products on the shelves in the grocery store is ridiculous. I am actually happy that people are running around today to the grocery store and the drugstore getting appropriate supplies. A friend stopped by to visit this morning and he said our grocery store has no bread no chicken on the shelves. I went to a nearby grocery store later that had everything on the shelves, so supplies depend on the store.
I actually agree with stores limiting the purchase of products at some reasonable quantity. They do it for "doorbusters" on Black Fridays. During regular sales, they make you buy one item at its regular price before you get the next one half-off. (Want four items? Fine, but two are regular price.) Stores can establish the terms under which customers do business with them.

So stores can limit the quantity of high-demand items purchased, letting more customers have a chance to buy them. I wish stores didn't have to limit product purchases, but apparently there are enough people out there whose better natures do not tend toward fairness that the rules get imposed (the stores also have a self-interest in keeping more customers happy, too). That's their bureaucracy.

Quote Originally Posted by jp1 View Post
The irony to me is that going to crowded places with lots of people is a bad idea. So what are all these people doing? Going to buy food and toilet paper at crowded places with lots of people.
DW has been involved in administering her county's plan for pandemics in her department. Among the very first rules is to not rush to the local big-box store or supermarket since so many other people will be there buying stuff, increasing their exposure to the very illness everyone is trying to avoid.

When I picked up my items on Friday, I purposely went at off-hours and avoided bigger stores, partly to improve social distance and partly because news and social-media posts documented the runs on lots of food items (and the long lines of people and carts right up next to each other). I had no problem moving around the stores and getting almost all I wanted. If I get stir-crazy in the house over the next few days, though, I can think of a couple of stores near here that might still have some. It would be an interesting bet to place (since I don't have to win it).