Rantz: Unbelievable photos of coronavirus toilet paper, grocery madness
Mar 15, 2020, 11:58 AM | Updated: Oct 8, 2024, 7:30 am
The coronavirus is causing a run on toilet paper, bleach, hand sanitizer, bread and other items at grocery stores across Washington state.
Rantz: Seattle’s homeless, coronavirus crisis will get worse
Over the weekend, Jason Rantz Show listeners from Seattle to Stanwood and Lynnwood to Puyallup submitted photos of their grocery stores. There were a lot of empty shelves at Costco, Walmart, QFC and Fred Meyer.
Coronavirus toilet paper run. But not soap?
Somewhat ironically, at the QFC I visited in Wallingford, there was no toilet paper and a few paper towels left. However, there was a ton of soap and little interest from customers I saw on the aisle. Toilet paper isn’t necessary during a coronavirus pandemic, but soap is.
Despite the empty shelves, the toilet paper pipeline remains strong, which means we could see them restocked soon. Per the LA Times:
“It’s not like suddenly all the toilet paper factories in the world are burning down,” said Willy Shih, a professor at Harvard Business School who studies manufacturing supply chains. “They’re still cranking this stuff out.”
If anything, toilet paper supplies are suffering from being too steady, Shih says. Typically, demand for the product is flat proportional to the population — there is no hot season for toilet paper. That means that factories are designed to run as efficiently as possible around the clock to produce a constant stream of product, with little room for increase or decrease.
Well, that’s a relief.
Have a photo you want featured? Submit them on our Facebook page here.
Listen to the Jason Rantz Show weekday afternoons from 3-6 p.m. on KTTH 770 AM (or HD Radio 97.3 FM HD-Channel 3). Subscribe to the podcast here. Follow @JasonRantz on Twitter.
Follow @https://twitter.com/jasonrantz
