The coronavirus has been in the United States for over four months, and the one thing that I have noticed more than the fear of getting sick is not having enough supplies. In my life, I never thought there would be a day people would be shopping as if it is the end of the world. But with the COVID-19 pandemic, most people are buying too many things to stock in their homes without thinking about those families that have to buy items one at a time.
While seeing all this panic buying of products, I realized people might die not because of COVID-19, but because of the lack of resources. This panic buying is terrible for everyone.
So I asked myself, why do we panic buy? Panic buying is one of the only ways people have control over their lives now. For example, I tell my family to buy fewer products so others can have their fair share, yet they keep buying because they don’t know when the pandemic will end. I do know that we as a family are also contributing to this panic buying problem, but we can’t help it. Especially now, when everybody is doing the same.
Just imagine it has only been almost four months of the pandemic in the U.S. and the stores are full of empty shelves. After four more months, this panic buying will only increase. But this time, it might now become a world crisis because people are getting more anxious as days go by. My family is now able to buy food and products such as toilet paper. However, what if the next month because of panic buying, things become more expensive? What about those people who can’t stock up on products? I don’t know what we should do as a community to solve this problem of panic buying, but we need to address it as soon as possible.
However, my family is working to not be part of the problem that is making some of our older generation not be able to get the resources that they need. My family has been doing their best to not participate in the panic buying as much as possible. My family has only been buying what we need at a time and not storing things in the house. Also, we’ve been conserving what we already have. My family is growing plants such as beans, onions and pumpkins in the backyard. This is to make sure that if the situation gets worse, we will not participate in panic buying and other people would have more food.
Panic buying is a big problem that we are facing as a community during this devastating period of the pandemic. As a community, we can all do something to stop this problem of panic buying. My family is already doing our part of not stocking up and growing our own food. How are you going to play your part to stop this problem?