It's Time to issue ration books for food.

Although there's lots of kind and considerate behaviour around this virus, it hasn't shown us in the best of light, has it.

It's a good job we're not in an actual war, one with bombs and Isis militia roaming the streets, as the wretched people of Syria have suffered for so many years. Imagine your own government bombing you out of your home and having to flee for your life with the children truly traumatised, not just missing school.

Talk of spirit of the Blitz often forget the spivs, black marketeers, looters, etc.

IT'S ONLY THE SUPERMARKETS. LOCAL SMALL SHOPS ARE QUITE WELL STOCKED!

The only fair way to enable people to buy food is ration books. I have seen man and wife splitting up at the supermarket and having a trolley each pretending to be a lone shopper. Hoarders go out of the shop pack their car and then go back in again. Frail, elderly, low income people are having a frightening time regarding food.

Don't use supermarkets. Stop inflammatory talk about rationing. It's not necessary!

Our local shop is well stocked. My
Husband bought me a lovely bunch of pink tulips.

Agree Jane10

And when the supermarkets are back to normal, support your local shop!!!!!!!!

It's not inflammatory to speak the truth, everything may be fine where you are Jane10 but London and plenty of other places the shelves are bare. I usually buy a lot from Amazon because I'm disabled but Amazon has none of my usual products and mostly they can't even say when they'll be back in stock. For some people it's an absolute nightmare and I'm not including myself in that because I already bulk buy and have done for years I'm pretty well stocked. Those on limited income don't have the ability to do that.

Jane10. It would appear from Facebook posts that is only true as long as no-one posts on line that their local shop has supplies. Once that happens, the locusts descend and clear them out.

Those on a limited income (and there will be even more of them over the next few months) can't afford to buy in the small shops.

Jane10

It is not inflammatory when my daughter can not buy baby milk anywhere in a very rural area.

Grandmaclampet how do you know these people who stock up their trolleys aren’t shopping for other people?
We have had several offers from neighbours/friends/family to get things for us.
Don’t always assume the worst of people.

I'm not sure that's true Tweedle. Some people are just queuing up at opening time on a regular basis. I'm not particularly worried about supplies for myself because I always have loads in the freezer and I'm quite good at making "strange" dishes, but I'm a bit anxious about my cats. Tesco, Aldi and Waitrose were all completely sold out of cat food at 10am yesterday.

janeainsworth- I'm shopping for neighbours too. Lots of people are. There's a local Facebook page where all sorts of helpful stuff is posted. Many offers to do shopping and collect prescriptions for others. Also posting temp jobs for displaced hospitality workers etc.
Corona virus is bringing out a good community spirit.

The local supermarkets here have/had plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables as well as the local greengrocers. They didn't have flour, pasta or eggs the other day when I went out though or milk. I managed to get fresh eggs from the greengrocer and went out of town to get milk yesterday.

The hoarding and stockpiling is horrendous though as my DIL and GD who both work for one of the big supermarkets down south have witnessed - shelves stripped bare within half an hour of opening. A niece who works for another supermarket chain in another town said they were all supposed to have their own hand sanitiser by the tills but none had been provided and again people were piling trolleys with whatever they could get hold of. It's just dreadful - the poor health workers and elderly are the ones who are suffering from this greed. I'm sure this didn't happen in the war - people were far more generous back then!!

Just gone to my local farm shop. They are rationing sacks of potatoes to one per customer - people were filling vans with them! I bought 8 potatoes... There wasn’t a cabbage in sight. Not normally in short supply. Such a shame.

We live near to a small local shop, and often see people waiting around outside like Cows hanging around a farm gate for Milking time. As soon as a delivery lorry arrives, the stampeade to be the first through the door begins, and we have even seen couples using mobile phones to relay to their partners nearby or actually in the shop exactly what goods are being unloaded from the lorry as a 'Heads up' whats going to be available to buy.
The same shop has however increased their prices acordingly, a small box of original Oxo cubes yesterday cost us £2.30, and its £1.80 for a basic white sliced loaf of Bread, that was selling for £1.00 just before the Crisis, and £3.75 for a pack of four Loo rolls!

My partner has just been to our local shop.
No fresh meat, no bread & no milk to name but a few.
The shop owner had left a relative in charge while he went out searching for stock, so I think its now getting worse and will continue to do so.

As most people are able to order online I don't understand why they need to stockpile. Even if they're self isolating they can still order groceries online or go back to the shop in two weeks for more supplies. These people are selfish idiots making life difficult for the elderly and vulnerable who can't order online.

Sainsbury's were rationing some items to 1 per customer this morning. Eggs were one of those items. My son had two boxes of six in his basket and had to leave one behind. Neither box was for him - one was for me, because we are self-isolating and aren't expecting an online delivery for two weeks, the other for his brother whose online shop yesterday came without eggs.
The daft thing was, if he had known, he could have got just one box of 15 to share between us,

I'm not complaining, because we will manage without, but there are a lot of elderly, vulnerable people out there relying on others to get them a few basics, but if those kind people can only shop for one person at a time, it is going to be a much greater demand on their time, not to mention increasing their own chances of getting the virus through multiple supermarket visits.

At least rationing might help in this respect, assuming that it was in a form that allowed for a third person to buy on someone else's behalf.
The trouble is, we don't know how long or short this problem might last!

Nothing in our local shops, small or super. My Tesco order was not delivered- cancelled at last minute. It is getting worse.

The local Sainsbury’s has set aside a one hour slot for the elderly last Wednesday from 7.00-8.00 pm. The shelves were bare because.....wait for it....the delivery lorry arrives at 7.30pm every day!

That is the kind of bad management we are seeing. Need more joined up thinking.

As long as people keep posting, Tweeting, Facebooking about empty shops they will remain empty. This self induced mass panic is totally unnecessary and fuelled by the media in all its forms. Nobody seems to want read good news just the bad.

Chestnut you try ordering on line. No slots available and even if you managed to get organised a week ago, as I did, then don’t rely on that. Mine was cancelled at the last minute.

We don't have rationing (yet) in France but the strict rules about shopping are helping I think. Everything is shut except food shops and pharmacy so footfall is light. Only one person allowed to go shopping (though there are exceptions for disabled etc). You carry a self-certification form saying why you are out; shopping is one of five possible essential reasons. The gendarmes are doing a lot of checking and fining of people who are not obeying the rules.
There are shortages of some things and the online ordering plus collect system is very busy. OH is going tomorrow to collect an order we made on Wednesday.
It all seems to be very orderly.