In Perth, the five-day lockdown announcement has to lead to many changes in normal people’s lives again. The lockdown will be effective from 6 pm as a security guard at one of Perth’s quarantine hotels tested positive to COVID-19.

This announcement resulted in a rush and long queues in front of the supermarkets, service stations, and any other stores. People stood for hours under the burning sun in 35-degree celsius waiting for their turn to strip the shelves of toilet paper and other items in the supermarket.

This rush has been seen before nationwide in March, then Melbourne in July. After that, the same condition was observed in Adelaide in November and in Sydney in December.

This nervous situation has lead to panic buying by people, and this can lead to a shortage of supplies. However, the good thing is that this shortage will only be there for a short period of time.

Some people have no effect or change in behaviour or are nervous by the news of the lockdown which is a good thing. Whereas, for some people, the lockdown triggers a psychological chain reaction leading to panic buying and hoarding. These people develop a feeling of insecurity and anxiety and stocking things in their home beforehand makes them feel that they are more in control. The panic can create more hurdles in these times.

The good thing is that any shortage this time is likely to be for a very short time even if this lockdown continues for a much longer time than expected or beyond the scheduled five days of lockdown.

Last time the condition was very worsened as stockpiling led to long shortages for weeks. Daily usage things like toilet paper, hand sanitizer, grocery staples such as pasta and many other things. This was the result of the involvement of the whole Australian population. The business and supply chains were running as efficiently as possible in these pandemic situations with the high demand prediction which was taken by surprise. The rush of people to supermarkets made the whole situation more difficult for maintaining the supply chain and the businesses struggled to compensate the demand through their supply.

But this time, having now had multiple occurrences of this type of behaviour by the people businesses hone their preparedness and response, supply chain managers know their drill well enough.

The knowledge that such lockdowns can be a risk but they have made the supply chain more stable that it is enough to fulfill these shortages in a small period of time.