Rat Man wrote on Mar 20
th, 2020 at 3:07pm:
This idiotic panic buying is quite annoying and totally unnecessary. If people would just shop as then normally do there wound be no shortages. The latest item to be panic bought... distilled water. Now I can't get distilled water for my CPAP machine. If you use regular tap water the minerals in it gunk up and destroy the machine. In the overall scheme of things this is small potatoes but it's still a pain in the rump.
Yes. The panic buying is a pain - I suppose people (some people?!) thought if the ordinary drinking water was sold out they would go for the even-more-expensive distilled water instead?
As I see some gross stupidity centered around shopping, though I think there is some method to some of what appears to be madness.
I've come to the conclusion that the best chance I've got of acquiring this little viral gift is when visiting the stores for essential shopping. Could be in part that people are shopping in larger amounts to reduce their number of visits to the store?
We've also got such stripped down 'optimized' supply chains now that shelves probably empty under less of a demand than would have been the case maybe twenty years ago.
Re. the CPAP - if it really needs the distilled water maybe some kind of ad hoc still? You've obviously more experience of it than I have, but I should have thought you could get away with ordinary water for a few days?
Hope the stores settle down soon and you can get the water you need.