Janine Ayling

It’s an awful thing, feeling deprived.  It effects our brains and our behaviours.  We’ve been observing our (normally laid-back) society react to a perceived lack of grocery items. Even if it’s only perceived deprivation, the effects are real.  I’ve been thinking it’s like the whole country has been told it has to go on a goods diet. Folks are scared that they will be deprived so they are compelled to stockpile…just in case it’s never again available.

Our real experience, however, proves that we definitely have enough in this country.  There is no shortage.  None at all.

Except now it looks like there is.  The fear of scarcity and deprivation has led to hoarding and the hoarding has led to actual deprivation – empty shelves.

The ones who did not succumb to fear initially are now the ones who are deprived – because they resisted stockpiling. Our experience has now drastically changed.  All of us have learned the lesson to stockpile goods regardless of the fact that there is no shortage.

If those who’ve contracted COVID-19 produce antibodies that provide immunisation from the virus in future, will this new style of illness – the ‘hoarding virus’ – produce any psychological agents that will act like antibodies for Australian society? Or will the fear of empty shelves last longer than the actual virus itself.