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hatrickpatrick wrote: »

The schools weren't closing two days ago. The Paddy's Day parade wasn't cancelled last weekend.

People are frightened of what's coming down the line next week as this situation escalates, particularly because twice in one year we had full-on countrywide lockdowns due to storms (Hurricane Ophelia and The Beast From The East) in which literally everything closed down - and with no more than 24 hours' notice. Now it was justified on both of those occasions - lives would have been lost if the country hadn't battened down the hatches - and if it happens this time it'll probably be justified as well. But it doesn't change the fact that for all people know, the shops could be ordered to close their doors on Monday with an unknown and indefinite time period before they'll reopen again.

Ultimately, this is because of exceptionally bad communication on the part of our officials and government, over such a long period of time that people expect last minute snap decisions in times of crisis. They take far too long to tell people what's really going on and by the time they do, people have already taken the situation into their own hands. It's not as if Ireland doesn't have form for this in fairness (remember when "the IMF are not coming to Ireland" when they were literally being photographed getting off the plane at Dublin Airport?) and people are legitimately worried that the whole country could go into "red weather alert" lockdown next week for an indefinite time period.

I'm not suggesting that panic buying is necessary or responsible, by the way. But I do think the condemnation of those doing it is unfair. Official Ireland does not respond well to real time crises, always reacting and never being proactive. I think this is an example of people trying to be proactive because they're aware that those in charge will make arbitrary decisions with absolutely no warning whatsoever and it'll be too late to do anything once those decisions are made.

In other words, the government saying "supply lines are grand, there's no need to panic buy" today will be no use to people if they say "change of plan, we want all shops and businesses to close indefinitely from 9AM today" tomorrow morning - and this is the kind of thing which does happen in Ireland. So people are preparing for that kind of scenario. Again, I'm not doing it and I really don't think it is or will become necessary, but I understand the mindset behind it. A sizeable cohort of people don't believe a word of any official announcements since they're liable to be U-turned without a moments notice mere hours after they're announced, and that's because we have a longstanding issue with appalling communication between those in charge and everyone else.