Coronavirus panic buying hits a new low: Selfish hoarders leave a young mum and Block star in TEARS at Chemist Warehouse as they strip the shelves off an essential baby product
A young mother broke down in tears at a pharmacy in Sydney’s Bondi Beach on Tuesday after discovering that coronavirus hoarders had bought all of the Children’s Panadol Baby Drops.
Sara Tumino, who won the 2018 season of The Block with her husband, Hayden Vale, became emotional after visiting three chemists in her suburb and finding nothing but empty shelves in the baby medicine section.
She documented the ordeal on Instagram, telling her followers: ‘This is becoming an absolute joke and I don’t normally do this but I’m here at Chemist Warehouse and there is absolutely no Baby Panadol left.’
‘Enough is enough’: Young mother Sara Tumino (left) broke down in tears at a pharmacy in Sydney’s Bondi Beach on Tuesday after discovering that coronavirus hoarders had bought all of the Children’s Panadol Baby Drops
She explained that her infant son, Lawson, was teething and had a fever and she couldn’t do anything to help with the symptoms.
Sara blamed panic buyers for the situation, saying: ‘Honestly, you people are going mad and it’s impairing everyone else’s day to day life. Enough is enough.’
After getting home, she began crying and admitted she was ‘defeated’.
‘This is becoming an absolute joke’: Sara became emotional after visiting three chemists in her suburb and finding nothing but empty shelves in the baby medicine section
‘This is the face of a mother that’s literally just been defeated because I can’t get any Baby Panadol for Lawson’s fever,’ she said.
‘All I want is just Panadol to help his little fever and I can’t even get that and it’s all because of this stupid virus and because those people, all they’re doing is just hoarding and their kids aren’t even sick. Like, what’s the point when there are other kids that are sick?
‘It’s affecting everyone else [and] there’s older people, too. It just makes me want to scream. It’s hoarding, that’s who I’m annoyed at. Because they can’t let anyone else live their lives.’
Fortunately, there was happy ending to the story when Sara ‘went to one final chemist in Bondi’ and found the last bottle of Panadol for toddlers.
She will give her baby a reduced dose to help with his teething symptoms.
‘I can’t believe how crazy this world has gotten. All those people that have got other ailments, that need medication and that can’t get their hands on it, I really feel you… There are other people out that are in far worse situations than I what I am in,’ she concluded.
Coronavirus cases in Australia surged to 452 on Tuesday – almost doubling in just two days – sparking fears tens of thousands could be infected within weeks.
As shelves continue to be stripped bare by panic buyers, fights and unruly behaviour in supermarkets have become commonplace across the country.
Coles and Woolworths have introduced buying limits for basic food items, including pasta, rice, mince, flour and hand sanitiser.
COVID-19 was first identified in Wuhan, China, in December and has since spread to more than 180,000 people worldwide, and killed at least 7,176 people.
It was recognised as a pandemic by the World Health Organization on March 11.