We’ve all heard about the panic buying that Covid-19 has inspired in supermarkets and shops around the world.

It’s led to people shopping for things like toilet paper in bulk and fights breaking out as a result. Seriously – imagine if you got decked over bog roll. Wouldn’t exactly be a tale to tell your grandchildren, would it?

However, it seems that people’s desperation for cleaning products has now reached bizarre levels. One branch of Tesco in Sheffield has placed alcohol-style security tags around the top of the soap dispensers in the shop toilets so that the store’s alarms would sound if they left the building.

The unusual security measures were spotted by 19-year-old Jack Cutt when he went into his local supermarket branch on Tuesday (17 March) to buy some spaghetti. The wall-mounted dispensers in the bathroom were actually empty – Jack said he thought that was because they’d already been stolen, hence the portable bottles.

“I thought the security tags were excessive,” he said, “but I do believe they are necessary currently so that everyone has a chance to wash their hands.

“I could not believe that all of this was caused by a few people who panic bought and decided it was okay to be selfish and hoard all the soap for themselves.

“There were soap dispensers in the bathroom, however they both had ‘out of order’ signs on them – I am guessing they had been broken into and soap stolen!”

Therednow has contacted Tesco for comment.

Jack himself recently started his own company that sells items such as retro video game consoles and games online, and said he has seen demand for his services increase since the pandemic began.

“I recently saw a large increase in sales,” he said, “maybe because of people going into self-isolation.”

Playing video games is definitely a much better way of spending all this unexpected downtime than hoarding vast quantities of household essentials. A 92-year-old pensioner has now begged people to stop panic buying.

Lillian Chew, who lives at Jasmine Court Care Home in Chorley, Lancashire, issued a heartbreaking plea for people to ‘think about us in care homes’ before clearing supermarket shelves.

She said: “I beg all you people out there, who are going out and clearing the shelves of everything, to think about us in care homes and these poor, poor people that are on their own and can’t get anybody to help them.

“So please, think twice before you go to clear the shelves. Please take care everybody, and God bless you all.”

Something for us all to think about.