Singapore moved up coronavirus outbreak alert to orange in the late afternoon last Friday.
The next day I went for my routine trip to the wet market after my morning jog. It was crowded with people stocking up on food, especially frozen meat. Their market trolleys had completely blocked the entrance.
I had no choice but diverted to the nearby NTUC Finest. The shelves for noodles and canned food were all empty. Being a vegan, I was the only one who didn’t put a supersize pack of eggs on my basket.
The cashier of this small NTUC branch usually has no queue at 9 a.m. on Saturdays. But today it was a long 20-minute wait even for the self-checkout counter. If I hadn’t promised my daughter to refill the grapes at home, I would have given up my basket of fresh fruit and vegetables – food items that were not the target of hoarders anyway.
Later someone told me that one NTUC branch in a neighborhood district still had one hundred people queuing in front of the cashier at 10 o’clock the previous evening,
The hoarding craze of our countrymen told us three things:
1) Most Singaporeans have no date or program and nothing much to do on Friday evenings.
2) Singaporeans’ language and comprehension skills are not perfect. We mistook Health Minister Gan Kim Yong’s saying that with code orange “we have to step up our measures” for “we have to stock up our necessities”. To follow suit, despite high risk of infection, obliging heartlanders lined up close to each other in an enclosed airconditioned environment for hours when their immune systems were weakest in the evening.
3) Actions speak louder than words. How confident are Singaporeans on our government’s ability to maintain food supply? How convincing to Singaporeans on our health minister’s reassurance that “life can go on as normal”? How optimistic are Singaporeans on our health system to fight the coronavirus battle?
The domino effect of hoarding
What the hoarders need to stock up on is not food and groceries, but common sense, wisdom and graciousness that they are seriously lacking.
Is coronavirus contributing to the revenue of at least one retail business (the supermarkets) in Singapore?
I don’t think so. Our population will not spike up suddenly with an epidemic outbreak. But all of us only have one stomach. For those who stock up food items and groceries in advance, they need weeks or months to consume them. For the following weeks or months, the supermarkets will have few customers. The work schedule of supermarket staff may change drastically from overtime work to “forced to take leave” a month later.
When there are uncertainties in our economy, wasting food and money is the last thing we let ourselves do. With the mountain of food at home, we have no choice but eat home every evening and weekend for the next few months.
We don’t have to call GrabFood, FoodPanda or Deliveroo anymore. We don’t have to visit hawker centres and restaurants. Sorry if there is no more business for the F&B suppliers. And we don’t mean to affect the employment of staff in all related industries. But if they lose their jobs, they can follow us to eat instant noodles at home.
As efficient Singaporeans, we are compelled to think and act one step ahead of the others. We start tightening our belts even before our country falls into recession.
The beauty industry is at stake too
Coming back home I showered and got dressed for a lunch appointment in town.
There was no need to put on much make-up because the mask would have covered two-third of my face. For the first time in years, I didn’t have to worry about concealing my eye bags. Just pull the mask a bit higher would do the trick. I could save the last step of spraying perfume too. No one would dare to be so close to others during this period.
Most likely I didn’t have to replenish any cosmetic supply for a long time. If all ladies were thinking the same way, I felt bad for all the skincare and cosmetic retail and online stores.
My hairdresser sent me a whatsapp message to remind me it’s time to schedule my next haircut. For two weeks I had been tying my long hair into a ponytail to avoid any hair touching the face. I doubted whether a new haircut would make much difference and whether visiting a salon was necessary when the orange code is on. When life is at stake, beauty can wait.
My girlfriend said her beautician also asked her to schedule a facial appointment this weekend. This was abnormal because it was usually very difficult to schedule any weekend timeslot. I told her to go for treatment as frequent as she could. She must use up the package while they are still in business. When money is involved, recovery can’t wait.
Adversity faced by F&B and entertainment industries
Surprisingly, the carpark at Funan Mall had vacant lots on a Saturday. There was also no long queue at a popular restaurant we planned to meet. The vegetarian restaurant was only half full on the 15th of the lunar calendar.
I was secretly happy that from now on we could easily find a table at any good restaurant in Singapore. Many Singaporeans would rather eat at home in the coming months, not for the fear of catching the virus, but for the obligation to stay home and finish all the instant noodles and frozen meat before the expiry date.
We went upstairs to the theatre to watch a drama by Wild Rice. “The Importance of Being Earnest” was a performance for their 20th year anniversary. The cast was excellent. All tickets were sold out long ago. But today almost one-fifth of the audience didn’t show up due to the announcement of the orange code. I wondered how coronavirus would affect all the production companies and entertainment places (including cinemas, indoor playgrounds, theme parks, casinos, etc.).
We went for a drink after the show. The popular local French bakery that always have a long queue had lots of vacant tables today. I also noticed that except the F&B floor, there were hardly any shoppers at all the other levels of the shopping mall.
My friend told me that they had stopped selling their home for the time being.
I couldn’t agree more. For home buyers, house hunting is far less important than virus prevention. If you put up your home for sale now, you are putting your agent in a difficult position. You will be upset if no one comes for viewing. But you will be nervous if someone comes for viewing. You don’t want the inconvenience of the whole family wearing masks even at home, or the hassle of disinfecting all door knobs and common areas after each viewing.
Whatever the economy turns out to be, at this time most homebuyers will expect prices to fall. The difference between the property market during SARS and coronavirus is: Before the outbreak, the former was already at the doldrums while the latter was still not too bad.
I bought one property in 4th quarter of 2002 and another one in 2nd quarter of 2003. The market sentiment had deteriorated and the transaction volume was lower. But if things are already so bad, there is not much difference if they get even worse. That’s why for the whole year of 2003, the residential property price index only has a slight drop of 2 percent (from 82.3 in 2002Q4 to 80.6 in 2003Q4). Prices were so low that they couldn’t get lower anymore. On the contrary, property prices in 2020 have a lot of room for correction.
(For more on this topic, please refer to my earlier blog post “How coronavirus may impact properties: Lessons from SARS“.)
A quiet evening at Raffles City
In the evening I had dinner with my family at the Raffles City. With the mall’s proximity to a few 5-star hotels, most Singaporeans would avoid going to City Hall now.
But I learned from Chinese martial arts fiction that “the riskiest place is often the safest place”. The countable shoppers there were all wearing a mask. The mall was quieter than weekday mornings. You could dine in any restaurant and pick any table you like. I stepped into five boutiques and found myself the only customer in all occasions. With all the salesladies already behind a mask, I found it redundant to wear one myself.
I was attracted by the big sign “up to 80% off” and walked into a department store that budget conscious folks like me would only visit during their final sale. Usually I have to ask for help saying “excuse me, do you have …” and the reply is often “everything is already there”. But today, a staff member approached me in the home living section and greeted me with “are you looking for any bedsheet, pillow case …” He had that look on his face that showed he hasn’t been speaking to anyone for some time.
I found the clothing brand that I could only afford at half price. I was thrilled to find the items on sale had my size which should have been out of stock. With no long queue of ladies in front, it took me some time to find the fitting rooms. In fact, I was the only one using one of all the empty cubicles.
On second thoughts, why should I buy new clothes during the coronavirus period? Would anyone notice what others wear apart from checking whether people at a distance wear masks?
How could the F&B industry survive coronavirus if everyone is not going out to eat or ordering outside food? How could the retail industry survive coronavirus if everyone is not going out to spend money?
P.S. For the health of our club members, Property Club Singapore will not be organizing any Year of the Rat seminar or workshops during the coronavirus period. Members can now review seminar videos of 2019 Year of the Pig Property Strategies and 2018 Singapore Property Market for free. Please log in and access them under the “Members Only” page.
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Of course even YOU rightly have to delay or postpone gatherings and classes. So that is nothing uniquely abnormal in our social behaviour if others are also thinking and acting likewise. It is a matter of who reacts fast or slowly and the degree of seriousness in which we all act and react.
The other point mentioned by you about people buying and presumably hoarding eggs is something of a behavioral pattern that I do not quite really follow or understand.
Why should people hoard perishable items ( eggs and greens ) unless they intend on consuming the vast quantities obtained within the next week based on assumption that all wet and dry markets will soon close down or run out of supplies of these perishable items?
Now if that does not happen, would then these calculating hoarders looked like fools having now to consume all their eggs in one basket before the short dated expiry?
And risk having immediate onset of hearty health problems which necessitate their visiting a health facility which now certainly increases their chances of courting the very danger that they were trying to evade in the first instance?
It only makes sense if hoarders go for long dated foods whether frozen or canned… since if things get worse these can be consumed. If not then they would have 1 , 2 or more years to slowly slowly empty their newly stocked home pantries intermitently.
Now what about baby foods and those on long term medications – should not hoarders be going after these essential items as well based on the premises that a lock down and close out is inevitable?
One other thing about hoarding – should not fuel, power sources such as batteries, drinking water, and hard cash be kept in spare and sufficient quantity as well ? This would be based on the premise that people who are affected are not able to work to complete the supply chain, turn on the tap which connects our water supply and local bank branches could be closed if staff are affected and no one dares to touch the machines?
From anecdotal evidence found in post offices and dispatch centres in courier firms, part of the problems of the shortage of masks and gloves and the like can be attributed to the sudden vast purchases by well intended people staying in Singapore who shipped these items in bulk to those badly affected in China.
Again like I said in the beginning, it depends on how fast and aggressive the reactions had been by the relevant peoples whether located on the ground or in their glass ceilings.
The hoarding was quite funny wasn’t it? Not something that you would often see in Singapore versus other countries. I certainly don’t think cooling measures should be lifted. This is the nature’s way of easing the housing market and let those who need to buy, have a chance to buy.
Sense of humor and a good laugh are the best medicines when times are tough.
Agree with you. The government will be helping the travel, F&B and retail industries first, especially the SMEs.
F&B… … The famous Chinese hotpot chain (with manicure service) that usually has long queues everyday is suddenly very very very quiet, gone are the queues….
With at least 10 out of the 19 pax steamboat gathering got coronavirus in Hong Kong, no one dare to eat hotpot anymore. I also saw staff of that popular Chinese hotpot inviting people to go in. But people ran away like seeing ghosts …