The more paramount issue is contagion inside the stores

The argument

Experts have warned the public that the COVID-19 virus can last on surfaces for up to 72 hours. When people are busy buying items in grocery stores, they are likely to swipe their hands across shelves and counters. They are also probably standing closer to people than the recommended distance, and if there is any communication among shoppers, they are prone to exchanging droplets through the air. All of these things accelerate the rate of transmission of COVID-19. The real crisis faced by supermarkets is not stockpiling; it is contagion. Supermarkets are flooded with people who are generally in a state of frenzy. Due to lax social guidelines or restrictions, it is easy for people to be much closer to each other than recommended. Although grocery stores are now being cleaned on a regular basis, it is not enough to prevent the transmission of the disease. This is painfully obvious in the tragic deaths of many grocery store cashiers. As of just March 27, 41 grocery workers have died. Also, more than 1500 grocery store workers tested positive for COVID-19. This goes to show how dramatic measures need to be implemented in grocery stores to protect workers and shoppers. If guidelines are established regarding how many people can enter the store and proper protective equipment is provided to workers and is required of shoppers, then this transmission can be slowed. Stockpiling is simply a minor problem that, through communication and media coverage, can be resolved. The much bigger issue to focus on is the contagion in stores.

Premises

Counter-arguments

If the issue of stockpiling is resolved, then the rate of transmission of COVID-19 in stores would also be significantly lowered. Most people who are stockpiling end up spending much more time in stores than the normal shopper. Furthermore, due to their style of shopping, they are a lot more likely to come in contact with infected surfaces. Also, it is a common misconception that people who stockpile go to the store less often than those who do not. This is not true because while people can buy excessive amounts of non-perishable items, it is impossible for them to stock up on perishable items such as fruits, vegetables, and most dairy products. This causes them to return to the store on a fairly regular basis. If a better system was established allowing consumers to buy what they need in smaller quantities while simultaneously lowering the amount of time they spend in stores, then the issue of stockpiling could be resolved which in turn will resolve the issue of the contagion.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Largely right about the risk of crowding, though the surface component is overstated: the 72-hour figure came from laboratory experiments on inoculated surfaces, and by mid-2020 the CDC and others had concluded that surface transmission was an uncommon route compared with airborne spread between people. That correction strengthens the crowding point and weakens the shelf-swiping one the premise leans on. [Rejecting P2] The harm to grocery workers is real and is the strongest thing in the argument, but it establishes the seriousness of contagion rather than the unimportance of stockpiling — and the two are not independent. Panic buying is among the things that produced the crowds, the queues and the frenzied conditions the first premise describes. [Rejecting P3] This is where the argument fails. Stockpiling lengthens the time a shopper spends in a store and increases the surfaces handled, and it does not reduce trip frequency, since perishables cannot be stocked up on — so it drives the contagion risk rather than sitting beside it as a lesser problem. Ranking it second also does not make it a storm in a teacup: two problems can both be real, and the question asked is whether the behaviour is ethical, not whether it is the largest hazard in the building.