Emily Bloch

ebloch@jacksonville.com

If you’re looking to get your (hopefully washed) hands on hand sanitizer or medical supplies to help ward off Coronavirus, good luck.

But there’s still plenty of soap!

In reaction to public fear of the spread of Coronavirus in Florida, Jacksonville residents are taking to the aisles at grocery and convenience stores.

COMPLETE COVERAGE | Coronavirus in Florida

Vanessa Bennet just wanted to restock her purse supply when she went looking for a small, travel hand sanitizer at the Mandarin Target location.

“I wasn’t trying to prepare for disaster, just to replace the bottle of hand sanitizer I always keep in my purse,” she said. But she had no luck.

She went to Trader Joe’s next.

“I thought, maybe the granolas won’t be freaking out over this and it will just be like normal,” she said. “Nope. Not a bottle in sight. They even removed the sample bottle they always have at the end of the aisle. This was all last Monday, so I guess the hoopla had already arrived by then.”

Others faced the same “hoopla.”

Springfield resident Constance Eza said she went to the Kernan Village Walmart hoping to buy sanitizing wipes to clean shopping cart handles and other things she has to touch. But the store was wiped out.

“No dice,” she said. “On one hand, I’m excited that people are paying attention to hygiene, [but what] were they doing before?”

Across the country, stores are being picked clean of medical supplies in hopes of preventing the spread of Coronavirus — a phenomenon called “panic buying.”

In Chicago, Walmart shelves had signs that read “We are temporarily out of stock” and WinCo Foods grocery stores announced a limit per family on the number of wipes, sanitizer, gloves and medical masks that could be purchased.

Shelves in Virginia were equally desolate, with any trace of Lysol and medical masks completely gone and customers buying aloe and rubbing alcohol to make their own sanitizer.

Jacksonville Walgreens shelves were raided of all hand sanitizers and Lysol canisters Friday afternoon. An employee said she was surprised and that the truck had just come and restocked the sanitizer supply Wednesday.

Walgreens spokesman Phil Caruso said this uptick isn’t exclusive to Jacksonville.

“I do not have information on specific locations but I can tell you that we are continuing to see greater demand for a number of the products across our stores nationwide,” he said. “The supply situation remains very fluid and we are seeing some temporary shortages of select products such as the ones you indicated below. We are continuing to work diligently with our supplier partners to best meet customer’s needs.”

A pharmacist at a different Walgreens location in Jacksonville who asked not to be named said the store had been out of face masks for weeks.

“We are seeing shortages of hand sanitizer and masks at our and many locations in the area,” they said. “We haven’t really received any official communication from corporate about how to proceed.”

It should be noted that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention does not recommend the use of face masks as a preventative measure.

“The role of facemasks is for patience source control, to prevent contamination of the surrounding area when a person coughs or sneezes,” the CDC said. “Patiences with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 should wear a facemask until they are isolated.”

Still, that hasn’t stopped Jacksonville residents from trying to get their hands on masks.

Aziza Jamila said she went to two different medical supply stores in town on the hunt for masks. “[They’re] not available in any form,” she said. She also tried Walmart and local overstock grocery store Solomon Ventures. “Solomon had shelves of them three weeks ago, [but] none this week.” The cashier told Jamila that a business bought all of the masks in bulk.

The Times-Union reached out to spokespeople at Publix and Winn Dixie for comment on how the stores are working to keep up with demand, but have not heard back as of publication time.

The Walgreens phamaracist said store managers warned employees to expect a surge in isopropyl alcohol and other similar products as news of the virus spreads. Isopropyl alcohol is one of the ingredients used in DIY rubbing alcohols, USA TODAY reported.

Ponte Vedra resident Patti Peeples, who owns the research site HealthEconomics.com, said she was prepared for the surge.

“I purchased my supplies 21 days ago,” Peeples said. “I’m a medical researcher so I’ve been tracking the data for a while … on the assumption it would get here.”

But as Twitter users have been quick to point out, next to all the photos of empty shelves of hand sanitizer circulating on the internet are fully stocked shelves of soap.

The CDC continues to emphasize that washing hands with soap and water is more effective than hand sanitizer. But when water isn’t available, hand sanitizer is a good way to slow or prevent the spread of viruses.

That said, not all sanitizer is created equally. If a hand sanitizer isn’t comprised of at least 60 percent alcohol, it won’t do the job — so kid-friendly or essential oil based versions won’t work as well. In addition, as noted by Wirecutter, a lot of popular antibacterial wipes don’t have alcohol, so they’re less effective on coronavirus than a product containing ethanol or hydrogen peroxide. It’s the same reason baby wipes won’t work as well as hand sanitizer: no alcohol.

Still, Bennett couldn’t even find natural alternatives at a local Target.

“None in the baby aisles at Target, which is where the natural ones usually are. … none in the travel section,” she said. “That whole section of sanitizing wipes had been wiped out, too.”

For those still on the hunt, locals say try the unconventional.

One woman, who asked not to be named, said she found Lysol wipes at Home Depot. Meanwhile, Pete Stitz found hand sanitizer in three-packs at a local dollar store. Others told the Times-Union they found hand sanitizer at Michael’s and Gate checkout lines.