Charlottetown low on hand sanitizer as people brace for coronavirus

Stores in Charlottetown are running low on hand sanitizer as people brace for the potential of coronavirus arriving in P.E.I.

A-1 Vacuum manager Paul Thomson says he started Wednesday with 156 units of sanitizer, and he's now sold out. 

"People are looking for hand sanitizers, disinfecting wipes … and unfortunately we are not able to get more to provide for people. So we have sold probably three months worth of product in the last three days," said Thomson.

"It's good in one way and not in the other. It's good that we've generated a lot of sales, however we are now pretty much sold out of product."

Thomson said A-1's customers are usually offices, businesses and banks. He said Tuesday morning a customer tried to buy out his entire remaining stock of products, so he had to come up with a rationing policy.

CBC News has observed low or non-existent stocks of hand sanitizer at stores across the city.

'Gone for some days now'

CBC News is also reporting similar shortages in St. John's, Ottawa and London, Ont.

"We provide product in pump bottles, which have been gone for some days now, refills for the dispensers, which you would see around town in the hospitals, in health-care facilities. That product has gone," said Thompson.

He said his business has experienced a rush on disinfectant products before with H1N1, which was declared a pandemic by WHO in 2009.

"It was the same idea ... people, the schools, you know just the general public were once again reacting to what they hear and trying to be prepared for what may or may not come," he said.

He said that once they were out of certain products during the H1N1 commotion, they were not able to restock until after it had ended, and he suspect the same thing may happen with the coronavirus. 

"We have an order in with Purell for a fairly substantial order, bigger than we would normally order," he said. "Their mandate is to provide hospitals, health care facilities ... so we've been told 'You probably will not see it.'"

CBC News reached out to other businesses that reported similar shortages.

Representatives at the Canadian Tire  in Charlottetown said as of Wednesday afternoon, the location has sanitizer in stock.

Climbing count

So far there have been 93,164 global cases of COVID-19 and 3,199 deaths, according to WHO on Wednesday.

Canada has 33 confirmed cases. There are still no reported coronavirus cases east of Quebec. 

The 2009 outbreak of H1N1 killed more than 200,000 people worldwide.

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