Panic buyers start stripping shelves bare of loo roll, fresh veg & rice again as England enters third national lockdown

PANIC buyers have started stripping shelves to get their hands on loo roll, fresh vegetables and rice again as England enters into its third national lockdown.

Boris Johnson announced the lockdown restrictions last night - but just hours after, shoppers were emptying supermarket shelves to stock up on essential items.

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Supermarkets in Ilford, East London, were stripped bare of certain items including rice and toilet roll just an hour after lockdown was announced.

And shoppers at Costco in Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Essex, and Watford were seen in long queues - waiting to buy their essentials in bulk as the new lockdown came into force.

The toilet roll aisle at Tesco supermarket in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, was empty today as people stockpiled essentials.

Freezers had been emptied of frozen food, and there had also been a run on bread and fresh fruit and vegetables.

Supermarkets have been urging people not to stockpile items, but customers appear to be taking no notice and are stocking up on frozen food and cupboard goods, just as they did back in March before the first national lockdown.

Essential shops will remain open for the next six weeks - but Brits are being urged to stay at home as much as possible.

One person wrote on Twitter this morning: "Morning! Happy second lockdown. Customers have been in all night. Don’t panic buy peeps."

Home delivery slots for supermarkets are also getting booked up, with many customers struggling to get slots and websites crashing.

Last night, shoppers complained that they were stuck in virtual queues for Asda as many attempted to place online orders.

One person posted the loading screen, reading "lots of customers are shopping with us now," along with the caption "And so, the panic buying has begun!"

And this morning, there were nearly 15,000 people queueing on the Ocado website.

One angry shopper wrote: "Ocado have already introduced their virtual queue process on their app.

"It's March 2020 all over again."

Another person tweeted a screenshot of empty Sainsbury's delivery slots up until January 12, saying: "'I have Covid.

"How am I supposed to eat if there's no grocery delivery for a week, Sainsbury's?"

Sainsbury's said it had restricted access to its online services to manage high demand: "We temporarily limited access to our groceries online service last night so that we could manage high demand for slots and updates customers were making to existing orders.

VIRTUAL QUEUES

"We're continuing to monitor the situation and are sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused."

On October 31 last year, when Boris Johnson announced England was going into a second lockdown, shoppers also rushed to supermarkets and emptied the shelves.

Brits loaded up trolleys and formed snaking queues outside shops all over the country.

And in March, supermarket shelves were stripped bare as Brits rushed to stock up on essential items before the first lockdown.

Panic-buying forced many supermarkets to introduce widespread rationing for the first time since World War Two.

Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Asda imposed limits of three for all items as Brits stockpiled booze, hand sanitiser and loo roll.

Stats from the first week of March show that Brits spent nearly £60million extra on stockpiling essentials - with an extra £17.6million splurged on toilet roll alone.

Last night, Boris Johnson ordered everyone in England to stay at home until mid-February as he launched an emergency shutdown to try and save Britain's NHS.

In a dramatic escalation in the fight against Covid, the PM ordered the closure of all schools and non-essential shops for at least the next six weeks.

The PM urged Brits to follow the third nationwide lockdown immediately, and once again put Brits under effective house arrest - resurrecting the 'Stay Home, Protect the NHS, Save Lives slogan'.

And it was the new variant - which is between 50 and 70 per cent more transmissible - which has forced him to act.

Mr Johnson said people will only be allowed out of their homes to buy essential food and medicine supplies, attend medical appointments, exercise, work if it is critical and cannot be done from home and to provide care for a vulnerable person. 

Police will have legal powers to enforce the rules but fines will not be increased despite a drop in compliance. 

Free school meals will continue to go to those who need them as schools stay shut, and more laptops will be dished out to kids across the nation who haven't got the ability to learn online at home.

And holidays will effectively be cancelled as people have to legally remain at home.

Nicola Sturgeon yesterday afternoon announced similar lockdown measures in Scotland.

Under the new rules, which came into force at midnight, Scots are ordered to stay at home and schools will remain closed to pupils until February.

Northern Ireland is midway through a six-week shutdown.

Wales has effectively been in a nationwide lockdown since December 20, with Tier 4 restrictions in place.

This comes after the Covid-19 alert level was raised to five - the first time it has hit the highest rating. 

It means that without immediate action there is a “material risk” of healthcare services being overwhelmed within three weeks. 

The UK recorded 58,784 Covid cases yesterday- its highest ever daily figure - as new infections passed the 50,000 mark for the seventh day in a row.

Cases have remained high for a week now as hospitals struggle to cope with patient numbers - with 407 new deaths yesterday.