With the spread of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, there has been a wave of toilet paper rushes in the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia and other countries, and toilet paper seems to have become a "sign" of public panic: as soon as it was on the shelves, it was snapped up. Why are people so keen to hoard paper? CNN said the question was unanswerable to toilet paper makers. "There's really no explanation" As the COVID-19 pandemic spreads, toilet paper has become the ultimate symbol of panic buying: it's sold out as soon as it hits the shelves. This stunned the companies concerned and tried to adapt to this consumer behavior. CNN asked, "Why do people hoard toilet paper?" It's a question that even toilet paper manufacturers can't answer. "If you ask me why everyone is desperately hoarding toilet paper, I really can't explain it." Tom Silas, CEO of Sellars Absorbent Materials in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, said. The company's business is related to the processing and conversion of paper products and related products. "It's not because consumers are suddenly using more. But a surge in demand could put pressure on supply chains. He said. Several large tissue manufacturers say their orders have increased dramatically and, despite their best efforts to ramp up production and ship more toilet paper than usual, simply cannot meet the rapidly growing demand. Paper maker Georgia Pacific said some orders from retailers have nearly doubled. Ceo Heidi Brock, whose ceo, represents paper producers at the American Forest and Paper Association, said the industry is working hard to cope with the surge in demand for paper products due to the COVID-19 pandemic, "Rest assured that paper products continue to be produced and shipped." Supply chains are under pressure, though, and that doesn't mean it's easy for factories. Let's start by taking a look at how toilet paper is made. There are two sources of raw materials for making toilet paper: raw pulp from trees, and recycled pulp, which reprocesses materials such as discarded copy paper to become pulp. Raw pulp or recycled pulp is sent to a paper mill, which processes it into large rolls of "master rolls" that are wider than 100 inches. These large rolls are then sent to paper processing plants. "We buy large webs from factories and then cut and package them with equipment to a specific end product, such as toilet paper or kitchen paper, depending on the quality of the paper," Silas said. "Packaging and shipping are the final steps. So what happens when there are unexpected spikes in demand? "Most factories are already operating 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Their production capacity is fixed. "It's not that there's an idle machine that can be started up to increase production." For suppliers, a rapid increase in production may not be feasible. As a result, they may adjust factory production to produce more of one product and less of another. Consumer goods company Kimberly Clark said steps are being taken to speed up production and reallocate inventory to meet current demand. In a statement to CNN's business channel, the company said, "We want to reassure consumers that we are doing our best to ensure a stable supply of products is available to stores and will continue to adjust our plans as needed." "Panic signs" Of humble toilet paper have made headlines, Business Insider said reports showed panic buying had swept across countries such as the United Kingdom, the United States, Singapore and Australia since February. An Australian tabloid printed out eight more blank pages for readers to serve as toilet paper, and even residents fought so hard to buy toilet paper that the police had to intervene; at a supermarket in California, customers had difficulty controlling their emotions and called the police; in Britain, the owner of a playground replaced the toys in the doll-catching machine with toilet paper and hand sanitizer. Experts say panic buying could be a behavioral response to the "loss of psychological control" of the outbreak or could be linked to a lack of clear instructions from authorities. Marsden, a consumer psychologist at the University of the Arts London, believes the answer can be found in the psychology of "shopping therapy" – people manage their emotional state by shopping. "It's about 'taking back control' in a world that feels out of control." "In general, panic buying can be understood as meeting three basic psychological needs, namely autonomy (the need to control), relevance ('we shop' instead of 'I shop') and ability (people who buy something feel like 'smart shoppers')," he said. Clinical psychologist Stephen Taylor says that if the scale of the threat — such as a global epidemic — doesn't seem to match the simplest means of stopping it, such as handwashing, it can trigger panic buying. Frank Farley, a professor at Temple University, believes that as the coronavirus triggers "a kind of survivalist mentality," people will naturally be overprepared. So why toilet paper and not anything else? According to Brian Cook, an expert in the University of Melbourne's Disaster Preparedness and Mitigation Community Engagement Project, this may have something to do with people's response to stress: people crave elements of comfort and safety. For many Westerners, toilet paperless cleaning is an "repulsive factor." There's also a pragmatic factor, Cook believes, that a lot of people might use toilet paper as tissues, and if they get flu or flu-like illness, they might need a lot of toilet paper. Also, hoarding toilet paper is a relatively inexpensive practice, and when people feel in danger, they like to think they've "done something." Russell, an expert at australia's Central Queensland University, pointed out that toilet paper occupies a lot of shelf space, and if it is sold out, a large amount of shelf space cannot be filled by other items nearby, which will attract more attention.