Tesco issues urgent message amid coronavirus warning - should you be stockpiling?

Tesco bosses have issued an announcement to customers about stockpiling. A number of supermarkets have been affected by the rush to buy essentials.

However, this stockpiling and panic buying is leaving many without.

Shoppers across the UK are finding shelves bare thanks to other’s coronavirus concerns.

Today a Tesco boss assured shoppers there were still plenty of products to go around.

Tesco boss John Allan told BBC radio: "There's plenty of product in the supply chain, there's plenty of food at Tesco and other supermarkets, and I don't think anybody needs to panic buy.

READ MORE: Coronavirus PANIC-BUYING: UK supermarket shelves stripped bare as shoppers go wild

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"We, and I'm sure our competitors, are re-filling our supply chains as rapidly as ever we can."

He added the supermarket will only see “very short term, temporary shortages of certain products.”

“People aren't buying everything and expecting the world to end, what they're doing is taking a very considered view, which is 'what are the things with long life that I can hold - pasta,

UHT milk, frozen - and I'm going to buy 20 to 40 percent more of those categories’,” he said.

"So the cumulative effect is it will put the factories, the depots and the shops under pressure in terms of replenishment."

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But will his advice be enough to stop panic shoppers fro mass buying products.

There have been concerns that baby formula is running out amid coronavirus panic.

Panic in Australia seems to have caused a lack of the essential for parents.

Sharing a picture online, one concerned parent showed the shelves bare in her local supermarket.

She wrote: “I desperately need baby formula and toilet paper - and the panic buyers have cleaned out the store entirely. Absolutely ridiculous. #coronavirus”

Stockpiling supplies is being advised against by the government.

The UK government’s chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance said: “I think the advice is that there is absolutely no reason to be doing any panic buying of any sort or going out and

keeping large supplies of things.

“Clearly there will need to be measures in cases of household quarantine for making sure food is in the right place at the right time.

“We imagine that could be a rolling case of household quarantine if that measure becomes necessary, and clearly things will need to be in place for care homes and so on if that decision is

made.”

What is the latest coronavirus news in the UK? 

The UK has confirmed 208 new confirmed cases of coronavirus in just 24 hours - with the total number soaring by more than a third to 798.

The Department of Health said the new number was up from 590 at the same point on Thursday.

There have so far been 10 deaths from coronavirus in the UK. The Department of Health said a total of 32,771 people have been tested in the country.

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