When could disinfectant wipes return to store shelves? It depends on who you ask
As coronavirus spreads, shoppers have stocked up on disinfectant wipes, leaving some store shelves bare.
So with the pandemic underway, when could you see the household products back in stock?
It depends on who you ask.
Customers may have to wait until July or August, supply chain professor Patrick Penfield told Business Insider in a story published April 24.
Another expert said the timeline for getting wipes back on shelves could be faster.
Tom Derry of the Institute for Supply Management said disinfectants could come back to stores by June, though there could be “intermittent shortages” for months, according to a USA Today article published April 9.
At least one person isn’t even sure.
“It’s unpredictable,” Steve Tracey, executive director of Penn State University’s Center for Supply Chain Research, told CNN. “It’s not a question of if — it’s a question of when.”
Demand for disinfectants is likely to continue until there’s a way to treat or vaccinate against the coronavirus, Tracey said in a CNN story published Wednesday.
Two companies, Clorox and Lysol, on Friday didn’t immediately respond Friday afternoon to requests for information.
On Clorox’s website, chair and CEO Benno Dorer wrote: “We acknowledge that we aren’t consistently in stock given the significantly increased demand. But we are working around the clock, including running our disinfecting and cleaning plants 24/7 to maximize supply, and working with our supply chain to make more products.”
On its website, Lysol said: “We have increased production during these unprecedented times and are doing everything we can to deliver as much products possible to our retailers. Stock of product on shelves will vary day by day and we advise you to ask your retailer when they will be receiving their next shipments.”
So where are the wipes?
Ingredients are sometimes shipped from China, a weeks-long process that is getting back on track after coronavirus spread there, multiple news outlets reported.
“The other issue you have is capacity,” Penfield, a professor of supply-chain management at Syracuse University, told Business Insider. “So even if they were able to get the ingredients, it doesn’t necessarily mean they have the capacity to produce more products.”
Still, experts say companies making cleaners and disinfectants may have been caught off guard when people started to buy them up to protect against COVID-19, news outlets report.
To reduce the risk of spreading the disease, health officials recommend people disinfect areas that frequently come in contact with hands.
It could be possible for someone to get infected after “touching a surface or object that has the virus on it and then touching their own mouth, nose, or possibly their eyes,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
