NEW: While everyone else hunts for toilet paper, Caroline Gregory and others with diabetes have been forced on their own mission amid #COVID19: scouring stores for the rubbing alcohol or alcohol swabs needed to manage the disease.

@KHNews @USATODAY https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/04/03/rubbing-alcohol-panic-buying-affects-diabetes-patients-amid-pandemic/5106401002/

“We’re all supposed to be staying at home, and I’m out going to 10 different stores,” the 33-year-old Gregory told me late in March. “That’s also not safe.”

Rubbing alcohol and alcohol wipes have become the latest victim to the overwhelming demand for anything and everything seen as a disinfectant against the novel coronavirus across the United States — leaving diabetics behind.

“Hospitals are wiping down everything all the time — with every type of viricide that they have at their disposal,” one manufacturer told me. “I’m making it as fast as I can, but I have more orders than I have capacity to manufacture.”

Isopropyl alcohol has been touted as a cleaner that kills coronavirus, for everything from your kitchen countertop to your phone. With the depletion of the supply of hand sanitizer, which is seen as a defense against #COVID19, demand has exploded to make it at home.

So for those with diabetes or other chronic medical conditions, the resulting mass panic buying spree has threatened their usual medical routines, such as when patients use an alcohol swab or a rubbing alcohol-soaked cotton ball to disinfect their skin before they inject insulin.

“Don’t hoard something that you don’t really need,” added @Glassylady, a mother of a teenager with diabetes. “Because the people who really need it, can’t get it.” https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/04/03/rubbing-alcohol-panic-buying-affects-diabetes-patients-amid-pandemic/5106401002/