Regional towns are being swamped by bus loads of panicked "Coles tourists" who are driving from the city to strip supermarket shelves of basic supplies.
The Age has heard reports of city-dwellers rushing supermarkets in Gisborne, Kyneton, Romsey, Seymour, Woodend, Daylesford and even in towns as far away as Kerang and Deniliquin.
Regional supermarkets, like this Coles in Gisborne, are being cleared of supplies by desperate city-based shoppers.Credit:Kristofor Lawson/Twitter
Woodend, about 70 kilometres north-west of Melbourne, is now pleading for outsiders to give them a few days' break so its own elderly residents and families can buy necessities.
"We have one supermarket in town, a Coles, and we love our tourists, but we've got bus loads of people coming through and doing multiple runs through the store," Reverend Mel Clarke said.
"Coles have put limits on, but they're still able to clear us out."
Reverend Clarke, from St Mary's Anglican Church, said people had been coming to her door asking if she had supplies, but she too had now run out of many essentials.
She was in Kyneton when she spoke to The Age on Tuesday and said two buses had just arrived at the town's Woolworths.
"I don't know what they think they're going to get," she said.
"(In Woodend) we're trying our hardest amongst the community to make sure everyone has enough. We've got a neighbourhood house where if you've got a spare roll of toilet paper you can drop it off. We've got community groups popping up.
"But we just need a few days without the Coles tourists to get us back on our feet."
At the Romsey IGA, about 20 kilometres east of Woodend, it's been "like Christmas Eve" every day since mass cancellations began on Friday.
Kristi Gilbert, who co-runs a community Facebook page with more than 2000 members, said she had never seen anything like it in 10 years of Romsey life.
She said reports from shop staff was that many people were arriving from Melbourne, but some were also coming from larger regional centres like Bendigo.
Kate Bossence, from Kerang in northern Victoria, said supermarket shelves there started emptying during a rush of Melbourne tourists on the long weekend last week.
The 47-year-old said she had noticed mini-buses full of people stopping off at the local supermarkets that had "cleaned out absolutely everything".
"Since the long weekend, I just noticed that people behind the cash registers are struggling with the amount of produce that people are buying," Ms Bossence, an ex-nurse, said.
"It's kind of really reached a critical stage now.
"That leaves us locals, and aged pensioners, disability pensioners, with no food to really survive on for the next couple of weeks if we do go into lockdown which is looking more and more likely."
Woolworths opened at 7am on Tuesday and admitted only those with pension or disability cards for the next hour. Results were mixed across the city.
In Prahran, more than 100 elderly people lined up before dawn and almost all went straight for the empty toilet paper aisle.
They get us out of bed so early in the morning and the shelves are bare," Leah, 71, said.
"The three most important things – tissues, toilet paper and meat – and they are not there. I had to buy gyoza. We're not used to eating gyoza, but now we have to eat anything.
"I woke up at 3am and I didn't want to go back to sleep in case I slept and missed the toilet paper. But I missed it anyway. It's hard for us because we're old. I can't even walk. I had to take tablets just to be able to get here."
Coles will begin its dedicated hour for pensioners and people with disabilities on Wednesday morning from 7am.
Victoria's Department of Health and Human Services said it had distributed a small amount of "care packages" for vulnerable people self-isolating.
People without social contact are advised to call the Victorian government's coronavirus hotline on 1800 675 398 and indicate what items they require.
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