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US and Canadian consumers are flocking to Costco stores to stock up as panic over the spread of the coronavirus intensifies.
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Over the weekend, shoppers shared videos and photos of their local Costco stores on social media, documenting the giant lines of customers that stretched outside the store and across the car parking lot.
Many of these shoppers also shared pictures of the empty shelves in their local stores.
This Costco store in Tigard in Oregon had long lines on Saturday after Oregon's first case of coronavirus was reported in the nearby city of Lake Oswego.
By the time the photographer had visited the store, it was already out of key products such as toilet paper.
A giant line formed outside a Costco store in Honolulu in Hawaii on Saturday after the Hawaii Department of Health advised residents to stock up on food and necessities earlier in the week.
Retired telecommunications worker Duane Tanouye, who took photographs of the Honolulu Costco store that were shared by Reuters, said that the line outside the store was 200-people deep.
He told Reuters that the store was limiting how much shoppers could buy of certain products such as toilet paper.
Despite this, his photos show customers loading up their carts with giant quantities of these items.
There have been mixed messages about how to prepare for the spread of the virus. While Hawaii state advised customers to stock up, CDC director Robert Redfield told Congress on Thursday that it isn't necessary to do so.
