We really did buy more alcohol during the early pandemic, study finds

CNN reported on a UB study examining alcohol sales in over a dozen U.S. states in the pandemic's early months. While trends varied by location, the research identified spikes in wine and spirit sales, and signs of potential panic buying. Yingjie Hu, assistant professor of geography, said such insights could "help our society as a whole address problems related to excessive alcohol use during a public health crisis." "Understanding how alcohol purchase behavior is changed by events such as Covid is important because heavy alcohol use is known to be associated with numerous social problems, especially within the home," said Brian Quigley, research assistant professor of medicine in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at UB and Clinical and Research Institute on Addictions. Dane Taylor, assistant professor of mathematics, is also a study author. TV news websites nationwide carried the CNN item, and News-Medical, Bioengineer, Earth.com and other outlets also had stories.