Are there still shortages in some places? In my (EU) country at some points the shelves were half full, but there was never anything out of stock. I'm somewhat surprised they didn't sell to other countries, we can drive a truck of tomatoes across Europe without problems, why not toilet paper?
Where I live in the US, the shortage only lasted a couple weeks, where you couldn't get certain brands. There was only a few days where the shelves were totally empty. I work at a grocery store so I saw the whole thing start to finish.