The point I was raising was that calls to not panic suppress non-panic activities. They are sending the message that there's nothing much to worry about. This is extraordinarily dangerous. If necessary precautions will also cause some to panic, so be it.
At this point, things are so looking so grim that there's no way to tell people not to panic without unacceptable downplaying of the gravity of the situation.
But then the counterpoint is that once panic steps in it becomes hard to manage. People should be called to take this seriously and to proper civic duties.
That is actually entirely possible, I imagine supermarkets try to minimize storage as much as anyone else so shortages might just mean that people are just synchronously doing normal shopping.
In at least a few cases though I doubt it was not panic buying.
In Germany (and probably other places too), people are stealing masks and desinfectant from hospitals - places where this is really needed. I think this is a big issue and it needs to be addressed.
This, not this toilett pper issue, is why panic is bad. Toilett paper hording just is a great early sign from from the more serious stuff happening as well.
I would say that the biggest threat is a dichotomy fallacy. Just because an extreme is wrong it does not mean that the other is right.
This should be taken seriously and people should put effort into prevention, but honestly I would prefer calling upon people's sense of civic duty rather than panic.
At this point, if we're not seeing at least some panic we're doing it wrong. The level of warning has to be such that the most skittish elements of society are freaked out, otherwise the average person will not be taking it seriously enough.
At this point, things are so looking so grim that there's no way to tell people not to panic without unacceptable downplaying of the gravity of the situation.