No, panic is making it much more difficult to implement counter measures. It also takes away crucial man power from fighting the disease to fighting the panic. And finally, panic makes it harder for health care professionals to actually care for patients.

So no, panic never helps. Staying calm and level headed does.

But if you want to panic, do it. But do it in private, panic itself is rather contagious as well. Maybe self-quarantine.

> No, panic is making it much more difficult to implement counter measures.

Here in Denmark, where we're seeing an outbreak take hold, it's the EXACT opposite.

People are going out even though they have been told to self-quarantine, even boarding planes.

A couple refused to cancel a vacation trip even though they had been asked to quarantine because their son has been diagnosed with the virus.

I really think we could use a tiny bit more panic

I would call it more common sense, but yeah.

Giving people more common sense is not one of the tools we have available in our toolbox

Unfortunately you are very right.

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.

Panic is was caused the toilet paper craze.

Or perhaps the shortage of toilet paper was a consequence of rational preparation for a worst case scenario, not a sign of panic.

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.

Oh no! The toilet paper craze. That is absolutely the biggest threat we are facing right now. Not the complacency on display everywhere.

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.

> Panic is was caused the toilet paper craze.

If that's the extent of the damage caused by panic, then we are going to be fine.

To this I would point out that two months ago you could say that about COVID-19

I man, the situation is extremely dire. I'm just amused by the 'toilet buying' craze which in comparison to everything else is a very mild issue.