Prepared or Crazy?

I live in upstate NY. The first case of the Coronavirus was confirmed in my city last Wednesday. I feel like everyone in the city ran out to buy groceries and cleaning supplies.

The city where I live has a population of approximately 208,000 people. We have one, let me repeat that, One confirmed case. People are going crazy buying bottled water, toilet paper, meat, milk, toilet paper, paper towels, bread, and canned goods. This doesn't include hand sanitizer, disinfecting wipes, and liquid and bar soap. These last items have been in short supply for a couple of weeks even though we hadn't had a confirmed case in our area yet.

I went grocery shopping on Saturday as I normally do. I went to two different grocery stores and the shelves are practically bare. There was no hand sanitizer, disinfecting wipes, bar soap, bread, toilet paper, paper towels, canned tuna, and bottled water in either store. There was a very small supply of peanut butter, boxed cereal, milk and eggs in one store and the other store didn't have any of these items. Canned goods in general were in short supply in both stores with most of the shelves in both stores practically empty or completely empty.

I have a friend who works part-time at one of our larger grocery stores and she said she had a customer come through her line. Among other things, the customer purchased 20 cans of corn. Why does anyone need 20 cans of corn?

I also don't understand why people are buying bottled water. It's not like if you are infected and have to self quarantine, the city is going to shut off the water supply to your home.

Needless to say grocery shopping was interesting and I'm sure it will get harder and harder to get necessities such as bread and milk that people use on a regular basis in the next few weeks.