Interesting. Does that mean people excrete more under duress, or we learned to convert toilet paper into face masks, or other inventions that people are not sharing?
Before all this, I used to place lawyers and politicians at the bottom of my trust list. To this I must now add media people (and I use the term people loosely).
I don’t think the news media has been exaggerating the severity of this epidemic. I think it’s the frank and warranted severity of the message that’s scaring everyone.
The H1N1 flu (which I was unlucky enough to catch) had a much lower fatality rate. There was also a significant number of the world’s population with some likely immunity left over from much earlier epidemics caused by similar strains of the virus.
This new corona virus is brand new and could potentially infect, from what I’ve read, 30–70% of the world’s population if left unchecked to play itself out. With an estimated death rate hovering around 1%, that means tens of millions of people could die from this thing before it’s over.
a whole new generation of Boomers
LOL, I mentioned that in the post above with the winky face. 
And we have president that is too much of a narcissist to behave like a leader and act in the public interest. He started off by calling it a conspiracy and a hoax. People see his incompetence, willful ignorance, and lack of candor and don’t trust he will effectively deal with this. Hoarding toilet paper might seem irrational, but I think people realize the government won’t be much assistance to them personally, and they are trying to compensate any way they can.
I vaguely seem to remember some members of the opposite party calling him “racist” when he closed the borders to China when this all started…
The government has never been all that much help to anyone. Ever. Every once in a while it takes a disaster to remind people of that.
The news media blares every uptick in cases. Soon they will be cheering on every death. It’s almost like they’re waiting for one of those snowpocalypses and counting every inch of snow in order to vindicate their hype. It’s too bad they’ve lost so much of their credibility over the last 5 or 6 years. I don’t know which is worse, the news media or the President.
As for business drying up, I’m just thankful the boss learned a lesson from the 2008 crash and diversified more.
In the UK we have been told to avoid unnecessary travel and to avoid large groups of people.
After today, I’m working from home. I did it before after I came out of hospital and it worked out ok. I don’t drive so it’s either public transport (not a good idea) or a 45 min walk which is actually quite a nice walk by the river part of the way, but it’s uphill on the way home.
Widely reported here (I’m guessing not in the USA) Trump tried to poach German scientists working on a vaccine - for exclusive use in the USA. Whatever you think of the guy, that’s crossing a line right there.
Even if we assume low 30% get the virus, 1% of that in the UK (pop 66 million) means over 2 million dead in the UK alone. You might want to do the math for the USA.
It came across several news sources … sadly it’s not really all that surprising. 
Yes, a crime family has infiltrated our government with the help of one of our political parties and perhaps some influence by a foreign enitity long associated with that family. Unfortunately, there is a swath of the population who’ll revere the Don for this kind of act in the belief that this is exactly what our president should be doing in this situation, and to-hell with unamericans.
The Greater Good is for “snowflakes”.
this?
https://apnews.com/3cbfceb0ed71066783be85f4d7d56944
CureVac on Monday denied reports that the U.S. government was acting to acquire it.
“CureVac has not received from the U.S. government or related entities an offer before, during and since the task force meeting in the White House on March 2,” the company said on Twitter. The company’s then-chairman had met with President Donald Trump at the White House as part of a discussion with numerous pharmaceutical executives.
I believe the AP is a fairly reliable source, but I had to go deep into the second page of search results to get past all the “despicable,” “poaching,” and the words “reportedly tried” from articles published 2 days ago.
This
and this
https://www.ft.com/content/cf7ec42a-66bb-11ea-800d-da70cff6e4d3
and this
and this
and this from a German source;
“Report of”
Reported by whom?
You don’t believe the statement of the company that is actually at the middle of it and what they told the AP?
I’m deeply skeptical of this. As much as I dislike Trump, this makes no logical sense — even for him. I’m all but positive, there’s more to this story than is being reported in those stories.
I often start here. It’s not a definitive source but gives clues.
Oscar
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/kushner-oscar-covid/
CureVac
https://www.snopes.com/news/2020/03/17/trump-poach-coronavirus-vaccine/
Never mind.
TP tip (for US) STAPLES SELLS TOILET PAPER!!! 
And they put it on sale a lot!
Oh and according to Reuters the WH ordered federal health officials to treat top-level coronavirus meetings as classified.
You know, because why should the American people have access to what federal health officials have to say about an effing pandemic.
Staples sells TP
Office Depot sells TP
Lowes and Home Depot sell TP.
Even gas stations with handi-marts and Cumbies-like places sell TP.
Think outside the box.
There’s classified and there’s classified.
With the leaks that come out of the National Security committee, we don’t need no unverified crap getting out into the media. They can’t help themselves.
Why do you let yourself get so angry about things? Not good for your blood pressure.
I do have a gripe with drivers. A lot of AH-es out there this morning running up my arse in the slow lane. Dude, there is NO ONE on the highway, and people in a hurry like you is why I’m in the slow lane. Go Around. Jeez. And I was doing 70mph (did I say that?..I meant 65) Nearly a dozen of them this morning. Not in a hurry to die.
Okay, I can at least understand why people would want to stock up on hand sanitizer, bleach wipes, and masks. But I don’t understand the run on toilet paper.
Like bread, milk and eggs in winter.
It’s a thing.
because every time someone sneezes, 10 people shit themselves