'We're thinking about stocking up on some food and water soon. How about you?" asked my sister last month. She said that her husband was worried about Covid-19, which has killed more than 4,000 people and infected more than 118,000 in 114 countries so far.
Two weeks ago, a colleague of mine said that her mother warned her to start buying some necessary items after she heard that thousands of phi noi (little ghosts) or illegal Thai labourers working in South Korea were about to come back.
Another friend asked me last week if it was time to stockpile some food just in case Bangkok is shut down, citing news reports that the outbreak had caused the whole of Italy to be locked down.
Over the past few months, fears over the novel coronavirus outbreak have also led to shortages of masks and hand sanitiser due to panic-buying and also panic-use in many countries, including Thailand.
This prompted the World Health Organisation (WHO) to issue a plea to people not to hoard the two items saying that such practice would impact efforts to treat and contain the deadly virus and also put healthcare workers at risk.
Earlier this month, we saw a wide wave of panic buying hit many Western countries as people began hoarding food and supplies out of fear that they might be forced to quarantine themselves in their homes amid the worsening Covid-19 situation.
Since the US confirmed its first two coronavirus deaths late last month, fears of a broader outbreak have prompted many Americans to make a run to their local supermarkets and pharmacies. Long lines and bare shelves have become a common sight, even in areas without any known coronavirus cases.
In Canada, images of overstuffed shopping carts and empty shelves have gone viral as well. Similarly, photos of store shelves cleared of food and other household items in Germany are being shared on social media, and panic shopping is also widespread in Australia despite word from the government that it is unnecessary.
The Covid-19 panic is also contagious in many Asian cities. Soon after the Indonesian government announced the country's first two Covid-19 cases, locals in Jakarta swarmed the supermarkets, filling their trolleys with toilet paper and other basic necessities.
The situation got so bad that the Indonesian president had to speak out against the practice and announced that the government would guarantee the availability of basic commodities and medicine.
Strangely enough, the rush in Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan is more focused on toilet paper. And demand for the items is so high that we have started hearing of unlikely crimes, such as the robbery of 600 toilet rolls by a knife-wielding gang in a Hong Kong supermarket last month and, more recently, the theft of toilet paper from public restrooms in Tokyo.
If you couldn't help but give a sigh over those incidents, you must have rolled your eyes at the latest one in an Australian supermarket that was captured in a video clip that went viral last week.
The clip showed two women in a screaming, hair-pulling scuffle with another woman over a packet of toilet paper. Turns out, the duo team managed to walk away with that packet, which they tossed into their shopping cart, already overloaded with a mountain of toilet rolls.
Fortunately, we have yet to see such Covid-19-induced panic buying in Thailand, and I don't hope any violent incident happen here, either. It's understandable that everybody loves their lives and just wants to be prepared for the unexpected, but I'm afraid that too much alarm would only make things worse.
Three weeks ago, Phra Paisal Visalo, a respectable Buddhist monk, delivered a dharma talk to soothe our anxiety over the outbreak. He warned us not to get too frightened of the virus because not everyone who gets infected will die, as long as they have a strong immune system.
He said that sometimes it's not the germs that kill us but our body's response to them, which is known as an allergy. In the same sense, he compared the germs to our suffering, saying that how our lives turn out depends on how we react to that suffering and that's why mental immunity is very important.
Considering the widespread panic and its consequences in many parts of the world, which some have labelled the "fear contagion effect", the monk seemed to hit the nail on the head when he said: "A contagious disease is not as dangerous as our fear of it."
Phra Paisal concluded his talk with encouraging words that happiness is still around us even during the crisis and he hopes that everyone can see it.
There is no end in sight to the Covid-19 outbreak, which has now become a pandemic. However, I believe that every crisis comes with valuable lessons that we can fully understand only after we learn to keep calm first.
Patcharawalai Sanyanusin is a writer for the Life section of the Bangkok Post.