Excerpt:

Ashli Stewart, 32, of Canberra, Australia, has been stockpiling food, hand sanitizer, bleach and cold and flu medication. She’s also started limiting her social outings and using her elbows to push elevator buttons. Her husband has taken a more laid-back approach. The other week the two got into a fight about whether Ms. Stewart should spend a couple of hundred dollars more on food and household items.

“I wanted to make sure we have enough for a month or two at least,” she says.

Her husband, Jimmy Stewart, 35, who works in energy policy for the government, felt more supplies would be overkill and that perhaps they should slow down. “The level of ‘we must do this immediately’ kind of put me a little on the back foot,” he says.

It seems to me that if you’re buying food that you’d already buy in the future, and it lasts sufficiently long, and you have space to store it, you’d be a little silly not to buy extra. Frozen food and pasta and rice and oatmeal can last a long time if properly stored.

But that would require the mental admission that this coronavirus may create disruptions. Many people don’t like making that mental admission, as in the excerpt above. “Put me a little on the back foot.” Denial is a powerful force.

That article was published 3 days ago and probably written 4-5 days ago. That’s a month in pandemic terms. I wonder if the “back foot” fellow spent all weekend in lines at Costco stocking up.