I had a stray thought: What if the reason people were in so much of a panic because we live in an age where the internet lies in our fingertips and thus, it's easy to get lost on what is true and what isn't? The same thing almost happened with Ebola, everyone either didn't bat an eye, stayed cautious, or lived in blissful ignorance when it popped up in Africa, was about to panic when it hit US, then saw how it spreaded, people went "lol what stupid person will touch blood", and it died off. Corona popped up, and people panicked from the spread, further spreading it in turn because they were given the wrong thing, and leading to a lot of people learning supplies are running out, and it leads to endless waves of supplies dying off after restocks and so on. Meanwhile, there was a fair amount of people who lived in blissful ignorance when SARS and past diseases hit. When told, they go, "Wait, that happened?"
I'm probably rambling and this would most likely be buried under pages, but I just wanted to post a thought of mines.