We witnessed, on Tuesday, scenes reminiscent of the National Geographic documentary series ‘Doomsday Preppers.’

People flooded into discount supermarkets, leaving shelves barren of products such as preserves, pasta, rice and long-life milk.

Videos posted on social media showed long queues of people and chaos in the supermarket isles, with shoppers overfilling their trolleys with items that will surely come in handy when the dreaded Coronavirus eventually hits Malta, as if stocking up on spaghetti and tomato sauce will save us from the impending Judgment Day.

We are, of course, being highly sarcastic. Yes, it is quite likely that the Coronavirus will reach our shores in the coming days or weeks, but this does not mean that we should panic, go to the notary to draw up a will and dig nuclear bunkers under our homes.

Quite frankly, we are more worried about the mass hysteria that seems to be gripping our nation, fanned by the flames of fake news on Facebook and pure ignorance.

Over thirty thousand people have so far joined a Facebook group providing ‘updates’ on the spread of the Coronavirus, but such forums are only serving to increase people’s unfounded fears. Yes, many have joined these groups for a bit of banter, and several posts are downright sarcastic, but not everyone is getting the jokes. Many people are actually preparing themselves for a doomsday scenario. Some have even set up prayer meetings, to pray the Coronavirus away.

People need to learn how to separate the myths from the facts. And the facts lie in the numbers. Out of a population of 7 billion people, 80,000 have been infected, with over 77,000 of these being in China. The mortality rate of Coronavirus is around 2%, much less than SARS and other past pandemics. Healthy individuals have a high chance of recovery if infected.

We are not saying this to downplay what is happening across the globe, but we must also keep things in perspective and not let fear win over rationality. The world survived other forms of viruses in the past, and it will survive this one too. The worst thing that we can do is to misinform ourselves and panic, and doubt the authorities.

While some might try to turn this issue into a political football, the fact remains that the people working in our health sector today are the same people who worked in the health sector a few years back. We trusted them then, so why not trust them now?

We must also be wary of those who are trying to blame the media. While we cannot speak on behalf of all media houses, most of us are doing our best to inform the public about the true facts, without causing alarm. We are triple and quadruple checking every piece of information that comes in before publishing. And no, we are not hiding anything from anyone – that is in no one’s interest.

Once again, we appeal to the public: keep a level head, check the facts, take the necessary precautions and, above all, do not panic.