https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KPpskbCFmY

   I would strongly suggest stocking up on disinfectant, alcohol, toilet paper, or what ever you're short on now before the panic buying starts. 

Meh.
Virus scares are so last year.
You can’t keep hyping a “new variant” of the same virus and expect the same level of drama every time the same story is regurgitated.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/rebeccadowns/2021/11/27/south-african-doctor-who-raised-alarm-about-omicron-variant-symptoms-were-so-different-and-so-mild-n2599733

Short link:
https://bit.ly/3D0FFkJ

It will keep mutating as virus do and in time become seasonal covid. Personally im more worried about some crazy people dropping vials of small pox at an airport.

now that I hadn't heard about. The whooping cough gaining traction worries me, I had something that they said couldn't have been whooping cough because I was vaccinated but coughing all the air out of my lungs and not getting to breathe in for a 20-200 seconds so that when I did I made the distinctive "whoop" is easily one of the worst experiences of my life. And that was almost 2 decades ago.

NOOC I think we need new writers, we accidentally hired bad anime writers. Or we could go back to the classics https://youtu.be/PCpi1sZEZ1U

Rat Man wrote on Nov 28^th, 2021 at 8:11am:

I would strongly suggest stocking up on disinfectant, alcohol, toilet paper, or what ever you're short on now before the panic buying starts.

so panic buy now, to avoid the panic buying of other people.

Isn't that just panic buying ?

Surely if nobody stocked up, stocks would remain at noirmal levels and everybody would have access to everything.

Yeah, as far as omicron goes it appears to not be as bad as they first 'thought' - although I'm not sure any actual thought was involved beyond the 'headless chicken' variety.

Announcing the next doomsday variant, when you have a half dozen sigtings in the wild and exactly zero statistics, seemed a bit premature, to say the least.

    If nobody stocked up stocks would remain at normal levels for sure.  Unfortunately  it doesn't work that way.  As you already know I'm somewhat of a prepper, but not hardcore.  I'm already well stocked up on most things.  I only had to buy two things that the world ran out of quickly and completely last time;  rubbing alcohol and distilled water for my CPAP machine.  Last year when Covid hit people bought up all of the bottled water available.  Though a very small percentage needed distilled water for CPAPs and such, distilled water is of course potable so that got bought up with the purified drinking water. 
    It is relatively easy to make a primitive still to distill water yourself but it's much easier to just stock up on it. 
    It's the Boy Scout in me:  Be prepared!

I don't see any problem with stocking up on a few extra things.  Although I don't think we'll see empty shelves like when COVID first hit.  At least not anywhere near as bad.  I think the shock value is gone, and that was a big part of getting people into panic mode.

joe_meadmaker wrote on Dec 7^th, 2021 at 8:27am:

I don't see any problem with stocking up on a few extra things.  Although I don't think we'll see empty shelves like when COVID first hit.  At least not anywhere near as bad.  I think the shock value is gone, and that was a big part of getting people into panic mode.

Also stores know now to limit purchases at such times to avoid toilet paper riots and such.