The argument I've seen is that part of it is people having a vague need they need to prepare for "hibernation" but haven't really thought through in detail what to buy, but when they see the scenes of empty shelves in Australia etc they assume that's the thing that is most likely to go short so they start with that. Also it's something with indefinite shelflife and that they know they will use up eventually. Also worth mentioning that IME women seem to use about 4x as much as men, so what seems less essential to you may be rather more important to others. There's also a bit of an idea that it's clinging on to a bit of dignity - even if civilisation is going to the dogs, they can still wipe their backside with something soft and velvety, it puts them one level above the animals...and the French.
Look closely - as the BBC themselves admit, there's no epidemiologists in there, but astronomers and lots of graduate students, even a research technician. Compare that with the CMO who is a world-class epidemiologist and professor of public health.
It's easy to snipe from the sidelines when you've not got the responsibility of taking the tough decisions, and some of the worst people to ask are the people on the sidelines who know enough to be dangerous but don't understand the full story. It's even easier to snipe when decisions are being taken on complex science where we don't know the full story - but taking no decision will cause even more deaths than making a "bad" decision.
The people to be scared of are the people who think there are simple answers to any of this stuff. Or as Bertrand Russell put it "in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt". The people who understand the problem know that there are uncertainties and downside whichever way you go. Take this example,
https://twitter.com/BallouxFrancois/status/1238837158007447558
"I'm a computational/system biologist working on infectious diseases and have spent five years in a world class 'pandemic response modelling' unit....After having spent considerable time thinking how to mitigate and manage this pandemic, and analysing the available data. I failed to identify the best course of action. Even worse, I'm not sure there is such a thing as an acceptable solution to the problem we are facing....The most plausible scenario to me is for the covid-19 pandemic to wane in the late spring (in the Northern hemisphere), and come back as a second wave in the winter, which I expect could be even worse than what we're facing now."
That's what real expertise looks like - "We can't be sure, but this is probably the least-bad way to proceed".
Yes - at least 10x more deadly, maybe 100x more deadly once healthcare facilities are overwhelmed by sheer numbers as in Italy. And only about 10% get the flu each year compared to potentially 50% COVID19. So if one season of regular flu puts the health system on the edge, imagine how it copes with 50x flu.
As an aside, Tamiflu doesn't work against SARS so probably won't work against COVID19, in fact there's not much hope among conventional antiviral drugs :
https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/03/06/covid-19-small-molecule-therapies-reviewed
You're somewhat missing the point though - the aim is not to minimise casualties in the short-term, but to minimise them in the long-term. And I'd suggest that if you don't understand why we're not closing schools immediately or not testing everybody, it's all in the 2014 Pandemic Plan :
https://assets.publishing.service.g..._data/file/344695/PI_Response_Plan_13_Aug.pdf Why not take some time to read that rather than going off on one about Boris? I'm no fan of his but you look ridiculous trying to score political points in the middle of what looks like the biggest crisis to hit this country since WWII.
It's fun to make lazy comparisons with Yes Minister etc but having been a small cog in the wheels of something a bit similar (that was nipped in the bud so you won't have heard of it, although it looked a bit dicey for a while), I can assure you that while the machinery of state can turn slowly at times, the scientists advising ministers are generally smart, honourable people who are trying to make the best sense they can of messy, complex, incomplete data. It is hugely offensive to suggest they're not trying to minimise the long-term death toll - and they will do a better job in saving lives than the average blatherer on social media.
To be fair part the government have invited people to make a political point by blurring the boundaries between the science and the politics. One of the most interesting things I've read lately is
this Twitter thread by Andy Burnham, who was Health Secretary when swine flu hit in 2009. He's honest about some of the "car crash" interviews he had before he realised that he had to stand back and make more of a distinction between the CMO talking about the science and the politicians playing politics. That needs to happen now, rather than the Health Sec making detailed announcements in a paywalled article in the Telegraph as happened today.
We've had a bit of a talk today about how SWMBO tends to binge on random things - bread one day, fruit another - in a way that makes stock control impossible, because she's used to popping to the shops most days. I think she's got the message that we really want to try and avoid doing that at the moment, which means being a bit more disciplined about matching the snacking to the shopping lists. I don't envy anyone with children in this situation though, it's bad enough with her...
Nah - that's just regular pneumonia, most of the older members of my family have had it once - in a rush to hospital kind of way. There's little doubt that this virus originated in China, although the Chinese propaganda machine is trying to manipulate social media to make people think all sorts of daft conspiracy theories.
im putting my keyboard away I have had a skinful 
come on people its a virus and they are cleverer than us humans they can mutate can we, no, its ok saying we have experts on the case I don't think any government has a clue how to deal with this 
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