There tends to be moments of time when humanity experiences panics brought in by the herd of people showing fear and moving the crowd towards safety. What that safety is? Mostly hiding, perhaps preparing or being really on guard. Does panics and paranoia serve any real positive purpose to our lives?
Most panics are way overblown and the form of the statistical probability that the boogey monster will come in contact and affect you in any way. Shark attacks, terrorist bombing, flesh eating bacteria, alien abductions and the list is long. But there are some panics that do hit most everyone and so taking every panic situation seriously is something we really must take seriously.
There is a event term called a black swan, for which a rare event has catastrophic effects of harm, and that these events are unpredictable in time and scope, so to hedge, prepare or just be paranoid about them is a completely rational emotion and tactic to use to help minimize the harm that it will inflict on you.
They say there is wisdom in crowds, so if the crowd is panic about something, the media is panicked, and the government is composed but underlined with panic, then take it seriously. There is so real harm to not blow it off as just another useless panic event that turns out to be nothing. In black swan events, it is better to brace yourself with preparedness and caution then then to treat panics as lottery events that only affect the very few.
