You’ve probably got a better chance of winning a game than buying face masks in parts of Asia. Conferences have been disrupted from Beijing to Barcelona to Boston. Quarrels in Japan; riots in Ukraine. Rumors that napkins could be used as masks emptied East Asian store shelves of paper goods. Bernie Huang, a high school teacher in Taiwan said “Fear is a very strong emotion, and the prevailing fear over the new coronavirus drives people to do things irrationally without thinking straight.”

ME