Schools significantly restricting activities for our children; tourism operators going into quarantine, either self-imposed or now government-enforced; festivals of sport, music and the arts falling like dominoes; supermarkets instituting rations and pensioner-only shopping hours; businesses and companies deploying strategies to cope with the massive hits being taken to the economy.

It's a full-blown pandemic - of reaction and response, not just of the novel coronavirus, COVID-19.

Social distancing, panic buying, flattening the curve, herd immunity - they are phrases that can provoke anxiety in communities, many already reeling from a summer lost to bushfires and floods. They are also, to a large extent, reactionary.

In times like these, we are fuelled by a need to seek out and soak up as much information as possible. But in the same action we can be overwhelmed by what we find.

And don't try blaming "the media" for the panic - responsible journalists are trying to relay the most accurate and up to date information we have to hand for an audience that is quite clearly calling out for such coverage. The volume and focus on COVID-19 is simply a reaction in itself to our audiences telling us, through their behaviour, that's what they want to be reading.

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Sensationalism and social media is what has most people in a frenzy. On Monday, the president of the Royal Australasian College of GPs, Dr Harry Nespolon, said all social media users should be wary of what they are reading.

"I understand that people are scared but turning to false or misleading social media content is not the answer," he said.

"It's not always easy but social media users need to critically examine this content and consider the source of the information and whether it is credible.

"The best sources of information on COVID-19 include the RACGP website and the official health.gov.au website, not Miranda Kerr's Instagram account."

Get proactive.

Dr Nespolon's advice is simple - wash your hands, keep them away from your face, avoid handshakes and mass public gatherings and don't always believe what you see on social media.