People buy water, food and toilet paper at a store in Los Angeles, California on Saturday, as they have begun stockpiling essentials amid fears of dwindling supplies during a possible COVID-19 coronavirus epidemic. Photo: AFP

Shelves are being stripped bare of toilet rolls, hand sanitizer and surgical masks everywhere from Japan to France to the US as panic buying criss-crosses the globe with the coronavirus, defying repeated calls for calm and disrupting supply chains.

Obsessively documented on social media, scrambles to supermarkets and empty shelves are adding panic and confusion to the fight against an epidemic that has killed thousands, placed millions under quarantine and battered global markets.

Australia's biggest supermarket this week began rationing sales of toilet paper after police had to be called to a shop in Sydney when a knife was drawn in a scuffle over the scarce commodity.

On Saturday Japan's prime minister took to Twitter to calm fears of a national shortage, while social media photos from the US show toilet paper shelves lying bare.

Psychologists say a mixture of herd mentality and over-exposure to coverage of the virus is to blame. 

The global spread of the novel coronavirus has crushed hopes for stronger growth this year and will hold 2020 global output gains to their slowest pace since the 2008-2009 financial crisis, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said on Wednesday.

The IMF now expects 2020 world growth to be below the 2.9 percent rate for 2019, and revised forecasts will be issued in the coming weeks, Georgieva told a news briefing. Trade wars pushed global growth last year to the lowest rate since a 0.7 percent contraction in 2009.

Less than two weeks ago, the IMF told G20 finance leaders in Saudi Arabia that the virus could shave 0.1 percentage point off its January global growth forecast, a milder scenario based on expectations the coronavirus would be largely contained within China.

That view changed over the past week as the virus spread rapidly outside China to more than 70 countries and regions, Georgieva said.

South Korea Thursday remains the biggest infection cluster outside China with a total number of 6,088 cases, with 42 deaths.

The number of fatalities in Iran jumped to 107 and the country's total cases hit over 3,500.

Argentina announced its first two cases Tuesday.

COVID-19 Infections in Europe's hardest-hit country Italy have exceeded 3,100 cases with 107 deaths.

Germany had 105 new confirmed cases on Thursday with a total of 349, whereas France has 285 infected ones  with four fatalities.

Outside of China total reported cases have now exceeded 14,000.

The shift has vastly increased uncertainty and caused demand worldwide to weaken, hitting trade and tourism hard and slashing demand for oil and other commodities as individuals and businesses take precautionary measures to avoid infection.

Reuters / AFP - Global Times