To be honest, I've been watching this since early January, expecting the worst. I did not stockpile food in early March as Trump acted like it would be no big deal... and then all the stores around here ran out of food. This really made me thing Trump was an idiot for thinking/saying what he did. But in hindsight, if he actually did speak (what we know to be) the truth, there would have been a super large panic. So perhaps he downplaying was calculated.