I found that people panic buy the strangest things. Who would have ever thought toilet paper would be an issue? It's not like coronavirus makes you %^(#! more than usual. But yet, you didn't see TP on store shelves for weeks and weeks a few months ago. And it's disappeared again over the last two weeks.

Luckily, I'm in good shape regarding TP. Not because I was smart and prepped for it - rather, because I am cheap and buy the big packages of it when they are on sale. You save a lot of money that way, "Buy it cheap, stack it deep". That same mentality goes for ammo and a bunch of other things as well.

As a side bonus of my money-saving buying habits, when my neighbors are running around with their legs crossed trying to dig used Kleenix out of their trash for emergency reuse, I could build a three person fort inside my house with the TP stockpile I have in the basement.

Yeah, at least TP, paper towels, sanitizer and soap won't be an issue for me for a good while.

To quote the great American philosopher Homer Simpson: "In times of trouble you've got to go with what you know."
People know they need supplies and want to have something not perishable. So they go for pasta, rice and TP. As others are panic buying, they need to do so too.
On the plus side companies selling emergency rations have a turnover that ensures that customers receive fresh items instead of "had it in storage for a year"-"kind of fresh".
When I was much younger, it was not unusual to use news papers or ad papers to wipe the backside. Ad papers come in huge amounts and for free to my mailbox. Most of them are not printed on glossy paper. In a pinch I could that.

Here is kind of a strange thing we're stocking up on, but not because of COVID.

We like Bounty paper towel, but we've been noticing that the store near us is starting to only carry their "select-a-size" version, which has half-size sheets, with the idea that you can pull off two sheets if a standard sized piece is needed. My experience is that when using two connected half sheets with anything that gets it wet it simply falls apart at the perforations, and quickly becomes two too small sheets. That irritates me. I hate them.

Even online my wife noticed a reduced availability of regular Bounty, while the select-a-size Bounty is still quite available. With a concern that Bounty was phasing out the standard size, we've started stocking up on the standard size. Time will tell if this was virtual hoarding.

I should also say that we've started trying to use microfiber towels for more and more regular cleaning activities that might have been done with paper towels in the past - in order to be more environmentally friendly, but for microwave cooking and for some really grungy nasty cleanups there is nothing as good as a disposable paper towels.

Well, it's not TEOTWAWKI for sure, but in my view, SHTF is any event that disturbs our 'normal life' for long enough period so much that forces us to make hard changes and tests some of our limits. Let's remember that some people are elderly and with chronic illnesses, so what makes a big challenge for them maybe seen by an atheletic teen as nothing but a simple disturbance.

About a year from now, I am starting construction is another town ( plan delayed by the pandemic). Being 65 and with several health issues, and the site is 100 miles or so from home, it is something near SHTF for me. It tests my limits, even as humble limits as : how long I can keep myself before having to go to the toilet. I am diabetic. When you add hot weather, and having to drink lots of fluids having no WC nearby is , LOL, near TEOTWAWKI for me.

I also have to be extra careful and extra safe. Being diabetic, I don't want a nail going through my foot while I am busy arguing with the contractor.

Sorry for the detour.
2020 tested some of our prepping mentality. I have seen it that a prepper-minded person can be a bit calm in such circumstances compared to other people who are "always enjoying themselves", but were caught by surprise when lockdowns were announced.

I wonder how many people bought 50lbs of Spam in their panic, without having previously known what Spam tastes like? And when the stores ran out of Spam, these same people probably prepped with an additional 50lbs of Spaghetti-O's.

Maybe that's why they needed all the toilet paper...

Spam - Salt, sweet, fat. Everything I love in a handy can.