Who knows what's going on in the commercial supply chain though. The usual buyers are canceling orders so the upstream distributors--maybe even manufacturers--are also canceling without necessarily anticipating being able to sell direct to consumers.

That said...

>People seem to be stockpiling cheap familiar essentials, plain and simple, wherever they can get it.

I'm sure there's some truth to this. I'm not stocking up on huge quantities of things I don't need. But, for example, a couple weeks ago there happened to be one bag of my favored flour in the store so I grabbed it even though I wasn't necessarily at the point where I would normally buy it. I also have an extra dozen eggs at home. Etc.

Multiply that behavior by most people and that's a lot of extra buying from stores and inventory scattered around everyone's houses even though most people aren't doing the two-year supply of beans level of prepping.