I agree with a lot of what's been said on this thread.
There is no harm in discussing facts. Figures, WHO data, whatever. The problem comes when people take the figures and start to extrapolate. They speculate about what might happen 3 weeks or 3 months down the line. Nobody knows. And besides, we can't control what other people do or how they behave. We can only control our own behaviour by staying at home, social distancing, washing our hands.
MN are deleting the hearsay threads, the threads about someone's friend's neighbour's cousin's friend who heard X, Y and Z. And quite right too. A friend of mine who does actually work for the NHS posted some silly video on FB, title was something like "video so shocking that Sky won't show it". 6 hours later it had been removed from FB with a sign saying that they'd fact checked it and it was fake news.
On the contingency planning - DH works in a safety critical industry and they often role play what would happen if their entire head office was wiped out by a bomb, or if 75% of the staff dropped dead on the spot, or if an electro-magnetic pulse wiped out all IT for 72 hours. But just because they work through wild scenarios doesn't mean that anyone thinks it will EVER happen. It's all about teamwork and communication, decision making, thinking on your toes and working with limited resources. Every company does this. Just because police are trained to respond to riots doesn't mean they are going to happen.
I get the anxiety thing. I really do. But the very worst you can do if you're anxious is read these threads. Because people present opinion as fact and back it up with "sources" they have found online. Most of which are bollocks.