Wait a month and ask this question. The flu is already established in society, Coronavirus is just now spreading. Coronavirus spreads much faster and is much deadlier. WHO is estimating 20% to 60% worldwide contamination. Current death rate is 3.4%. Cut the death rate to 1% of 20% of 7.8B people and you have 15M dead.
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That's like asking why anyone would panic when only the fuse has been lit because there hasn't been an explosion yet.
Estimates are that we are 3-4 weeks away from the peak in new cases on a weekly basis.
And the infectious disease specialist I read says we likely have a lot a people walking around who already have the virus
but have not been tested. So the 3.4% mortality rate will fall to something closer to 1%, heavily skewed towards the older
population who typically have other health issues.
For comparison here are flu numbers for 2019 from the American Hospital Assoc.
35,500,000 infections
490,600 hospitalizations
49,000 ICU admissions
34,200 deaths
A little early , I'd say to start panicking. But feel free to stock up on TP