No, the United States is not going into a national lockdown, confining everyone to home, where people survive on whatever food and other supplies they may have at hand.  But rumors of such a drastic approach, one that would create shortages of essential goods and would fuel permanent empty store shelves and thereby stoke panic buying, are flying online.  So serious is the threat of such panic that the National Security Council issued a tweet last night debunking the claim of a national lockdown.

Text message rumors of a national #quarantine are FAKE. There is no national lockdown. @CDCgov has and will continue to post the latest guidance on #COVID19. #coronavirus

— NSC (@WHNSC) March 16, 2020

This is not a fake tweet. It has been re-tweeted by the official White House Twitter account.

Fear, a natural protective response to threat, can be a productive emotion.  Panic, irrational and exaggerated uncontrolled fear, leads to blindness and counterproductive actions.  In a historic moment of a pandemic threat that affects everyone, we must embrace caution (a rational response to real threat of a pandemic) and guard against irrational panic fed by false information.  Stay away from places where you are close to others, avoid touching surfaces that can be touched by others, wash and sanitize your hands as much as possible, and you decrease the odds of transmission of the virus.  If everyone practices sensible caution, the spread of the virus will slow, and it will die down, as past viruses always have.