Doors at Costco in Majura Park opened at 9.30am on Saturday with shelves stocked full with Friday's delivery of toilet paper.
At 9.45am those shelves were empty.
Everyone who came afterwards was out of luck - except for one man seen steering a 30-pack through the crowd at midday.
"I found it hidden," Benjie Lao said.
Mr Lao, a crane operator from Queanbeyan, said he was out to stock up on the essentials to feed his five children - milk, eggs, vegetables, rice and water - when he found the slab stashed below the shelves.
"There's none in Woolworths," he said. "If someone wants the rest I'd just take six."
Lines of people waited to stock up at Costco on Saturday morning. Hand sanitiser, masks, tissues and paper towel was either sold out or running low.
All checkouts were open and some staff wore masks to protect against the spread of coronavirus. One reported higher numbers through the door and more walking out with 20-kilogram bags of flour than ever seen before.
Ruth and Robert Corcoran travelled to Canberra for the weekend from Junee and had stopped in for cheap booze and a few bulk items.
The Junee Correctional Centre employees said they'd be required to work even if others were told to self-isolate, but they weren't feeling panicked at the thought.
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"If you're going to get it, you're going to get it," Mrs Corcoran said.
Mr Corcoran saw the benefit of postponing public gatherings of 500 people or more, but his wife did not.
"I think it's ridiculous. Better to let it run its course I think," she said.
The prison kitchen manager said an awareness campaign had begun inside the prison to remind inmates to wash their hands and a few had joked about having coronavirus. "We tell 'em to grow up," she said.
At the Weston Creek walk-in centre on Saturday - the ACT's recommended coronavirus testing facility - Christine Carey was attempting to see a nurse.
The Holder resident was preparing to drive to Queensland on Sunday to check her 87-year-old mother and 90-year-old aunt out of an aged-care facility for self isolation on a farm.
Ms Carey said she'd made her way to the clinic after developing mild flu-like systems ahead of her planned departure.
"We're so lucky we've got a facility equipped to deal with this," Ms Carey said while on the way to speak to the nurse screening visitors at the front door.
However, without having travelled overseas, been in contact with someone who had tested positive or been employed as a medical professional, Ms Carey was turned away.
"I've just come back from Mardi Gras where I was in contact with thousands," she said.
"Now I feel like I'm between a rock and a hard place."
Ms Carey said, as a local, she'd been embarrassed at some people's "NIMBY" attitude towards the walk-in centre becoming a testing facility. She said discussions on an online community noticeboard had suggested the centre would put the elderly and young people at risk.
Dr Vib Manchanda had been en route to a medical conference in Coffs Harbour when an alert came through that it was cancelled as a result of coronavirus.
At the Canberra airport on his way home on Saturday, the Calvary Public Hospital employee said the feeling among medical staff was not one of panic.
"I'm more concerned that the public is misinformed," Dr Manchanda said.
Hope Ashley and Brendan Masa-O'Connal returned home to Chisholm after six days in Melbourne.
They said the first feeling of panic had been while trying to shop, finding basic ingredients such as bread and flour completely depleted at some supermarkets in Victoria.
The full-time McDonald's employees said measures had ramped up to protect customers inside the stores, including the provision of hand sanitiser and paper-wrapped straws.
