The stockpiling of supplies has officially started amid the COVID-19 outbreak. Shoppers are being sent into panic-buying mode worldwide and it has been a little strange to watch things unfold.

Grocery stores, including Costco stores, have seen a spike in sales of household items like hand sanitizer, face masks, toilet paper and cases of bottled water in recent weeks. Sales of shelf-stable grocery items, including fruit snacks, dried beans and pretzels, are on the rise, too, according to late-February data from Nielsen shared Via CNBC .

The CDC is working across the Department of Health and Human Services and across the U.S. government in the public health response to COVID19 . FMI, the Food Industry Association, has compiled a preparedness checklist that's 16 pages long to support the food industry retailers.

Along with the essentials, it seems many people are not using common sense when it comes to what they should stockpile. Unfortunately, not all of the advice available online comes from reputable sources.

Thanh Thai, from Sydney in Australia, shared a picture of emptied shelves after a shop sold out of Durex condoms

'Can anybody please tell me what happened?' Thanh Thai writes in the Ryde's District Mum's Facebook page.

Apparently there was a post shared on social media that encouraged people to put condoms on their fingers to press buttons in elevators.

It is not clear why people would buy condoms and not latex gloves. Better yet, wash your hands. One man was caught coming out of Costco with 16 boxes of condoms and a big jar of coconut oil.

A quick check of the Costco website revealed that to be a total of 928 condoms.

Images have shown empty shelves worldwide, though for the most part it seems to be toilet paper that is in high demand.