Former Conservative Party of Canada interim leader Rona Ambrose says that the government needs to reassure Canadians that Ottawa is prepared for COVID-19 and to help ease “irrational” fear that she warns is taking hold in the country.

“People are nervous. There’s different responses in different countries. You know, one country is shutting down borders completely, other countries like Canada are still allowing planes to bring people in from hot zones, screening them and so that leads people to wonder, ‘Is our government doing the right thing?’” Ambrose said in a BNN Bloomberg interview Friday.

“I guess what I would say is that our government does rely on very good science through the Public Health Agency of Canada, through the World Health Organization, but ... even if we know that, there’s still this level of fear that seems to have taken over that’s irrational.”

Ambrose, who at one point served as health minister in Stephen Harper’s government, warned that the growing fear among many Canadians may impact economic activity and cause a significant blow to the country’s gross domestic product down the road.

“People are starting to empty shelves in grocery stores, they’re worrying [and] you know, people are now paying ridiculous amounts of money for hand sanitizer on Amazon. People are staying home and when you think about an economy like ours which is a high income economy and there’s a lot of service, face-to-face service industries — if people start to remove themselves from that economy it could have a serious impact on our GDP,” Ambrose said

She stressed that the government of Canada needs to continue communicating that it is prepared if the situation escalates.

“I think the government has to be in constant communication with its citizens about the real threat here…you now if the majority of Canadians get this virus they will survive it, they will be fine,” Ambrose said.

“They need to continue to give Canadians all of the reassurances that they are prepared should it become a pandemic.”