The Coronoavirus spreading through a bunch of Brexit fundamentalist loons celebrating this shitfest would have a certain ring of delicious schadenfreude about it.

In the Resident Evil game and film series, the deadly virus is first created at a facility in Racoon City.

An anagram of 'racoon' is 'corona'

What are we not being told???????!!!!??????!!

It's going to be very interesting to see what measures the Government take to avoid a major outbreak. The death rate in China looks to be about 2% but of the 150 or so cases outside China no one has yet died. If we see 500+ confirmed cases here will we start seeing mass school closures, significant avoidance of public transport, whole towns on lockdown sporting fixtures cancelled etc. If its likely to save 50, 100, 1000 or more lives then I think the government has no choice and has too. Fascinating and alarming in equal measure.

Sage advice...

Is that.... a picture of ....a bat? 

Questions, so many questions....

A lot of them already look like they've come straight off the Walking Dead. I doubt Corono will make much difference. 

If someone is carrying this on the London Underground it could be catastrophic. People are very tightly packed in most of the time. The jubilee line also sits along the route of major music centres were crowds gather in close proximity. 

Last week I have to tell someone to cover there mouth when coughing - they were right up near my face as it was so packed.

Tfl need to consider shutting down the tube network.

The tube should be shut down and modernised regardless. I got on it once, never again.

Saw 5 people with protective masks on in Manc city centre this lunchtime.

All of them Chinese-looking.

The people, not the masks.

They are probably made in China and come with the virus installed out of the box. 

I used the tube every work day for years. I've also travelled on the NY Subway, Paris Metro and a few others I forget. They are all much of a muchness. I've had flu once in my life and have probably had a comparable number of colds to other people of my age. My view is the risks of infection on the tube / public transport are lower than some people think. I've also noticed over the years that on a number of occasions I've had a cold and my wife hasn't contracted it and vice versa. I suspect the transmission of cold / flu viruses isn't quite as straightforward and linear as many people think.

Some hilarious posts in this thread!

Yes it is comedy gold. Perhaps it's an age related thing but I suspect some people here have far bigger problems to worry about than the corona virus.

Obviously you've never been struck down with flu, proper flu. If you had, you'd realise that anything a magnitude worse than that will be horrific.

I guess if you were to be struck down by coronavirus, you wouldn't be sneering.

Agreed. People are quick to laugh without always understanding that not everyone can sit back an relax. The irony here is that many of the people laughing are the same people that whipped themselves into a frenzy over a no deal brexit. That wasn't ever really going to happen. This IS currently happening.

Agreed, seems some people are happy to play Russian roulette with a 3% mortality rate and up to 25% critical care threshold. Madness.

The mortality rate is probably less than 1%. Still a serious problem of course but similar to other flu strains. Less clear is how easily it transmits. 

I have. Came down with it on a Monday evening in the pub and it came on me quickly - went from feeling pretty much OK to sat shivering in coat, hat, gloves & scarf trying to laugh it off in about 30 mins. Admitted defeat and drove home (about 1.5 miles away). By the time I was driving up the road before mine, I was jibbering to myself, and wondering why I was jibbering to myself. Spent about 60 hours non-stop hallucinating, temperature peaking at 103, on-call doctor out and everything. Knocked me for six. But I still marvel at the 60 hour hallucination 

It's flu.

I’ve had ‘proper flu’ (sic) three times. The first time, in my mid-20s, was the worst by a distance but none of them were at all pleasant. Even the worst cold doesn’t come close.

As I understand it, the issue with this Coronavirus is the secondary infections like pneumonia as much as the virus itself.

If you use the Spanish Flu as a baseline, that killed 2.5%. Now fast forward a century and in general we have a healthier population and infinitely better healthcare and medicines.  You would hope that lowers the mortality rate.

But I’m not sure that making a light-hearted comment really qualifies as ‘sneering’.

Well on the plus side I was outside the hotel on the 24th.

Tourists didn't arrive until the 27th.

So no possibility I could have caught it at that gathering from them.

I am not sneering at all,  I just found some posts from Saint and Brian to be hilarious. I have lost someone very close to me from flu, so I know what can happen. Please be careful before accusing people like this.

HeavyWeather implied that he has the HIV virus, so I completely understand if he is particularly worried about this and I can only sympathise. I cannot do the same though for Quantum's hysteria (stopping all social interactions, claiming that the mortality rate is at least 10%, stressing out Joe etc.)  and I'll mock him  for this.

As you’ve seen fit to raise it here, I think you need to hold fire on the self-congratulatory tone about ‘No Deal Brexit’ until we see what January 2021 brings.

That aside you seem to be jumping to conclusions about the risks from this Coronavirus.  I really don’t think speculating about what might happen if a whole bunch of assumptions prove correct is helpful or sensible.  This isn’t some Hollywood disaster movie script.

I think I had flu sometime last year.

My temperature was up to 100 and I developed a full body rash. Spent most of it asleep.

In my first year of undegrad I also had the flu, although that occasion was far worse as I presented with all the symptons of meningitus (it wasn't meningitus).

The only other time I remember having a severe fever was when I got food poisoning in my 2nd year of undergrad (from a holiday to Iceland). I suddenly developed a raging fever that lasted for about 20 minutes, and then I felt alot better.

I'm sorry but you and others were unnecessarily stressing people out over a no deal brexit.

This, on the other hand, is something that could become quite dangerous. Global pandemics do not happen often, and this is a candidate for one. Advising against travel to SE Asia is emminently sensible at a time when countries near China are closing their borders and could impose quarantines at very short notice.