Well reported by the Manchester Evening News:

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/uk-news/coronavirus-outbreak-uk-news-live-17664061

The only thing I take heart from is that the rate of testing in the UK is far higher per million of population than in any other European country with the exception of Italy.

My local Tesco has plenty, no panic buying yet.

Yes, we are leading by example now. I am impressed after a bit of a stuttered start. 

This piece of news interested me:

"Two British Airways baggage handlers have tested positive for coronavirus, the airline announced today. "

- is it possible they caught it from contaminated baggage? I don't know, I am just posing the question.

It was reported that the virus has been found to survive up to 48 hours and still be viable, so it's possible. Plus of course, the temperature in the cargo bay will be very low.

That's interesting; I guess it's obvious but never occurred to me before!  Just shows the range of effects from viral inflections in general and how this Covid-19 seems little different (except the mortality rate, of course).

And there are currently 41000 active cases so Old Trafford would look quite empty with them all in attendance. A word of note though, there may well be hundreds of thousands of cases that are going unreported. 

That's a good way of putting some perspective on the scale.

Against that, if you have an extended family and friends with around 10-15 people over 70-80 years of age and this does take off then there's a risk that you could lose one or two of them, based on the current statistics.

I think that contaminated surfaces, such as trays or cups from food and drink delivered to cabins, is how the virus spread to 20% of passengers on the Diamond Princess when they were in quarantine for 2 weeks. So suitcase handles would be just as susceptible.

Holiday companies, airlines and hotels are being crucified by corona virus, but they will mostly recover. I do wonder whether this will be curtains for cruises  - here is another cruise in trouble, this time near Malta:

"Doctors in Malta have threatened industrial action if a cruise liner bound for the island is allowed to dock over coronavirus fears, the Times of Malta has reported.

The MSC Opera is due to arrive in Malta at 18:00 (17:00GMT) on Friday.

A former passenger on the ship was diagnosed with the virus this week."

On the World at One today, they were saying that bookings for cruise ships have fallen off the proverbial cliff - those hulks of metal need constant use to amortise their costs, so some big name operators are probably going to sink as a consequence.

Except that my first point was just highlighting the relative numbers and my second point was not downplaying it....

I guess that in your mind it's OK to overdramatise but not acceptable to be calm and rational.

And of course, the elephant in the room is that known cases are related to the level of testing being done - only the very tip of the iceberg is showing.

Anyhow, here is why closing schools is a bad idea - recent report from Italy:

"...

A government decree that took effect Thursday urged the country's famously demonstrative citizens to stay at least 1 metre apart from each other, placed restrictions on visiting nursing homes and urged the elderly not to go outside unless absolutely necessary.

That directive appeared to be widely ignored, as school closures nationwide left many Italian children in the care of their grandparents. Parks in Rome overflowed with both young and old, undercutting government efforts to shield older Italians from the virus that hits the elderly harder than others. Italy has the world's oldest population after Japan.

..."

The government tells people to isolate the elderly, they then close the schools and guess what? The elderly become child minders.

But it's not just cruise ships, is it? Any expensive asset that's being underused will be a problem.  But the problem is not the asset; it's the hit to the cash flow.

Airlines, hotels and cruise ships all rely on the cashflow from advance bookings to get through the low season as it is.

Oooh! Perhaps some bargains to be had for next year!!

  what a good way to put things into perspective... was shopping in our local waitrose last night and utterly astonished to see a good number of shelves of non perishable foods cleared and empty... collective madness that I'm afraid is being fueled by the internet...

I’m regularly looking at Ryanair, Jet2 etc to see what’s on offer. 

Except that it is a completely false picture:

"Currently around 100,000 confirmed cases globally."

Nobody knows the true story, but not many countries are testing as intensively as the UK, SK and Italy. The figures for some countries are a joke, including Denmark which has only tested 649 people out of a population of 6 million.

P.S. Agree about the panic buying - silly.

I really don't get the bog roll thing either - I mean, for Pete's sake why ???

If it was Norovirus I could perhaps understand ! 

Everybody in the office at work in Denmark have now been instructed to take their laptops home this evening and to work from home next week, because the wife of a colleague went to Milan last weekend and she fell ill on Wednesday and has been confirmed positive.

So even though her husband has not been confirmed positive yet, the office is being closed and deep cleaned as a precaution.

People strip shelves because they are afraid that somebody else will do it before them and there will be nothing left. A rumour starts about bog roll running out and, before you know it, bog roll has run out.

And then there are people like me who enjoy panic buying because it’s a laugh.

Last time: because if supply chains are hit due to people being sick, people don't want to be without loo roll. The same reason people buy tinned food: it's not because people think rubbing a can of tinned tomatoes on their chest will cure the virus.

I don't understand why people don't get this.

Indeed. I really don't get why people act as herd idiots at times like this, other than the whole "he's doing it, so I'll do it too in case I miss out"...

The supply chains can't cope with panicky muppets buying way more than they need, so they cause the very thing they're trying to avoid.

Still, give it a week or two and you'll have all the bog roll you could ever want!

(The logical thing to do, of course, if you want to build supplies, is to do it piecemeal, as opposed to buying a gross of loo rolls all in one go. That way there'll be enough for all the panickers, as well as those who just want a 9-pack as they only have a couple of rolls left, but that'd require rational thought and restraint, things the panickers seem to lack.)