I hope that they will hold off on postponing EFL fixtures for a little while yet. I'm due at the Den on Saturday afternoon

Government's geographical breakdown of cases in UK as of 9am yesterday:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-number-of-cases-in-england/coronavirus-covid-19-number-of-cases-in-england

In England 

All operations at Nicosia general hospital have been cancelled for the next 48 hours, after a doctor was found to be treating patients while infected with the coronavirus, the health ministry announced on Monday.

The doctor, a 64-year-old heart surgeon, contracted the virus on a visit to Britain and treated a patient the same night of his arrival home on March 3. He was not tested until March 8.

Decent chance that today's UK number of infections will be a multiple of yesterday's?

You are putting pocket book affairs ahead of national health concerns. Try telling those people who were trapped on infected cruise ships that they made the right decision. And the point is this - nobody is booking cruises now in any case, because they have seen what can happen, so they may as well have suspended cruise operations at the outset and then maybe nobody would have got trapped on plague ships.

Same for international travel - restricting travel earlier and further would have had the benefit of delaying and containing the virus. Look at countries like Taiwan which took early and effective action - they are now in a much better position than we are.

Look at Austria - quite frankly, there is little point in them closing their border today, apart from as a public relations exercise to convince their people that the government is doing something - if they had done it over a week ago, they would very probably be in a better position today.

P.S. "Spain on Tuesday decided to cancel all direct flights to and from Italy for two weeks in a bid to stop the spread of the coronavirus, according to the government's official gazette.

This measure will take effect from March 11 at midnight and continue until midnight of March 25, the gazette said."

Again - too little too late.

Exactly, I don't get why some people fail to understand that. If Q is right that we are behind Italy (and therefore the likes of Austria and Spain) then the steps we take to address it will follow later. The actions the government so far have taken have proven to work (in controlling the spread) and it is inevitable that more actions will follow such as playing sport behind closed doors. 

True - apologies!

They had better hold off, or at least play them behind closed doors. I can't bear the thought of Leeds not getting promoted this season.

We were talking specifically about travel restrictions - where timely action could have delayed and diminished the effects in this country.

When it comes to cruise ships - clearly they were a disaster just waiting to happen (for those on them).

I disagree with this; their number of cases is still relatively low, so closing their border today could still have an impact.

I also think you underestimate how fine is the balance between economic damage and containment, but I do agree that European countries should have reacted earlier to the Italian cluster.

A man in his 80's has died after testing positive for coronavirus he was in the Watford General Hospital and had underlying health conditions.

The virus was picked up in the UK with contact tracking underway

Now things are getting really serious, the annual swingers party in Crete has just been cancelled; it usually attracts 500-600 people.

You are showing a complete failure to understand the need to find the right balance.  

Every action has consequences. Stopping cruise ships from sailing puts hundreds of thousands of people out of work; shutting down events has consequences; cancelling flights and closing borders has consequences.  

These things are done when a threshold is reached where the risk of not doing it exceeds the consequences of doing it.

Your panicky, ill-considered overreaction is just ridiculous.  I'll say it again as you've clearly not grasped the point: it is about getting the timing of interventions right; not too soon and not too late.

If it's a choice between your opinions or those of the experts in their fields there really isn't a contest; you come last every time. 

Well, if the Corona virus does stop your promotion, then it's final proof that Don Revie was right about the gypsy curse. 

I disagree - the failure is all on your side - you have been overly optimistic since the outbreak became a serious issue in the news.

From the Telegraph:

"A staff member at Aintree University Hospital in Liverpool has reportedly tested positive for coronavirus.

According to The Liverpool Echo, the staff member was a male consultant surgeon who had returned from Italy."

Tighter controls on travel at an earlier stage may have helped in this case. Not good that a hospital worker could take the infection into a hospital.

How many cruise ships have been affected out of the 300-odd that exist?

How many cases of Covid-19 were there when the passengers made their decisions?

Again, you're demonstrating a failure to understand the risk at the time these decisions were taken.

Clearly they were not 'a disaster waiting to happen'; firstly there haven't been any 'disasters' and secondly they were clearly not obviously a risk.

But you keep trotting out the same nonsense. But if you keep repeating something that's untrue it doesn't stop being untrue.

100% serious about the amount of official cases in the Berkhamsted area. Speculating about the real number. 

Let's agree to disagree.  I have been providing some much-needed balance in a thread that you and others have turned into a hysterical misrepresention of actual events as they have happened.

Covid-19 seems to be widely in circulation now. It was in Italy for some time before it was identified; ditto North America and no doubt elsewhere. 

I'm not sure what you think your draconian measures would have achieved and I know you haven't thought about the consequences.

Absolutely agree with this and it's a tough call.

The table linked on the last page had berkhamsted's county, Herts with the most cases - 13 so it does sound like a relative hotspot.

Just down the road from here. 

Early days but signs the death rate in the UK is high. Comparable to Italy. If that's the case we may have imported the more severe variant.