All staff in my office just now been told to work from home for the next 4 weeks except for business critical activity requiring site attendance.

And let's not forget how and where this virus originated. Have the Chinese taken serious steps to try and prevent this sort of thing happening again?

Just incredible:

https://twitter.com/robertburke84/status/1238104890813173760

Indeed. We have many options and possibilities but very few certainties. 

FTSE down 10% , FTSE MIB Italy down 17%. Very real chance now of another 2008 financial crisis.  The too big to fail banks will be under pressure soon with falls like this.

New government advice includes;

If you have a cough or high temperature, however mild, stay at home and do not leave your house for 7 days from when your symptoms started

It was partly the banks almost failing that led to the 2008 crash not the other way round.

#Breaking Boris Johnson said the coronavirus outbreak was “the worst public health crisis for a generation” and the number of cases could be “much higher” than had been confirmed pic.twitter.com/hjugaTMgTa

— PA Media (@PA) March 12, 2020

Johnson is so out of his depth.

I am sorry. But the government are not doing enough. Its pretty business as usual.

Unacceptable.

This weekend the St Patrick's day parade in London is still scheduled to go ahead. The premier league will carry on with hundreds of thousands of people moving around the country.

This is basically the advise:

"The most dangerous period is not now, but some weeks away, depending how far it spreads," he says.

However, new measures are going to be in place.

They include:

• Staying at home for seven days if you have, however mild, a new continuous cough or higher temperature


• Advise all those over-70s not to go on cruises


• Advise against international school trips

Yet, they say we could have already 10K cases.

I've now done my ILI report - easy to do. The Covid-19 survey takes a bit more thought.

Given the interest here in this topic and the desperate need for current data I do wonder how many enthusiastic posters are actually contributing to this national survey. I only know of a handful - well done folks. 

TBH - if you are a UK resident and not contributing ...

Roger

Yet we move to the 'delay' phase but reading what has actually been implemented today and it appears it is not nearly enough. Boris's own words seem to contradict the lack of action.

The number of cases is almost certainly "much higher" than confirmed 

Numeric modelling is no substitute to opening your eyes and seeing what is happening in other countries. We are stuffed.

No offence intended Q 

Indeed. Likewise, all flights in and out of China to & from elsewhere in the world should have been halted as soon as the existence of the virus became common knowledge in that country. If they had a government that genuinely cared about the well-beimg of its people and that of those in other countries, this would surely have happened and maybe, just maybe, the virus would not have spread to the extent that it has done.

This is what the CMO has said.

"If you calculate what that really means in terms of the total number, it is much more likely that we have between 5,000 and 10,000 people infected at the moment.

"That is still a relatively small number."

Smaller number he said, but no real action to stop that number growing. I am starting to struggle to understand why our approach is so different - I suspect the public at large are starting to not understand either. Its not being explained very well

In the last couple of hours I have returned from Rovaniemi, Finland. We flew out to Helsinki last Thursday and the to Rovaniemi on Friday. Today we took the same route (so 2 flights) to get back to Heathrow. The trip was my 50th birthday pressie from Mrs G. On Wednesday 4th March we considered whether to cancel it but in the end decided to go ahead. Some of you may recall me saying I've not had a cold for 4 or 5 years. As it happens I developed a nasty one whilst we were in Finland. It didn't stop me from going on Husky Safari and snowmobiles as well as walking a lot. However, I intend to call 111 tomorrow (I won't be socialising or coming into contact with anyone apart from Mrs G before then).