US ban extends to UK and Ireland now 

Exactly. 

Policy making by the masses based on nothing more than panic. 

It’s appalling.

 Completely agree. The issue is whether more experts believe the current approach is wrong based on the current evidence.  

Trump to add UK and Ireland to US travel ban https://t.co/owEkcMNXM7

— The Independent (@Independent) March 14, 2020

Which means there’s no basis for demanding a change of policy, surely?

Nobody wants to be in this situation but we are. There are no solutions that don’t come with consequences.

Although...

https://twitter.com/uk_domain_names/status/1238846809889484801?s=19

https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1238852649996423170?s=19

I expect their model shows how many deaths and criticals they expect on a daily basis with the given approach. If the outcome is exceeding the prediction then it is will probably soon be time to change tack. 

Will Canada be forced to follow, I wonder?

Given Trump’s comment last night at the news conference it seemed a likely move.  But I still think it’s the wrong approach because they’ve already got a widespread outbreak so the proverbial cat is already well out of the bag. I wonder if that’s based on the scientific advice or typical Trump showmanship?

Yes, clearly they have to be guided by the evidence.  But as I mentioned above, the CMO said there are many more cases out there, so greater detection shouldn’t be a surprise - and some modelling work I read pointed out that there’s that period of ca 14 days from infection to symptoms, so what we’re seeing now is what was underway around two weeks ago.

Interesting. One of the meds I take is ritonavir

I did smirk at that 

He really is priceless 

Multiple sources for this. Perhaps pertinent to your situation. 

Once upon a time, there was a wise old farmer who had worked on the land for over 40 years. One morning, while walking to his stable, he noticed that his horse had run away. His neighbours came to visit and sympathetically said to the farmer, “Such bad luck”.

“Maybe,” the farmer replied. The following morning, however, the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. “Such good luck,” the neighbours exclaimed.

“Maybe,” the farmer replied. The following afternoon, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses and was thrown off, causing him to break his leg. The neighbours came to visit and tried to show sympathy and said to the farmer, “how unfortunate”.

“Maybe,” answered the farmer. The following morning military officials came to the farmer’s village to draft young men into the army to fight in a new war. Observing that the farmer’s son’s leg was broken, they did not draft him into the war.

The neighbours congratulated him on his good luck and the farmer calmly replied, “Maybe”.

Interesting. Some promising options there in the absence of a vaccine.

Good information on Tocilizumab here:  https://www.nras.org.uk/what-is-roactemra-tocilizumab-

It's extraordinary pricey: 

Intravenous Solution
Quantity Per unit Price
4 milliliters $122.74 $490.95
10 milliliters $121.31 $1,213.13
20 milliliters $120.84 $2,416.76

An interesting piece here on Remdesivir:

 https://www.drugtargetreview.com/news/56798/mechanism-of-action-revealed-for-remdesivir-potential-coronavirus-drug/

Hopefully the companies who produce these will reduce the price for the medicines where applicable  - and I say that as a shareholder in Abbvie and Abbott!

I could feel more sanguine and accepting of the situation if the world's experts could roughly agree on the best approach. The epidemiologists must have been working on these kind of scenarios for years, travelling to international conferences and exchanging data and theories. I'm perplexed that now when it comes to the crunch there is so much disagreement. From my non-expert perspective the WHO scientists and UK Gov scientists seem diametrically opposed on the way to deal with it. 

It does not inspire confidence in the high level decision making.

Italy figures for the regions

• Lombardy 11,685 (+1,865)


• Emilia Romagna 2,644 (+381)


• Veneto 1,937 (+342)


• Piedmont 873 (+33)


• Marche 899 (+174)


• Liguria 463 (+ 118)


• Campania 272 (+52)


• Tuscany 630 (+160)


• Sicily 156 (+26)


• Lazio 357 (+80)


• Friuli-Venezia Giulia 301 (+44)


• Abruzzo 112 (+23)


• Puglia 166 (+37)


• Umbria 107 (+31)


• Bolzano 173 (+48)


• Calabria 60 (+22)


• Sardinia 47 (+4)


• Valle d'Aosta 42 (+14)


• Trento 206 (+43)


• Molise 17 (-)


• Basilicata 10 (-)

Pretty alarming if true. A study in Hong Kong suggests that about 1/4 of the people who recover from COVID-19 have a 20-30% reduction in lung capacity as a result of damage from the virus:

https://twitter.com/V2019N/status/1238864032414625792

An increase of 20% on cases which is about the level it has been for the last 4 days. 

It's probably too late to stop it now but I would say we are 10 days from these type of numbers here. But we definitely should stop mass gatherings and close all schools asap.