UK Government hopes to flatten the country in two months.

Can we keep Brexit out of these threads please. 

In passing, I'm afraid you've missed Justin's point: it wasn't about Brexit, it was about the marshalling of patriotic feelings to gain support for Brexit.

You mean they didn't get the memo either? Are we the only ones on the planet who get it?

LOL

Really?

Donald said they had it all under control. Fantastically well under control. Nobody has done a greater job.

Etc....

I don't know the author, but it sounds a bit like sour grapes to me and who knows, he might even be a Sinophobe. I may dislike their regime and have lots of concerns about many things in China, but I think there is also a lot of bullsh1t written about them too.

You should really love them anyway, they are on the straight and sacred road of nationalism and increasingly capitalism too.

Expect China to increasingly start blaming the hopeless West about covid-19.

This article talks of 'Chinese propaganda mouthpieces', yet how do you know that codswallop like this is not 'propaganda' in itself? Because it is obvious this isn't really about the virus in itself, but just an excuse to have a pop at what it considers to be a 'communist government'. 

Precisely, he even links to a video posted 10 days ago without any information on what exactly it is or where it was filmed. 

I would have used the word 'worrying' or 'predictable'.  China has used this crisis to extend its tentacles of control even deeper into people's lives and the state has now embarked on a propaganda war to trick people into believing that the virus didn't originate in a market in Wuhan. I read that a senior military man had been tasked with spearheading the propaganda war. One line of attack was that US troops brought the virus to Wuhan during a visit late last year....

I have held the view for many years now that our increasing reliance on an undemocratic one party state, which we have steadily enriched, was fraught with danger. I didn't have a global pandemic in mind but perhaps that will force a reevaluation.

 China has always managed the news story. As it has been busy kicking out foreign journalists our ability to learn the truth is being constrained.

Er, because the Chinese state exerts complete control of the local media and keeps control of foreign reporters.

Did you miss the expulsion of reporters representing US media outlets? The excuse was racism against the Chinese people for daring to point out that SARS-cov2 originated in a market in Wuhan.  If you don't find that sinister then I'd be amazed.

That does not invalidate his comment.

I see our friend and ally Erdogan (or at least Turkey) has been withholding for 15 days now 200,000 masks ordered and paid by the Italian hospitals. I don't know the details, but it sounds like he is using this in his tug of war with Europe.

No, but he should have provided more background to it and his comments are pretty weak anyway. 

Journalists are journalists whether they are 'foreign' or not. 

I agree on what you say about China, but the Wuhan market is just the most likely origin of the virus. We don't know yet with scientific 'certainty' where and when exactly it originated from (likely to be China though). I don't know if we'll ever find out either as it's now becoming politicised and science will suffer.

Edit (to be fair), this is what the WHO says: On 11 and 12 January 2020, WHO received further detailed information from the National Health Commission China that the outbreak is associated with exposures in one seafood market in Wuhan City. 

UK death toll up 40 in last 24 hours. Biggest daily rise so far.

God.
More 380 dead, only in Lombardy, in just one day.
This is utter carnage.#CORONAVIRUS DEATH TOLL IN WORST-AFFECTED ITALIAN REGION LOMBARDY RISES BY AROUND 380 IN PAST 24 HOURS TO SOME 2,550 -SOURCE (reuters)#Covid_19 #italy

— Antonello Guerrera (@antoguerrera) March 20, 2020

 Erdogan would do well to keep this truism in mind:

"It is the stillest words which brings the storm".

Better get used to the bit in bold. Logarithmic increases would mean that'll be the case for most days over the next couple of weeks at the very least (and judging by the way it's almost business as usual, probably more weeks beyond that).

The above was posted by Jim just yesterday. Her hospital has now declared a major incident as it ran out of ICU capacity.

Northwick Park Hospital has declared a “critical incident” due to a surge in patients with coronavirus, the Health Service Journal reports.

In a message to staff seen by the HSJ, the hospital in Harrow said it has no critical care capacity left and has contacted neighbouring hospitals about transferring patients who need critical care to other sites.

It's even worse, see my post above. This is the same hospital that the consultant had written about the huge preparations and ICU expansion.

Cheers to that as Beast would say.