Posted 30 January 2020 - 05:36
I live in Hong Kong and work in China. I can tell you that the western press hasn’t even scratched the surface. Shops are empty, no bread, veg, no masks available, even the HK government (only 10 confirmed cases so far) asking all employers to grand their employees to work from home, asking people to self quarantine, Governmental employees are off work, public transport to China shut down, factories in China will all remain closed at least 2 more weeks, flights are cancelled or partly canceled, streets are very quiet.
Sure, people love drama and will sometimes exaggerate the danger, but this is no Zika or so, this is an airborne virus that can be transmitted from human to human contact and where people are actually dying. Completely different matter. The virus might also mutate therefore and become even more dangerous.
Even when reports are that the virus has been singled out, animal testing will take months and human testing is at least a year away.
Yes, it can blow over, they might get it under control, but government just can’t take risks in case it would get worse. Can you imagine what the backlash would be if they shrugged it off and things would get worse? All of us, including the blasé people here, would scream murder.
So far the virus is spreading and until it gets under control the GP will be at risk and rightly so. Even when, hopefully, in the near future it will have blown over.