The most dangerous thing about coronavirus is the hysteria. It is the latest phenomenon to fulfil our weird and growing appetite for doom

Via John

..But there are already strong signs that it has peaked. In the seven days before 24 February, the WHO recorded 6,398 new infections in China — down from 13,002 the previous week. On Monday it was 415. Very soon we are going to have to find another thing to agonise about. Asteroids? The next ‘freak’ weather incident, now the storms have died down? Who knows, but we will certainly find something.

I you  just cancelled your trip to Venice and ordered your £19.99 surgical face mask from Amazon, how about this for a terrifying vision: by the time we get to April, 50,000 Britons will have succumbed to a combination of infectious disease and adverse weather. Frightened? If you are, don’t worry: you survived. It was two years ago. In 2017-18 the Office for National Statistics recorded 50,100 ‘excess winter deaths’. The explanation, according to the ONS, was probably ‘the predominant strain of flu, the effectiveness of the influenza vaccine, and below average winter temperatures’.

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