‘Virus death toll climbs’ | SCMP

Today’s front page. Click to enlarge

[UPDATES: Below]. Also: Virusmeter. (h/t JL).

Look at the headline at the top of the page above. Then look at the headline at the bottom of the page above. And guess who inspired the “Panicked Hongkongers”? Why, the type of headlines at the top of the page above!
And now there’s talk of cutting all flights and even shipping with China.
I guess the thing is rather over-react than under-react. At least if you’re the government. I call it “strategic over-reaction”.  It’s what we did in 2003, with SARS, when we were running our Wall Street Institutes. We got right in front of it, for the sake of our staff and customers.
Here in our little Discovery Bay bubble we’ve had our share of panic buying, at our local supermarkets. Masks are sold out even though there’s precious little evidence the ones they sell are of any use. The N95 respirator mask is the only one of proven use, but virtually no one is wearing them, because they’re hard to get and hard to wear.
Guess I better get back to my panicking …
Related: my original take.  My watchword: “vigilance, not panic”. [ADDED: and “strategic over-reaction”).

UPDATE (4/2/20):

Source: Worldometer

Meantime (4/2): Hospital workers here in Hong King have gone on strike to try to force Carrie Lam, the C-E, to close the borders. As of now she is “considering” doing this. Again, failure to see the need for “strategic over-reaction”.

(2/2): Carrie Lam, our C-E has ruled out closing the borders with China even as Singapore has done so and the reaction of medical staff is to threaten strikes beginning next week, if the government doesn’t close borders. Yet another case of her failure to get in front of the issue. In other words, even if panic is not warranted, on the figures above, a certain amount of “strategic over reaction” is needed.

ADDED (31/1/20): Here’s another way at looking at the figures (my own, from WHO):

FWIW (and it’s still a bit too early for definitive conclusions): dropping infection rate and falling number new reported deaths. (“Deaths” are cumulative total, not new). In any case, do these figures warrant the scary Post headlines?

LATER (31/1/20): Just back from the shops and seems like there’s what I’d call "low level panic buying". Many more folks than usual -- though that’s maybe down to many people having been told not to come to work -- and their trolleys are full. Rice aisle is below high tide....

I get home and find CNN telling us that the WHO has declared a “Global Emergency”, sooooo......