Travel has already been restricted - or at least the FCO advises against travel and people and companies - and airlines - respond. I can tell you now most business travel has being restricted massively.

It's going to continue to spread globally either way and remember, there is no vaccine (yet). The key in the UK is to at least prevent a rapid spread to minimise overloading services. A slow spread reduces the peak demand on service.

Feckin idiotic loaded questions on QT last night - "if it should get worse, where will the (NHS) staff come from?" Is there really an expectation in today's entitled society that there should be tens of thousands of doctors and nurses somehow on standby or will appear by magic??

Nope. A pandemic is a pandemic. The NHS will do a brilliant job either way - even when the press are reporting otherwise. And I expect the army and private health services will join in. But the fact is that if tens of millions of us become infected and 2-5% of those die, we're not going to have the clean, sanitised, sheltered country we're used to. Even when most symptoms are mild, things will get messy.

There was a definite hint of the outlook when Jon Ashworth backed the government, even if only half-heartedly. Ask yourself when the opposition ever backs the government.

It's alright, Trump says it's a hoax. We can all relax.

No but only a feckin idiot would ignore the fact that we are 50,000 nurses short from the last Tory government. Even Boris agreed with that but obviously not you.

Just one question Cronus.

If we had not lost those 50,000 nurses could we copeBETTER with a Coronavirus epidemic ?

Yes of course we are down on nurses. I have never said otherwise. I'm not ignoring anything. Whatever the current staffing levels in the NHS, expecting "extra staff" to magically materialise in sufficient numbers to handle a massive pandemic is idiotic. The NHS - even with the best of contingency and crisis response planning - is not staffed for massive emergencies.

And yes, of course the NHS would cope better with 50,000 extra nurses. Though what difference it would make to the death rate of covid-19 is questionable given there is no vaccine or treatment. If you get it, you are told to self-quarantine and either you recover or you don't.

Of those who don't recover but make it to medical care, palliative care is all that can be given right now. Either way I fully expect hospitals would be overwhelmed if things escalate massively, mainly because as per usual thousands will rock up with the slightest itchy cough, but that would happen with or without extra nurses.

And there certainly aren't enough beds for tens of thousands of dying patients anyway. Are there plans to implement 'pop-up' wards? Convert sports halls, etc? Or - again, given there is no treatment other than easing some symptoms - send people away?

I'd be also interested to know if A&E are planning to take a harder line with their triage services and send those at less risk away, ideally with police back-up. "You're 25, young and healthy. No underlying issues. You will recover. Go away."

You really are clueless. TypicalTory thinks he knows better than the experts.

It is not so much the flu that kills you rather the complications ie Pneumonia or breathing difficulties,organs shutting down.

If that is the problem those things can often be treated .

Things like ITU and ICU units care for patients like this all the time.

Oxygen being given, ventilation till the body can respond, CPAP, monitoring patients to see they get the treatment they need at the right time.

Nurses do this all the time.maybe if 1 nurse helped 1 person live that’s 50,000 people who may not have died.

From my sisters experiences she worked on ward where 4 nurses would keep 30 people alive.

That is 375,000 people that might not die.

Many people will get Coronavirus that would otherwise have survived if there had not been so many cuts to the health service and 50,000 nurses would have made a huge difference.

the good thing about the 50,000 new nurses is that the majority will not need training or allocation of places because they are already employed within the NHS as nurses.
I suppose with the 40 new hospitals coming on line before the next election according to Johnson that should increase the number of available beds to cater for any emergency.

You're an angry man. Of course I know how the virus works. It attacks the lungs (seemingly killing and sloughing cilia cells) and can bring on acute pneumonia alongside other critical issues such as organ failure (kidneys and liver seem to be most affected) and an intense inflammatory/autoimmune response or 'cytokine storm' which leads to further critical damage in many areas. And all the time the virus continues to attack, and not only in the lungs. Coronaviruses have been found throughout the body. Some will also suffer acute respiratory distress syndrome, for which there is no cure, only supportive treatment. As one academic I spoke to at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine last week put it, "if it bites, it's a sh*tstorm".

The fact is, something between 2-6% of people infected will die. If you reach a certain point, the best anyone can do is make is ease your pain.

Anyway, let me get this right, if we currently had 50,000 more nurses in the NHS, they would ALL be qualified ICU nurses working in ICU units? And there would be enough units for them and enough beds (there are about 6,000 critical care beds at present) for this 375,000 you pluck out of thin air - even over time - on top of the usual NHS workload? And it sounds like they're working 24/7. You haven't factored in shifts, time off, leave, and sickness - plenty of health workers are falling foul of covid-19.

Furthermore, not one of this 50,000 would be in any other specialisations including district nursing, general practice nursing, rehabilitation nursing, older people’s nursing, A&E nursing, theatre nursing, cancer & palliative care nursing, community staff nursing, mental health nursing, occupational health nursing, etc - there are literally dozens upon dozens of nursing specialisations, very few of which would be trained to handle acute covid-19 cases in an intensive care setting.

And none of them are working in other hospital departments, or at other skilled nursing facilities, outpatient settings, GP offices, clinics, insurance companies, government, community health, schools, universities, police stations, prisons, etc?

Nothing wrong with anger. As the great Johnny Rotten said. Anger is an energy !

Wow you have learnt how to google congratulations. still does not hide the complete ignorance of your previous posts . If you get it you will recover or die. Now you have changed your arguement to if you get it bad you will die.

You still have not swerved the question after apologising for Tory health cuts for years all you are doing know is looking for straw men and saying that all the nurses would not be ICU trained.

Of course but they wouldn’t but they would all be trained in various skills that would keep people alive and or comfortable.

Still Keep on flying the Tory flag and attacking anyone who challenges as commies/ snowflakes and temoaners.

Like the Tories under your thin veneeer of rhetoric , nationalist ideology and free market economics there is very little substance to what you say.

Hospital beds per 1000 people:

Japan 13
S Korea 12
Russia 8
Germany 8
France 6
Switzerland 4.5
China 4.3
Scotland 4.2
Australia 3.8
Italy 3.6
Spain 2.97
Ireland 2.96
USA 2.77
England 2.33

Magic up as many retired GP's and Nurses as you like - herein lies the problem.

At the risk of asking a daft question.
Is the number of beds the physical number of beds or, the number of beds that can be adequately staffed ?

I understood that it was the latter, which, assuming that "we" could re employ all of Boris' retired nurses, there could indeed be an increase in capacity.

There are a myriad of ways to deal with these things and if/when it becomes serious enough, a good dollop of cash will always go some way to helping wit the problem.