I just took a vacation to England, tickets bought a month or more ago. Now my flight company is on the verge of canceling all flights back, currently offering full refunds. So far I still can, but one of my friends needs to go back for Cancer treatment under their insurance policy and can't anymore, and another when returning to Beijing is stuck in a 14-day quarantine! I sure hope this isn't going to apply to me next Thursday...

But I have to go back, unfortunately. I don't think the virus itself is particularly dangerous to me: I've had flu's and such before, but people downplaying it are typically people like me, young and healthy, perfectly capable of passing it on to the old and weak.

It frustrates me when media in the west in constantly like 'bleh, regular flu kills more' - Yeah, no shit. That ain't the point.

But either way, it'll be... interesting... to see life in the streets when I get back. There's 100 or so cases where I am (Shanghai) and it has already permanently destroyed a friend's business with no chance of recovery now, and making it hard for friends to actually stock up on supplies.... in Shanghai!

I can't imagine what it's like for Wuhan, but I can say for sure that everything we're seeing in 'official' reports is far, far softer than the nightmare reality