Andrew Dickens Afternoons

Each day I’m getting a little more concerned about the coronavirus outbreak of Covid 19.I’ve always bit a bit concerned but optimistic that this will pass quickly and life and trade will go back to normal.After all the last coronavirus, SARS, came and went.  A virus that was more deadly than this current one.But there’s a couple of things that have got me more worried.When I interviewed Health Minister David Clark yesterday on the extension of Chinese visitor bans,  I said the often quoted argument that influenza kills more people but we don’t ban visits from infected areas.  David agreed but said the difference is that we have vaccines for flu.Until we create a medical wall against the spread of the virus, then the physical wall of visitor bans will have to stay in place unless the virus peters out, which it doesn’t look like doing.And then there was a piece in the South China Morning Post that warned that Covid 19 was going to be more damaging to the Chinese economy than SARS.Put simply, the virus may be le