Coronavirus

Could coronavirus kill off the Six Nations?

Could the Six Nations rugby tournament be the first high profile victim of the coronavirus? England supporters are expecting to decamp to Rome’s Stadio Olimpico in just over two weeks time for the final round match against Italy. But the chances of the game going ahead seem to be fading as fast as Italy’s hopes of winning the competition. The country’s rugby federation called off all matches over the weekend, while the Six Nations has released a statement saying the organisation is ‘monitoring this situation very closely and is in regular contact with the [Italian rugby federation] and all other unions and federations as well as the relevant local authorities and

How to avoid catching coronavirus on the tube

The epicentre of coronavirus – now more correctly called COVID-19 – remains in mainland China, and concerns about a global pandemic occurring have fortunately not been realised although in this fast-changing story this still remains a possibility in the coming weeks. The first death in Europe was recently reported in France, with nine documented cases in the UK. The advice from Public Health England if you have been in Wuhan or the Hubei Province in the last 14 days is that you should stay indoors and avoid contact with other people, like you would for flu, even if you do not have any symptoms. If you develop symptoms, call NHS

Barometer: The brands regretting calling themselves ‘Corona’

Going viral A few of the businesses which chose ‘Corona’ as a brand name and now have a bit of an image problem: — Corona beer — brand of lager owned by Anheuser Busch InBev. — Corona Energy — gas and electricity supplier to businesses and the public sector. — Corona Pine Furniture — range from Mercers Furniture of Rotherham. — Corona ‘the 2D game engine’ — software for designing video games. — Corona, the ‘lemon capital of the world’, a city of 160,000 people 45 miles from LA. — And one which changed its name in time: Corona lemonade — South Wales manufacturer taken over by Britvic in 1987

There’s no need to panic about coronavirus

In contrast to prophets of doom, who get invited to Davos, asked to address the UN and are able to build entire careers around their scaremongering, there are few rewards for those who play down fears – even if they turn out to be correct. If there were, then perhaps I wouldn’t have to draw attention to this piece I wrote in the Spectator in September 2005 arguing that the H5N1 strain of bird flu had been hugely over-hyped and was unlikely to kill many of us. At the time, the World Health Organisation (WHO) was predicting there could be up to 50 million deaths worldwide, and former government adviser