Coronavirus - COVID-19

No need to apologize to me...

don't think putting a "like" here is appropriate but appreciate your input

Jeez, Chuck. Let's hope that potential tests will give a negative result. Hold on and take care, man. Sending al the strength from here.

Here, the virus is also spreading very quickly. I'm starting to hear things like a friend who has a kid who has a teacher that is being already infected. Things like that. Still, people are behaving quite normally, fortunately.

chuckrh, I'm deeply sorry, I was planning to write you a couple of days ago but things here are messed up a lot.  I didn't want to disappear like this but the last few months have been really tough. And now, as if it wasn't enough, I have to face this... 
Let me tell you, at first I didn't really believe the virus would've spread to us, and even during the first weekend after the first contagion near Lodi, I wasn't too worried. But unfortunately me and my colleagues studied viruses for a while during uni, we know how they work, and when new cases went from 4 to 200 in 3 days, we understood that something had gone terribly wrong...

The current situation is unbelievable, it seems to live in a very bad disaster movie. And trust me, until it doesn't happen to *you*, you can't really understand how scary and frustrating is to live like this.  Milan isn't even in the quarantine zone, but the streets are desert, hotels have received 90% of booking cancellations, restaurants are permanently empty, chinese restaurants have closed. Universities are closed; I'm stuck at home since the 24th, with my sister, and I don't know when I'll be able to go back to work. ALL cultural appointments, football matches, concerts, everything has been cancelled. We are actually paralyzed, and because of this, our economy is almost dead. Most importantly, hospitals are collapsing, because many people require hospitalization and life support machines, and we don't have enough doctors and beds for everyone. Tonight our president spoke to the nation on TV, and usually this is a sign that things are really, REALLY messed up.

Me, I'm fine. I had to cancel a flight for tomorrow, I was planning to meet my friends in London for a weekend but everyone, starting from my immunologist, told me not to go, because for me it's double dangerous. I'm beyond devastated, because now I don't know when I'll see them,  but I know this was the right choice. 
My family is more worried for me than for themselves. My immunologist told me not to suspend immunosuppressants, but to avoid crowded places. I went out only twice during the last 10 days, and let me tell you, I think I'll soon get mad if I go on like this! 

Please do not take this situation too lightly. It's not just a flu, and will have a catastrophic impact on global economy.

chuckrh, please let me know how things turn out for you, I promise I'll try to log in more during these next days. 

Also, I have a curiosity: how are things *actually* going in US? I couldn't get much from italian TV because we're too busy freaking out about our country.

It is very likely that this thing arrived in Italy way before the first cases were discovered, doctors are hypothesizing at least half January (and in fact in that period they registered a weird peak in pneumonia cases...). We think we registered so many "official" cases only because we're doing more tests than other countries, but numbers could be very similar across Europe. 
Speaking of tests, how does it work there? Do you have to pay for them? 

I am sorry to hear that things have gone so bad in Italy and in the US. Today they confirmed the very first case here in Slovakia. But it was just a question of time as it is everywhere now.
Take care guys!