ARE you concerned about coronavirus or one of those dismissing reports as scaremongering?

At the time the country needs to finally unite on an issue, many have been split.

But it really is time if you haven't been taken it seriously already to start doing so.

Every day there are more UK cases announced, and sadly more deaths.

Let’s get this in perspective - this is not seasonal flu, that many keep comparing it too.

Flu kills between 290,000 and 650,000 people a year globally.

The UK government is preparing for a worst case scenario of around 100,000 deaths just in this country from this new threat.

And yes this maybe worst case and we don't know where things are heading, but we still should be very concerned.

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What is known as a fact is that our figures of coronavirus cases and deaths are currently at the point Italy was two weeks ago.

This week the Italian government placed 16 million people under quarantine, and the county has banned all public gatherings and closed schools at the epicentre.

Could we see those measures here? More to the point, is the UK ready if we reach Italy's position within a fortnight?

Our NHS has suffered from underinvestment for years and was struggling with bed shortages, with patients on trolleys in corridors, already. That is a weak position to be in heading into this crisis.

And have our government already been too slow to react? We are still officially in containment phase, but Number 10 is saying the virus "is going to spread in a significant way".

It makes you think should we already have the mass gatherings ban in place, and the encouraging of working from home?

Sure some will call it an overreaction - but it is better to be safe than sorry.

The more we do now gives time for doctors to find out more about the virus, and crucially come up with a vaccine.

And one other thing - Dr Mike Ryan, executive director of the World Health Organisation, has also called it false hope to assume coronavirus will be like the flu, and simply subside in the summer.

He said: "That would be a godsend - but we can’t make that assumption. There is no evidence."