Coronavirus? I have nothing to add.

I keep getting requests from people that I comment on the coronavirus pandemic, disease models, or measures taken to contain and mitigate the outbreak. While I appreciate the faith you put into me, it also leaves me somewhat perplexed. I am not an epidemiologist; I'm a physicist. I have nothing original to say about coronavirus. Sure, I could tell you what I have taken away from other people's writings - a social media strain of Chinese Whispers, if you wish - but I don't think this aids information flow, it merely introduces mistakes.

I will therefore keep my mouth shut and just encourage you to get your information from more reliable sources. When it comes to public health, I personally prefer institutional and governmental websites over the mass media, largely because the media has an incentive to make the situation sound more dramatic than it really is. In Germany, I would suggest the Federal Ministry of Health (in English) and the Robert Koch Institute (in German). And regardless of where you live, the websites of the WHO are worth checking out.

I have not come across a prediction for the spread of the disease that looked remotely reliable, but Our World in Data has some neat visualization tools for the case numbers from the WHO (example below).

Having said that, what I can do is offer you a forum to commiserate. I got caught in the midst of organizing a workshop that was supposed to take place in May in the UK. We monitored the situation in Europe for the past weeks, but eventually had to conclude there's no way around postponing the workshop.

Almost everyone from overseas had to cancel their participation because they weren't allowed to travel, or, if they had, their health insurance wouldn't have covered had they contracted the virus. At present only Italy is considered a high risk country in Europe. But it's likely that in the coming weeks several other European countries will be in a similar situation, which will probably bring more travel restrictions. Finally, most universities here in Germany and in the UK have for now issued a policy to cancel all kinds of meetings on their premises so that we might have ended up without a room for the event.

We presently don't know when the workshop will take place, but hopefully some time in the fall.

I was supposed to be on a panel discussion in Zurich next week, but that was also cancelled. I am scheduled to give a public lecture in two weeks which has not been cancelled. This comes to me as some surprise because it's in the German state that, so far, has been hit the worst by coronavirus. I kind of expect this to also be cancelled.

Where we live, most employers have asked employees to work from home if anyhow possible. Schools will be closed next week until after the Easter break - for now. All large events have been cancelled. This puts us in a situation that many people are facing right now: We'll be stuck at home with bored children. I am actually on vacation for the next two weeks, but looks like it won't be much of a vacation.

I'm not keen on contracting an infectious disease but believe sooner or later we'll get it anyway. Even if there's a vaccine, this may not work for variants of the original strain. We are lucky in that no one in our close family has a pre-existing condition that would put them at an elevated risk, though we worry of course about the grandparents. Shopping panic here has been moderate; the demand on disinfectants, soap and, yes, toilet paper, seems to be abnormally high, but that's about it. By and large I think the German government has been handling the situation well and Trump's travel ban is doing Europe a great favor because shit's about to hit the fan over there.

In any case, I feel like there isn't much we can do right now other than washing our hands and not coughing other people in the face. I have two papers to finish which will keep me busy for the next weeks. Wherever you are, I hope you stay safe and healthy.

Update: As anticipated, I just got an email saying that the public lecture in April has also been cancelled.