How prepared is Australia for the emerging coronavirus crisis?
The COVID-19 virus and disease were unknown before the outbreak began in Wuhan, China, in December. This week, the full global threat posed by the epidemic came into sharp focus.
The infection rate in other parts of the world has overtaken the growth inside China. Stock markets around the world have plunged. And Australian authorities are now talking worst-case scenarios.
How worried should we be? And if there’s an outbreak in Australia, how prepared are we?
Towns in northern Italy are in lockdown as the coronavirus gains a beachhead in Europe.Credit:EPA
On this week's Please Explain episode, Tory Maguire is joined by Sydney Morning Herald health editor Kate Aubusson to answer all of our coronavirus questions.
And later on in the episode, Europe correspondent Bevan Shields comes to us from the near-deserted Venice to tell us about life inside Italy's “red zone”.
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