After 40 years following daily news and traveled worldwide, I think, everything is possible.
But this is made by human, with or without thinking.

In past human history, we read, pandemics arose as a result of poor living conditions. These pandemics naturally controlled population. Now that living conditions are what they are, population is out of control globally. We also know that governments work constantly to refine biological "warfare". Incubating a virulent strain of an untreatable virus, testing it on ones own expendable people, then releasing it to the world is certainly a reasonable possibility. The remaining population would certainly be less of a load on resources and easier to control. This is the kind of thing eugenics proponents propose and there is a s**t ton of money in that segment of our global "society". Who knows?

Regardless, if I lived in a densely populated area like a city, I would certainly move quickly away. At least temporarily until we see if this thing is going to go global. Or, like eric, I would just bury my head in the sand and pretend everything is just dandy.

Small ones, yes.

If we talking about big cities then the population is from 1.3 millions +
Milan - 1.3 Millions and Rome- 2.8 Millions
Rest of the cities are from 900.000 or less.

Whole Europe is smaller than whole China anyway.
Europe - 741 Millions vs China - 1.38 Billions

Best thing to do at present is avoid your well traveled friends and anyone who has kids of school age. Steer away from public places.
ericbnc wrote:

I can think of a few posters I wouldn't miss but hopefully all FT staff will still be around.