That's all over what passes for news these days.
Thousands of passengers were ‘marooned’ on the MSC Meraviglia after it was refused permission to dock for three days on its tour of Jamaica and the Cayman Islands. Panicked passengers were filmed fighting, shoving, pushing, making threats and swearing at each other amid the coronavirus scare.
Well, that's pretty silly. North Korea handles things differently:
A North Korean official that went from China and returned to his country was executed and shot dead after being suspected with the viral disease of Novel Coronavirus or COVID-19.
The phrasing seems a bit nebulous; was he executed and subsequently shot for good measure? I guess we'll never really know.
Meanwhile, in Iran:
Iran’s deputy health minister, Iraj Harirchi, was pale and drenched in sweat during a press conference on Monday as he told reporters that the Islamic Republic had “almost stabilized” the country’s outbreak of coronavirus. He mopped his brow so often that an aide scurried to the lectern with a box of tissues. Harirchi dismissed as hype an Iranian lawmaker’s claim that fifty people had already died from COVID-19. “I will resign if the numbers are even half or a quarter of this,” he said, adding that Iran had only sixty-one confirmed cases, with twelve deaths. Iran opposed quarantines, he said, because they belonged to an era before the First World War—“to the plague, cholera, stuff like that.” The next day, Harirchi confirmed in a video—from quarantine—that he had contracted coronavirus.
As near as I can tell, the Iranians haven't executed and shot him at present. But then, their vice-president also has Covid-19, so shooting their deputy health minister would probably simply waste a perfectly good bullet.
Closer to home, you probably should stay away from Seattle for the time being:
A person in Washington state has died of the new coronavirus, President Trump confirmed Saturday. The fatality marks the first reported death from the virus in the United States.
Additionally, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed the first possible outbreak in a nursing facility, also in Washington state. This is unrelated to the patient who died. So far, two people at the facility — one health worker and one resident — have tested positive. More than 50 workers and residents are showing symptoms of respiratory infection. Some are being hospitalized, and all are currently being tested. None of the new presumptive cases were related to travel, which health officials say could be an indication of the virus spreading within the community.
For me, it doesn't seem to be much of an issue, although I live in the Pacific Northwest. Being quiet and reserved, I don't actually leave the house and yard very often, apart from walking the dog.