If you've been listening to a lot of Dean Martin or Tony Bennett then perhaps you're suffering from Crooner virus but for the rest of the world the Corona Virus decided to level up and let everyone know it means business. And business has indeed been hit hard as the markets collapsing faster than Diane Abbott if she tried running a marathon. The stock market saw 10% day over day drops as politicians urged calm although panic buying's probably the only reliable revenue stream right now for a lot of hughstreet chains. Or alternatively get in the car and head down to Homebase if you expect things to turn nasty as they've got all the shovels and quicklime that you'll need, not to mention red paint if you want to either mark your door with a cross, or simply use your company's "working from home" policy as an excuse to paint the downstairs spare room.

The strongest reaction to events has been from the US where President Trump implemented an overnight ban on any travel from the EU's Schengen Zone with many US tourists in France paying tens of thousands of dollars to trade tickets and get onto the few remaining seats before it came into effect. Something resembling the fall of Saigon except in colour and with fewer movies expected to be made about it. Unless they want to remake that one where Tom Hanks is stuck living inside that airport for years on end. The whole US tourist issue makes me wonder if recession will force the illegal migrant industry to pivot towards a new more upmarket revenue stream? I mean cramming dozens of middle class Westerners into a packed vehicle and charging vastly over the odds: why not, it's made Michael O'Leary one of the wealthiest men in Ireland.

One angle to the developing story has been that I see Tom Hanks - who I mentioned - he too has got the disease and will now be undertaking a real life performance of that film where he's isolated, all by himself on that island. In response, a Hollywood spokesperson for the Coronavirus said it would be starring in a remake of Catch Me If You Can, and Harvey Weinstein offered to take up the public's offer to get into an empty jail cell and throw away the key for several years.