Yes it's a tricky one for the authorities. Most of the politicians here are running around like chickens with their heads cut off - maniacally introducing new measures without knowing how those measures are going to be implemented or what the downstream consequences will be. By the same token i wouldn't want to be the one in charge.

I guess it all boils down to whether containment actually works. If it doesn't - and seems likely it won't coz there are many countries that just aren't able to manage it - then you've got the same number of deaths in the end plus the world economy has been driven off the edge of a cliff with all the fallout from that.

If you institute a focus on protecting the vulnerable and the rest of us take our chances and carry on then you get the same death toll but without the economic disaster of millions out of work.

There are currently 13 dead in Australia.

Meanwhile, China looks poised to emerge strongly. It's stopped the Hong Kong protest in its tracks, knocked the US of its perch, and super-sized/normalised their surveillance network. I'm suspicious of whether they've really contained it there - or just decided on option (b) from above and are not reporting new cases