It’s been a chaotic and frantic four weeks as the world copes with a dangerous threat — a new type of pneumonia-causing coronavirus termed the ‘novel coronavirus’ that has sickened over 37,000 and killed more than 800 people, mostly in China, as at the time of writing.

For those old enough to recall, Singapore experienced something similar back in 2003 during the SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) epidemic.

As the situation is still evolving and fluid, no one knows what the eventual outcome and death toll will be for the coronavirus. If we use the timeline for SARS, the world managed to contain the outbreak in around 12-15 months.

As the coronavirus outbreak was only discovered on 31 December 2019, it has not even been two full months since the outbreak, yet the damage wrought has been alarming and extremely concerning.

The virus has spread rapidly in China despite containment and