‘Should I stay in Athens or return home?’

I'm old enough to remember the hysteria over SARS, swine flu and bird flu. Despite some terrifying headlines, predictions of death on a massive scale and outbreaks of panic buying, the threat of each of these new diseases quickly subsided - at least in Europe - and life quickly went back to normal.

When I read about the outbreak of the new coronavirus - since dubbed Covid-19 - in China at the end of last year, it all felt very distant. Like many others, I thought this was just another media-induced panic about something playing out on the other side of the world. It probably wouldn't affect me. But events have moved at such an incredible speed over the last week and shown me how wrong I was.

News of the first cases in Greece wasn't all that alarming, although the closure of schools raised eyebrows. But then workplaces emptied, event after event was canceled,...