Reports today are saying that there are local transmissions (someone infected who has not been to China) in both Hong Kong and in Singapore. The more of these that occur the more worrying it gets, especially if we have a case where no indirect link to China can be found.
There does look to be more understanding of the virus itself too though. There is a growing consensus that they think (note this is still a hypothesis rather than proven) that it enters the body through ACE-2 receptors. If this holds to be true that would mean certain populations are more vulnerable than others. ACE-2 Receptors are connected to high blood pressure and diabetes and form a risk profile accordingly. There is a difference between the number men and women have for example. As well, potentially between different racial backgrounds which might be exacerbated by local health care standards which might lead to higher rates of infection and complications (and ultimately deaths) in different groups.
Eg, in places where high blood pressure and diabetes are less diagnosed and managed or populations which have a higher risk of high blood pressure and diabetes there might be a lot more problems than somewhere like the UK which has universal access to health care, higher awareness of those conditions, more management of those conditions and a population which is less susceptible to those conditions due to genetic differences because there is liable to be a lower infection and complication rate.
Thus the NHS might already be preventative by meaning our population is more resilient before a pandemic. And we will have a bit more 'herd immunity' than some places internationally too.
It means that China might have always been much more vulnerable to Coronavirus too. This has got less to do with cultural practices and a lot more to do with levels of poverty, basic healthcare access, health research and access.
The xenophobia about coronavirus is appalling. It also fails to recognise that our understanding of ACE-2 receptors is based on research primarily on white people and this might have left us all more vulnerable to coronavirus since we have a gap in understanding how different genetic populations have different health risks. I'm not sure I've seen anyone even mention this failure. If research by the rest of the world had more genetic diversity it might help across the board.
Someone of Chinese heritage in the UK is also not directly comparable to someone from China for these reasons too (and that includes if they have recently travelled to and from China).
So even IF there is a pandemic the effects here are likely to be different here to China.
All the information that is presently available does point to the potential of a pandemic in the UK being lesser than in China.
All this is before you look at differences in healthcare standards for actual treatment of cases. And as always prevention is easier than cure.
You can't speculate on what may (or may not) be happening in China and say that's directly applicable to the UK if it does come here for this reason. Its certainly no reason to be complicency about it though. As many preventative measures as possible are needed.
We also have the benefit of time here in the uk: Professor Brian Cox has linked on twitter to a good thread on 'the real time science' on this (with the cavat that what's being suggested about coronavirus is still developing and not peer reviewed so it's quality isnt as high as with known diseases). This thread pointed out that what similarities can be found with other diseases can be used to help work out what's most likely to be effective and what's not. And since there is an international fear of coronavirus, political will and investment in research is going to be really high.
If I'm honest, I would not like to be in China right now as I suspect it to be far worse than we known for various reasons. On the other hand I'm cautiously keeping an eye on how it progresses in the next couple of weeks, but I'm not going out and stockpiling or buying medical masks because i don't calculate the risk in the UK to be that high at the moment. Even if you are someone who is potentially more at risk.
I think it's easy to get swept up with the scary videos and stories coming out of China, which are utterly heartbreaking at times, and lose all sense of proportionality and risk assessment.
I think we will have a better idea of where things are in a fortnight and the risk of being infected in the UK in the next fortnight is definitely low regardless of the infection rate, death rate, complication rate or any other kind of rate.
I think it's worth being vigilant and practising basic hygiene but self isolation definitely is a disproportionate response, at this point at least.