The views expressed on this podcast are those of the participants, not of Roiders' News.

Welcome to the Views Room, a podcast from Reuters' Breaking Views. I'm Jeff Goldfarb in Hong Kong. I am joined in the studio by my colleague Robin Mack, and dialing in from elsewhere in Hong Kong is my colleague Alec McFarlane.

Dialing in has become part of the vernacular here in Hong Kong.

While the real disaster from the coronavirus continues to be in mainland China,

where most of the nearly 78,000 cases have been diagnosed and some 2,700 deaths have occurred.

Hong Kong has really been hit as well as it tries to contain the virus.

We've all been working from home for over a month.

Schools have been closed originally for two weeks, then to a month,

and we just learned today on Tuesday, February 25th, that schools will be closed until after Easter.

Yay.

Anyway, what's it been like for you, Robin? I mean, you know, you've lived in Hong Kong a long time.

This is probably the most time you've spent in your apartment.

I mean, what's it just, what's it felt like?

I mean, it's interesting because I was here for a little bit during 2003 when SARS broke out.

And back then it was quite terrifying because no one really knew what was happening.

This time, I have to say we're all terrified, but probably because there's just too much information.

So that's one of the biggest things this time is that it's just an information overload on WhatsApp, on, you know,

Facebook, the government is constantly posting updates. So everyone is just so on edge and inundated

with all sorts of news, fake or not. And that's really just, you know, for better or for worse,

that's sort of like the thing that struck me the most is that I'm constantly glued to, you know, all better or for worse, that's sort of like the thing that struck me the most

is that I'm constantly glued to, you know, all my WhatsApp groups right now.

Now, you're also recently engaged to be married, so you're getting a crash course and sort

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