I'm in Northern Ireland and I can tell you that nothing the doomsayers said would happen actually has. Life is normal, apart from Covid.

All the sabre rattling that's going on now is just news teams hyping up a story

My mother was a real Irish matriarch and she would never have had her sons do the cleaning, or cooking. (God be good to her). I however went to sea as a teenager and learned to cook for small numbers and also to clean.

Later in life I joined the army and that's where cleanliness really came into it. No slovenliness was ever tolerated and could attract penalties if it was ever detected.

In civilian life I found I stuck to the standards taught to me at the University of Life. Unfortunately I am now limited in the duration of cleaning etc, another gift from the army (courtesy of an enemy).

I don't think there's anything to worry about beyond keeping safe until the new drugs start putting the problem more at arm's length. After all this isn't the first time the world has faced a pandemic and the last few times there were no medicines to alleviate symptoms or save people.

I'm talking about the Great Plague and Spanish Flu specifically. They're both still out there but we've come to terms with that fact. The same is going to happen with Covid 19. My best guess is that an inoculation against it will be added to those yearly medicines we need to have administered.

I think it will all be over, bar the shouting, by the end of spring. In the meantime - stay safe folks.