Well, since the subject has been launched, I'd like to react to some ideas.
Firstly, about Italy "not doing their homework". I do think that the measures taken inside the red zone were appropriate in order to contain the virus BUT that the Italian government waited too long before extending it. It was pretty obvious, when some cases were spotted in other countries, that Codogno and the few nearest cities weren't the only ones that were infected and that Milan was also already concerned. I guess that the Italian government didn't want to lock down the economic capital of the country, now they have to do it for the whole Lombardia and 11 more provinces.
IF the situation doesn't come out of control in Rome and Naples, the new strategy
might be enough. The lesson that must be taken from the Italian example is that like for a melanome, if you don't take out a small region around it when you operate, the disease will come back, stronger than before. On the other hand, we can see that the decision of the Chinese government to lock down the whole province of Hubei since they understood the situation in Wuhan was quite efficient, since now there are only 800 remaining cases outside of this province. But you can't take a similar decision in European countries, because the size of such a quarantine zone would be bigger than the country itself. So the goal is to find the right size for your quarantine zone, which is not very easy.
By the way, if you think that France, Germany and other European countries will be able to avoid some similar measures, you're wrong. I think that at this stage, France will have to quarantine at very least two departments: Oise and Haut-Rhin (the situation went completely out of control in Mulhouse, so don't be surprised if France announces 1000+ cases in that single city in a near future) - and Switzerland and Germany will probably have to do the same thing near the border (so Basel will probably be quarantined as well and maybe Stuttgart).
But this is not even the worst. There are three categories of countries where the situation may escalate very quickly:
1) Poor countries that don't have enough infrastructures and will have no real way to fight the virus. Even if elderly people represent a small part of the population of these countries, we can imagine some situations with millions of infected people resulting in dozens of thousands of deads. Moreover, there is even a risk that the virus remains in these countries for a very long time. I don't need to explain why other countries will simply decide to close their borders - if they can, because there is no way to prevent people from crossing some borders in desert areas - and to let these countries deal with the issue all by themselves. This kind of embargo will certainly have massive consequences and we can easily imagine that political instability and economic crisis (with possible bankrupcy of some of these countries if they don't receive significant financial support from rest of the World) could lead to severe famine, civil wars or even genocides, with much more deads than from the virus itself.
2) Some countries are/will also be tempted to hide how severe the situation is. Two obvious examples: North Korea (officially not concerned but we know that some contaminations have occurred at the Chinese border so if South Korea and China are having hard times, imagine how it could be now in North Korea) and Iran (the only hope with Iran is that Iranian people are not completely stupid and don't believe what their leaders say about the virus). And about Iran, knowing that Qom (the first infected city) is 100 km away from Tehran, a city with a higer population than Wuhan, I don't understand how the situation in the country wouldn't be way worse than in Italy and South Korea. We also have a special bonus with North Korea and Iran: both countries already have difficult relationships with their neighbours so there is a risk - even if it's still low - that coronavirus ignites a war in these regions.
3) Finally, United States are a category all by themselves. Donald Trump is completely convinced that the virus will simply disappear in April when the temperatures will rise up. But there is a huge failure in this reasoning: American people have air-conditioning everywhere: houses, cars, business buildings, restaurants, theatres, malls, even stadiums! There is also a big issue: many people can't afford an hospitalisation so if they are infected, they will probably not go to a doctor because they don't want to be sent to hospital, and gamble their own life and those of their family and friends, praying for a simple flu or a benign form of the coronavirus. So if we have a quick local diffusion of the virus for example in St. Louis (a city with a size similar to
Daegu), the situation could very quickly go wild.
Another idea I saw is that the virus is not very dangerous because it has a low lethality rate, not much higher than ordinary flu. But this virus has some unique properties that makes it indeed dangerous. The first big issue is that there are completely asymptomatic cases. According to epidemiologists, these cases are not the most contagious ones. But there is another problem: children. We know that severe cases are extremely rare for children or even teenagers. And young children don't know how to prevent themselves from being infected or from infecting other people. So we can easily imagine a scenario where the virus would have quickly spread inside of schools before contamining adults. And that could explain why people were infected in Milan when there weren't officially any cases there. So this virus is not like flu, it can easily stay hidden because of asymptomatic or benign cases that could be assimilated to ordinary illnesses. I remember the last time I encountered flu: my temperature rose almost instantly and I didn't need any doctor to know what I caught. I went to bed and 36 hours later I was completely recovered and hadn't infected anyone. My immune system is very strong so I know that if I'm infected by this new virus, I will probably not even notice it and might contaminate other people.
The other big problem with this new virus is that among those who have symptoms, at least 15% will need to be monitored and 5% to be treated in an intensive care unit. That is
huge. Suppose that in France, for example, there were 100,000 cases at the same time. That means that at least 15,000 of them would need to be hospitalised (in public, private or military units), which is alreay huge, but also that 5,000 people would need a place in an intensive care unit. There aren't enough places for all of these people. Now suppose that the amount of simultaneous cases rises to 200,000 or 300,000... The situation wasn't that bad in Wuhan and we already saw the lethality rate rise above 5%. In the worst scenarios, we could see rates of 10 or 15%. And 15% of hundreds of thousands is a quite big deal... This is why it is absolutely necessary to contain the virus under the capacity of the hospitals.
Now, is the situation completely desperate? Of course no. Everybody can be a vector or a barrier to the virus. Almost everything depends on our behaviour. I apply these simple rules when I have to go outside:
- I avoid vicinity with other people as much as possible.
- I touch as few things as possible.
- I don't touch my own face.
- When I come back home, I change my clothes and I wash my hands with soap.
There is nothing more I can do, and I know there is still a small risk that I get infected - even if it's quite low, there are ony 10 identified cases in my city among 1.8 million people - but the more important thing is that if, at the scale of the country, each "generation" of infected people infects a lower amount of people, then the virus will be stopped quite soon.
Philippines regarding to the spread of COVID-19
Japan
Iceland we have 55 cases. Additionally an Icelander was confirmed infected in Vietnam today. This is like if UK had almost 10000 cases. Yet still most people Ive spoken to back home arent afraid. 
// WWWSC 
// RSF 
// FoM 
// OSC 
