From the moment China reported a new mysterious disease to the WHO, in the last day of 2019, the scientific community started following the situation with increasing concern. However, in many places like the UK, where I live, and Portugal, where I am from, the collective memory of recent public health crises like SARS and Ebola added up to “much ado about nothing” – a massive media frenzy that promised a pandemic but did not deliver one. That is perhaps why it took so long to regist ...