Two months on from the first reported outbreak of Covid-19 - the disease associated with the new coronavirus - we have to face some hard facts about the likely course of the epidemic and its policy implications.

As of Monday, the outbreak had spread to 76 countries and territories around the world, but it's still early days. The coronavirus is spreading faster outside China, where it originated, than within. A growing proportion of the more than 90,000 cases discovered are secondary infections or "community spread", that is, infections from people who have no travel history to any of the previously affected areas. The true number of infections is likely to be far higher because the current total refers only to diagnosed cases.