I have to say the positive attitude of some companies surrounding this period has been quite pleasantly surprising.

Barclays extending mortgages for up to three months in case of hardship.
Some airlines offering to rebook to alternative destinations (and spread it there, maybe not so good but still a gesture)
In the IT industry we have seen most of the companies that provide on-line video conferencing offer free usage pending the resolution/adjustment in order to enable engagement without the travel and risk of contamination.

We are doing a few things in anticipation of any lock down. If you have any good suggestions please do share as I suspect most of us not happily retired will be working on the same list of issues. I will put mine here to try and assist.

1. We are having a test lockdown day with everyone working from home. This will allow us to test our practices and find glitches.
2. We have enabled peoples private phones where they are not equipped with laptops and distributed iPads that were "privilege" devices to other operational staff members.
3. We have nominated people as the "lone office worker" to man the office if we have a suspicion so that it is not a rotation/spread program and others can work from home with office cover.
4. We have setup a common webex meeting which all home staff can use to share comments, threads, customer messages, general chitchat etc
5. All phones are practiced with divert to mobile
6. Access to all apps from home has been considered, god bless the "cloud" and SaaS.
7. All staff have been informed of what to do each morning prior to coming to work in case the office needs to be closed and not a general quarantine
8. Cleaners have been contacted and preparations made for "deep clean". We joke that no one knows what this means but it is probably the truth.
9. Our key suppliers have been asked if they have a business continuity plan similar to ours (and would they share it so we can nick their ideas and vice-versa)
10. Our key customers have been collated so that should anything happen we can communicate quickly.
11. All meetings (face2face) have been moved to webex/on-line unless critical
12. Goods in-out have been issued with gloves and handling instructions for packages. Everything left at door, stripped of packing and wiped prior to introduction to the office
13. Home deliveries (AmazonPrime etc) have been blocked to reduce the visits to the office.
14. Key members of staff allocated for isolation if something kicks off so they can then become the primary office person.
15. The toilet roll store room has been locked and only fours sheets handed out at a time by the toilet roll monitor, the office sadist asked for this job. We figure it is a perk he will enjoy.

The impact on retail, transportation and hospitality is going to be like a 4 month closure if it continues in this manner. I can see several retailers that managed to make it through the January hollow being tipped over if this continues.

We do however still have toilet roll crazies among us.

I watched a distinctly unpleasant set to this morning in the supermarket. A customer had six packs of Lemsip Max which apparently includes paracetamol and was trying to check out at the auto-machine. It was refusing to allow more than 2 packs. He then proceeded to become rude and aggressive to the employee trying to help him. He was accusing them of blocking his rights to buy products etc etc. A nurse was at another till and pointed out very loudly so everyone could hear that it was illegal for the supermarket to sell more than two packs of paracetamol based medicine in a single transaction by law due to the impact it can have if taken en-mass. The till was merely doing what it was programmed to do.

People really are getting out of their boxes.

Everyone loves a Morgan. Even me, unless it's broken again.