Nobody's fault? Europe's sleepwalk into disaster

Europe slept and did not hear the first murmurs. A virus outbreak somewhere in China. No need to worry, said the Chinese government.

Then a bang.

In the night of 22 January the 11 million citizens of Wuhan learned that they could not leave the city and should stay at home. More Chinese cities were closed off.

Europe heard the bang, turned around, and continued its slumber. China was far away. There had been many health scare outbreaks before – SARS, swine flu, Ebola, mad ...