IT didn’t have to be coronavirus. It didn’t have to be Storm Ciara (or Dennis, or Jorge). The delusions of neoliberalism stand at the edge of an implosion just waiting to happen. But, as with the emperor’s new clothes, global leaders are too fearful to say that their economic model has been stripped naked. How quickly delusions crumble.

The last week has seen stock markets tumble at rates unseen since the 2008 crash. In the US, an emergency meeting of the Fed dramatically cut interest rates by 0.5 per cent (to 1.25 per cent) in an effort to make life easier for business. It won’t work. This crisis is so much bigger. Wild weather and coronavirus are ganging up to form an economic “perfect storm.” It will only get worse.

Initially, the industrial world had only a passing interest in the coronavirus outbreak in China: stupid Chinese, eating the wrong stuff it thought — good job that an authoritarian state could turn a city of millions into a quarantine zone.

But now Italy has followed suit. In a dramatic, middle of the night statement, the Prime Minister announced the quarantining of a whole region of northern Italy, affecting 16 million people around Milan and Venice. Even this may be too late. The ramifications are massive.