It is difficult to gauge the real severity of this due to the wall to wall media coverage, yellow breaking news banners etc. Every report on it is overly dramatic which can have the opposite affect it is supposed to be having.
Interestingly, I have just spoken to a hospital I go to every few months (double lung transplant) to check on their advice which is no different to everywhere else. They said that whilst this needs to be taken seriously and dealt with appropriately there is a lot of scaremongering going around and to not overly panic and check social media every two minutes. I will be taking this as seriously as it needs but that was a little reassuring to hear.