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Local Betoota Grove paralegal, Tara Corrie (27) is currently in a state of panic, as she does her best to steer the girlfriends towards a new option for dinner tonight.

With a table booked at the Horny Dragon Restaurant & Karaoke in Betoota’s Chinatown, Tara worries that her friends haven’t been reading the Courier Mail’s reporting on that new virus that you can only get from people of Chinese descent.

This comes as some of Australia’s most iconic Chinese restaurants are suffering through after a sharp drop off in business following the outbreak of the COVID-19 coronavirus in the Chinese city of Wuhan.

In some cases, turnover is down 50 per cent on their normal trade for this time of the year. Many operators in the traditional Asian restaurant hubs of Haymarket, Sunnybank, Fortitude Valley and Melbourne’s East End are nearing closer to shutting their doors every quiet night.

Tara, like many other reactionary bogans, is playing a big part in this drop off.

“It’s not like I’m paranoid haha” she said.

“I’m not fully avoiding public places… It’s just like, haha, I’m also not actively trying to Coronavirus either.”

And according to Tara, who spent last Saturday night snorting lines of cocaine given to her by a married real estate agent, who wouldn’t give her is real name, off the damp toilet cistern at a dodgy nightclub in the Old City District – Chinatown is pretty high risk.

“I’m just playing it safe” says Tara, who is currently intermittently fasting and on her 5th coffee for this morning.

“I just wish the girls would pick somewhere less risky for a catch up. It doesn’t need to be a banquet, we could go on to like the casino or on a cruise or something”