NEWSAGENT WH Smith has confirmed that coronavirus cannot affect it because it is indestructible.

The high street chain has already survived the death of print media despite selling mostly magazines, so has no qualms about a global pandemic.

A spokesman said: “Even though it’s basically illegal to go outside that won’t affect us because we don’t sell anything people actually want.

“We’re actually not a business but a cult devoted to recreating 1997 by stocking puzzle magazines and DVD box sets of The Sweeney.

“Ours is a quiet and simple existence, unfettered by the normal rules of business. But like the simple cockroach we will outlast civilisation and rebuild from the ashes a fairer society based on flogging the Radio Times and scientific calculators.”

WH Smith manager Nikki Hollis said: “Before Coronavirus, on a good day we might sell a packet of Minstrels and a copy of the Express. That hasn’t really changed.”

Meanwhile Pizza Hut confirmed it was somehow still going too, putting its continued existence down to ‘sheer bloody-mindedness’.