Liverpool’s pre-season preparations could be hit by the coronavirus outbreak.
Jurgen Klopp’s side are expected to travel to the Far East this summer to get their 2020/21 campaign underway but may be forced to rethink those plans.
Since the first reported case in China in December, people in up to 53 countries been affected with 19 testing positive in the United Kingdom alone.
UEFA are currently monitoring the situation amid fears that it could see Euro 2020 either postponed or cancelled due to the continuing spread of the virus.
Premier League clubs have also taken precautions against the risk of infection with West Ham and Newcastle banning handshakes at their training ground.
Klopp revealed on Friday that Liverpool are yet to firm up their summer plans but acknowledged that the spread of the virus could have a knock-on impact.
He said: “We didn’t really think about changing anything from pre-season, but I know that [talks] will happen.
“First and foremost, it’s led by our medical department, so all the advice, we get from there.
“We take it really seriously, but we cannot avoid everything, that’s how it is.
“In the end it’s not a football problem, it’s a society problem, that we all have in common. I think everybody’s thinking about it in the moment.
“Hopefully much smarter people than us find a medicine for it because that’s obviously the biggest problem in the moment, that makes a big difference to other diseases.
“We don’t have that yet, but everybody is working hard on that and then hopefully it will settle. But in the moment we deal with it like all other people.
“We take it serious. We don’t do some things we maybe usually would do.
“But that’s the same for us when the flu is going around, we cannot do anything different to that. I think in the moment everybody takes it seriously.
“We do that as well, so far we haven’t told everybody not to shake hands, but we don’t force anybody to shake hands, we have all the disinfection areas here where you can wash and disinfect our hands.
“Is that enough? I don’t know. We cannot do more than we do actually, and then in the end nobody told us that we don’t have to play football, so as long as that doesn’t happen we will play football.
“It’s a contact sport, don’t forget, and it’s always important that we take things seriously, but that we don’t get crazy about it.
“There are other areas in the world obviously, where it’s more difficult, and hopefully we find a solution for that really quick, that would be my first concern.”