See what happens when you eat pangolins? Don't eat pangolins.
2
I have long been troubled by our top companies shipping their production overseas. They saved money, to be sure -- but by using countries where worker benefits, including wages, are controlled by autocratic regimes and set as low as necessary to get the business. In essence, we have been supporting dictatorship exploitation of their people to make a buck, even when that creates such dependence and destroys our domestic capability.
Apple is the worst offender. I would delight in seeing this grossly overvalued and obscenely powerful company go down the tubes.
Now Ford, GM , others may rethink their strategy. Or have a Congress not bought and paid for demand repatriation. Fat chance of that, so only the prospect of going bankrupt without products to sell will force others to use sanity over greed as the prime motivation behind their decisions.
I detest Trump -- but imposing tariffs that eliminate the financial advantage of overseas production might work.
4
If you die of influenza and were not vaccinated then you are not a flu victim but more like a case of suicide (or, if you are a minor, murdered by your parents). Counting only true victims of the flu, the corona virus is incomparably more deadly.
"Like Europe in Medieval Times" is the kind of headline we expect from check-out line periodicals and intenet magazines like Huff Post. No matter how severe Coronovirus is it doesn't come close to the devastation wrought by Medieval plagues. China would have to suffer more than 200 million deaths to be equivalent.
2
One person I know who voted for Trump would never buy something made in China. Only European made goods, French, mostly and Italian so she will be fine!
2
Put it positively. The world got a reprieve on global warming
3
Globalization other side, made any medical outbreak travel so efficiently around the world. Requires globalization of medical research working together to treat outbreak.
Just in time manufacturing work well when no large disruptions stop ages, large disaster that upsets product consuption rate.
1
It might not be nice to say so, but the huge population of the world and especially in China might not be helping when it comes to things like viruses.
We often talk about the causes that led to the extinction of the dinosaurs.
But that too might have been caused by some unknown virus or illness that affected even these giant beasts.
Trying to find a silver lining someplace... will this shutdown of huge swaths of China’s economy have a positive effect on the country’s terrible air quality? Will the enforced idleness of millions give more people time to think about China’s authoritarian government? What about the sanitation and hygiene issues that appear to be at the root of the outbreak, allowing pathogens to jump from wild animals to domestic animals and humans? Sometimes the most powerful revolutionaries are microscopic.
1
This is a useful experiment in what it would be like if China, at sometime in the future (when it is stronger thanks to American naivete) decided to punish a recalcitrant USA for something horrible like refusing to turn over US nuclear technology.
China. like Russia, is a dictatorship and can turn on a dime; there is no separation of powers, and there are no competing economic interests. The young doctor in Wuhan who was one of the first to note the virus has paid with his life (suspiciously, he was one of the young and healthy people who still died of the virus), despite allegedly getting the proper care.
China, under a dictatorship, can never be a "friend" of the US; it is always an enemy, trying to assert its dominance.
2
I’m wondering if the air quality in China has vastly improved with no cars, trains and planes moving?
2
“The global economy could suffer the longer China stays in low gear. It has been hampered by the outbreak. The result is a slowdown that is leading to forecasts of a sharp fall in production of everything from cars to smartphones.”
This health-crisis shows the downside of a global economy so dependent on China’s factories. Diversification of production is desperately needed!
7
Didn't the bubonic plague result in a shortage of workers, increased worker pay, and the development of a middle class?
3
This is what happens when you put all your eggs in one basket! We have become so dependent on all our goods cheaply manufactured in China, that we all get into a panic, because our economy is dependent on the needs of those products.
6
I traveled by car to Canada recently. The Canadian border agent asked if I'd traveled to Wuhan within the past month.
No question posed about Wuhan upon my return to the US.
3
The disruptions will not last 1000 years, not 1000 months, and even 1000 days. They will be over soon. When they are gone, we will feel so stupid about our being short-sighted. Make your due efforts when China is in difficulty.
1
Rome was not built in one day, and so is China.
The decision to lock down cities and protect vast majority of the population, China shows her will and ability to do so in a 1.4 billions population and 15 trillion economy. This Coronavirus crisis also spurt innovation into actions. Applications using AI, robotics, and 5G are being tested in the battle ground to help improving the crisis situation.
Some companies have already started their productions in a slow mode. Of course, they need to get special permit from the government. Tesla in Shanghai is such an example too important to ignore.
The performance of our stock markets are telling different stories about China. If Chinese economy really suffers or our supply chain really breaks down, do you think our companies will be isolated from the crisis and their stocks continue to rise?
2
Please consider I am not exploiting NYT's reader comments' page to throw in some conspiracy theories but a question lingers in my mind I'd like to express, and in the whole story I smell a bit of a rat: Why news of the virus was out just before the Chinese lunar new year for maximum exposure to it as millions were moving across China in order to celebrate the most important Chinese festivity reaching their distant relatives, thus potentially infecting so many and not before? And why timed just in the middle of the traditional winter flu season when coughing and sneezing people normally catching it, are instead seen as potentially contagious with the coronavirus and all in all creating a vicious circle of terror and panic? Too strange not to think about it given also the drip-drip of news totally controlled by the government.
1
Thanks, Munch.
1
If the Chinese economy slows it will be bad for China, the US, and the rest of the world.
1
One thing is for sure, sfter the oppression of Hong Kong the stealing of the South China Sea and the theft of other peoples intellectual property the inability to handle this plague makes the credibility of the Xist regime problematic.
7
Where do America get off calling China medieval, when this country can't even vaccinate its own kids against measles?
18
There is a difference between can’t and won’t.
3
Its a big problem, but...
Preventable Deaths in the world, YEARLY, so far:
Coronavirus 1k
Rabies 60k
Malaria 435k
Malnutrition 7.6M
...just sayin'
11
Coronavirus threatens to exacerbate those problems further.
6
Medieval Times exist in America too. Our "Stable Genius," who is NOT a scientist, just proclaimed that, "Coronavirus will be gone by April when the weather gets warmer." America's scientists and doctors refuse to confirm this. Even his most ardent supporters must realize that pandemics do not discriminate based on skin color.
16
@Son Of Liberty - Trump is equating this coronavirus with the flu virus. The common cold is a type of coronavirus. Wonder if Trump has ever caught a summer cold?
What's truly medieval is China's continuing practices of consuming wildlife in order to stimulate sexual energy or impress the neighbours, or whatever deeply inadequate reasoning they employ to justify this rapacious cruelty. Twice now this has led to a deadly pandemic and this time around it is driving China's economy into the ground for good measure. When will the Chinese authorities wake up and ban these appalling practices once and for all? Supposedly it should be easy, given Xi Jin Ping's total authority. Pangolins and other wondrous creatures like rhino and sharks are being driven to extinction by poaching driven by Chinese demand. A demand driven by nothing but hollow vanity. It needs to stop now.
21
More than 70% of new infections in humans are reportedly come from animals, particularly wild animals. Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (Sars) and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (Mers) are also thought to have originated in bats. But they are thought to have circulated in civet cats and camels, respectively, before being transmitted to humans.
Therefore, it stands to reason that China and rest of the world put a permanent ban on the trade in wildlife as one measure to control the spread of coronavirus.
Its China's demand for wildlife products, for traditional medicine, or as exotic foods, is driving a global trade in endangered species.
WWF stand that “this health crisis must serve as a wake-up call for the need to end the unsustainable use of endangered animals and their parts, as exotic pets, for food consumption and for their perceived medicinal value” should resonate with rest of the world..
24
Well, given that the United States, under the current administration is rolling back all sorts of health and safety protections of our food supply chain, not to mention the environment, seems as if is only a matter of time before we will deal with a similar crisis. As it is a failure to adequately inspect lettuce produce, from the growth in the field to distribution, has lead to problems. The number of inspectors is insufficient to deal with the issue and the agriculture business, of course, likes it that way. Until of course, we the consumer, gets sick.
10
Here's an idea! GM and other companies should bring these jobs back to America, where we have OSHA and union protection.
5
The machine stops; empty streets with all human activity frozen in China as if in some science fiction story. The search is on to find an effective remedy by drug companies. For once all countries united to confront this alien infection spreading like a plague. How long will it take to find a cure? In 1918 over 50 million people died of a similar flu pandemic. This is not a test.
3
Perhaps more lives are being saved by shutting down the economy, due to lower pollution levels, than are lost from the virus.
8
Whatever the populist rhetoric built on the xenophobic nativism when it comes to the Coronavirus outbreak it is not China alone but we are all in it as the planet and its environment or the virus carrying air we breathe know no geographical boundaries, and so is the globalised world economy and its supply chain on which the human society depends for its day-to-day needs.
6
Really, what’s the hurry, the fairytale pfmeternal economic growth cannot last forever. Less economic hustle the world over, not just China - less pollution, less waste, less toxic chemicals used to make more things, less grasping.. buying one less furniture, one less something...less consumption, maybe a good thing to retrain the spoilt human being.
17
An excellent time to slow imports from China.
11
Read Daniel Defoe. A Journal of the Plague Year
5
The Chinese government has earned this economic setback as karma for their careless attitude toward their own people with respect to this viral outbreak; now the deadliest in their history. A sorry state of affairs for the Chinese people.
8
@NOTATE REDMOND Sadly many of the people trade endangered species like the now suspected Pangolin. I have little sympathy for that kind of ignorance born of the time of previous pandemics. As to trade they deserve a reminder, but we all need to work together.
4
This shows the dire need for further automation. Robots don’t catch the flu or have any desire to eat random animals.
Here are some ideas on how to mitigate the effects of the virus on the economy.
- Artificial intelligence for routing
- Automated robotic manufacturing
- Drone to location shipping
Basically to remove humans from the product manufacturing and shipping equation.
2
@Scotty As long as we can also all globally agree to Yang's UBI, but times at least 5.
7
Guess what? There will still be disease. As long as there are human beings, animals, plants, there will be viruses and bacteria. Or maybe you would just prefer to commune with robots
2
@Scotty
And what will humans do?
3
Thinking in medieval terms—
It's as if plagues and pandemics are nature's way of periodically thinning the human "timber".
Except in this case the presumed bat/exotic-meat-market interface with humans could, in our modern times, have been prevented—knowing what we know about zoonoses.
9
What will be Xi Jinping's legacy appears to be racing towards something entirely different than what he envisioned when he persuaded China to remove the two term limit.
6
I note that, during this time of pandemic and the dissatisfaction of Chinese with the CCP, they have chosen exactly this time to engage in encroaching into Taiwanese airspace, potentially provoking a conflict, so as to possibly use patriotism (nationalism), in the masses, to solidify support behind their ruler and the government.
The CCP political cadre only, should have a plague wished upon it for their actions and lack of actions.
13
I ordered masks and the irony of it is, it's made in China. My teenager asked me if it could be contaminated with the Coronavirus. Sigh, it made me realize how interdependent we are. If China does not overcome this quickly, then we are going to feel the repercussions very soon. I suggest, they allow the CDC in and take as much help from every government the world over.
In the meanwhile, my Amazon box remains unopened. It's this irrational thought of.....what if.
8
Don’t worry it’s not contaminated because the process is largely automated.
2
@Meena Masks do nothing. Don't bother.
2
He was probably there long enough to have his photo taken. If it really was him.
6
I have read that 50 million people died in the flu of 1918. This corona virus has killed a bit more than a 1000 persons and around 42,000 persons have been infected. Consequently, there is no comparison between the two. I will start to worry when the death count reaches 1 million plus and about at least 1 billion people have been infected by it. Until then, this is just a small problem for China to handle internally where they have the most infected and the rest of the world needs to ensure Chinese folks travel is highly monitored or even restricted.
In re all the manufacturing being done in China, I ask WHY? Why would anyone in their right mind have a single point of failure. I think the companies who have ALL their eggs in one basket deserve to suffer. Perhaps this is a wake up call for everyone to diversify.
17
@NA
First, the numbers out of China vastly understate the problem. China's reaction - after a few weeks of denial - shows their level of concern. We haven't ever seen this level of reaction to any previous outbreaks - ever.
Second, we are in the early phases of this outbreak.
Third, the Spanish Influenza tolls occurred over two years, infecting over 1/4 of the world's population. WWI provided means of travel not seen in earlier epidemics.
This virus has a long latent period without symptoms - ideal for spreading infections in today's world of air travel.
It is FAR too early to make any projections or comparisons but would China be taking the precautions that they publicly admit if they were not VERY concerned?
This is NOT 'small' problem - it has already escaped China. Expect North Korea to be badly hit - reports are already surfacing there and they have a poorly fed population with lousy medical services. China has thousands of people working all over Africa - no reports of cases there have surfaced - yet. Other cases around the world indicate the potential for quick and easy transmission.
5
@NA Multinational companies care only for nett profits and nothing else.
2
"Apple’s iPhone production, which is heavily concentrated in China, could drop by 10 percent in the first three months of the year." Fewer iPhones, now there's a blessing.
21
It is another flu. Not to take it lightly. I am sorry for those in the world who are so impacted.
Still, historically, we get over these plagues.
Cover your mouths people, and sneeze into your elbows, not hands.
3
Seriously, I get the feeling that all of this is just a rehearsal.
5
Is the shameful trade in endangered and dangerous animals slowing, too?
14
The coronavirus may cause a global economic slowdown of huge proportions. It may single handedly give the US presidency to Democrats.
8
And we will have the pangolins and bats to thank.
So, will our president restore funding cuts to NIH and the CDC? To do otherwise only leads us back into the dark past.
11
@Cal Page
That is only Trump's budget proposal, which shows how out of touch his administration really is.
It has not been enacted into law.
Basically, it is "dead on arrival" in the House of Representatives, where under the Constitution, all bills to raise and spend money must originate.
Article I, Section 7:
All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.
1
This comment is unrelated to the article and not meant to be uncaring. When I looked at the picture of 40+ high speed trains sitting in the rail yard I was dumbstruck by the fact that China appears to have passed the USA in maybe everything except in this case health care. Are we where the UK was 70 years ago, an empire who time is rapidly passing us by? Hopefully mankind can defeat the Coronavirus, but as Americans we need to wake up. America is not great again, we have huge income disparity, declining life expectancies and a failing political system.
28
@seldon1
Don’t be so sure about America’s heath care system.
12
@seldon1 A useful thought experiment, to be sure. But I think not. Militarily the world has changed so much due to the bomb, making it really hard for anyone to surpass us in pure power.
Our economy also remains something like 30% larger than China's, all while servicing far less people. They have a lot of gloss. They also have a lot of squalor. Make no mistake about it. As bad as our stratification is, China's is much worse.
6
@seldon1
The US is following the same path countless nations have taken. We were a Republic focused on our own limited territory in North America until 1898. From that point on we transitioned into a defacto Empire that expanded from the Americas to the world over the next century. Like all empires we have overextended. We have spent trillions on our military while ignoring our own infrastructure. While the rest of the world rebuilt - or built - new plants after WWII, we coasted for two decades as the only nation left undamaged. Then instead of modernizing our industrial plant, we shipped our factories overseas to China and elsewhere in exchange for cheap labor. Our military follies in the Middle East since 9/11 have squandered trillions. Our own actions have hastened China's rise. We have literally given them an astounding amount of high tech capabilities while they have stolen just as much. Chinese students fill graduate programs all over the world.
Yes, we re where Britain was after WWII - on our way to bankruptcy brought on by an inflated military budget squandered on efforts to control by force a world that can no longer be treated as a defacto colony.
14
Unlike medieval times, China is arguably has the largest or second-largest economy in the world. It's very likely that the slowdown in China due to coronavirus will morph into a full-scale economic recession (if not depression). This will reverberate throughout the world.
It should not go unmentioned that besides being a major producer, China is now a major consumer of goods and services from throughout the world. Idled Chinese workers with lost wages will soon hunker down thus depressing demand.
Despite the hubris of the leadership in both China and the US -- we are likely to soon find we are all in this together. Not only will the contagion of the actual disease spread throughout the world. The coincident decline in economic activity will do so also.
The coronavirus will soon instruct all of us in how interconnected our world now is.
19
The assumption promulgated in so many of these posts that the general population of China regularly feasts on snakes, bats, civet cats and pangolins is fiction. That “wet markets” exist that traffic in these creatures is undeniable, and they need to be done away with ASAP, but they are not the norm, not by a long-shot. Such markets are mostly to be found in the hinterlands, among the “countryside people,” as the citizens of the more developed cities such as Shanghai and Beijing tend to contemptuously refer to them. In the thirteen years I have lived here, I have never seen the populace more openly vocal in their condemnation of the set of affairs that set this crisis in motion, and of how the government fumbled in dealing with it at the start. A sea-change may well be in effect. We can only hope.
24
I most certainly hope your observations are correct and that the inept CCP strikes immediately to eliminate these "wet markets". But at the same time, is not this "Huannan Market", the epicenter of this epidemic, in the center of Wuhan, not in the "hinterlands"? It was disconcerting to see pictures of the range of animals being sold at that market, in the center of such a major Chinese city.
2
People thought climate change would lead to a massive apocalypse and dystopian world, but it looks like it might be a tiny virus instead that throws the world into chaos.
I’m going to make friends with some survivalists.
12
Good call.
3
Go corona!
In the fight between you and the world, bet on the world!
2
I keep hearing how the United States health care system can handle coronavirus. I don't think so. If there's an outbreak here, it's not like there are so many thousands of hospital beds available to treat everyone. There are still people who are getting sick from other things not related to this virus. People are still getting injured and dying of other things. People are still getting cancer and having heart attacks. We don't have the resources to treat a major outbreak. People will be sent home and the virus would spread uncontrolled.
20
@Mark
Given the hollowing out of rural America, where hospitals are closing all the time, and the nearest one might be 50 miles away, if we get hit with a pandemic, even the rural parts of the country will feel the pain.
3
@Joe From Boston
I've seen plenty of hospitals close here in NYC burbs over my lifetime.
Our health care system no longer wants people staying in hospital beds (or at least the insurance system does not).
My wife had surgery for breast cancer (with some lymph node involvement) a decade back. We were headed home later in the day after surgery. Thank God we stopped for her cup of tea. Approaching the garage the side of her blouse turned red. If we'd left straight away we'd have been stuck in Manhattan traffic at that point. The surgeon (a very good one) missed a vein. She spent the night.
She was in the hospital for two nights for our first child. One for our second.
Our health care system is no longer capable of handling large numbers of long term stays (and most people can't afford them)
3
The headline Title is so ridiculous to compare China current virus outbreak (with 1000 deaths) and comparing to medieval Europe where the place was a cesspool of unhygienic conditions, not to mention about 1/2 the population perished.
10
And now there are several small but growing outbreaks of this virus in Europe.
4
The stock market is up and my broker was very reluctant to follow instructions to shift into safer investments. Sure hope I am wrong but I think we are about to have a severe recession caused by a pandemic.
14
Companies like Apple have championed just in time production where parts arrive as they are needed and not stockpiled. Probably seemed like a good idea until now.
13
@Craig Hayslip
Just-in-time production is a stellar idea; getting all of your parts from one source/country is poor execution.
11
“The global economy could suffer the longer China stays in low gear.”
The global economy is suffering because the U.S. and Europe has made China their main factory. This crisis shows the downside of making China the world’s main manufacturing center.
17
Don't worry the PBoC and the Fed will keep printing money, the stock market will go higher, it will cure any disease.
9
Here in southern New Mexico, just 32 miles from the border with Old Mexico, we have discovered a cure for the corona virus. . .
Just have another Corona!
But remember, you still have to watch out for lime disease.
:)
12
Keith Bradsher has done a lot of reporting
"weeks or months could pass before this vital motor of global growth is humming again."
"The global economy could suffer"
hmmmm, not a word about the real problem -- "global growth" as a solution to anything but short term profits? How about a look at how globalization robs governments of the ability to provide what their specific populations actually need?
David Brewer used to say Growth for Growth's sake? isn't that the philosophy of the cancer cell?
20
Cancer, or a ponzi scheme.
6
"President Xi Jinping of China, center, inspecting a Beijing neighborhood on Monday, in a photo released by the state news agency Xinhua."
Looks remarkably like the staged photos of Kim Jong Un. Beloved dictator; ecstatic populace.
10
The “forced holiday”? That’s hilarious. Imagine calling Christmas break a “forced holiday”.
3
President Trump asserted today that the virus will be gone by the end of winter, a claim immediately challenged by the actual medical experts. Maybe Trump was referring to himself.
45
@Jay Orchard It is being reported that Xi told Trump the virus would be gone by the end of winter. What's the worry...Trump believes him.
4
The fact that this kind of disruption is not accounted for, that the panic is articulated as such, indicates how seriously derelict our brand of leadership and management of our world is in terms of responsible behavior and priorities.
This crisis has zero impact on our ability to function on a long term basis. It is a disruption, likely caused by abuse of nature, resulting in a necessary adjustment in our behavior and short(ish) term adaptation.
The fact this is a crisis is embarrassing, and a well timed reminder we are not conducting ourselves in a manner befitting our success as a species.
4
Perhaps now the government will really stop these disgusting wet markets where every manner of living creature is sold and eaten by the Chinese. Do you really need to eat bats and pangolins? Bats are a massive viral vector. Leave them in the caves please.
16
Self-serving “Mandarin” style bureaucracies exist everywhere, we are just as much a victim of them in the U.S. and Europe as they are in China. The Framers had this clearly in mind when they created checks and balances in the Constitution, but the “Mandarins” grow powerful when the People become lax in their vigilance. Minding government is hard work for any citizen and there’s little reward other than keeping the parade out of the ditch, but it is a God given right in the U.S. and we lose it when we fail to use it. As this terrible chapter unfolds, I’m sure the Chinese grow evermore envious of our right to hold government accountable, and perhaps shocked we don’t exercise it more forcefully.
14
Wall Street approves. Dow up 174, S&P up 24, NASDAQ up 108. Yes, the delsusional world just keeps getting better.
9
Only report the facts, all right? Only the facts, not someone's bigoted opinion, but the facts.
Comparing China to medieval Europe is like a teenager's essay.
11
perhaps if the Chinese government didn't sensor your press and public speech so thoroughly residents of China could better understand the middle ages analogy.
3
Meanwhile, with ports closed, all the goods we buy from China are delayed - and that means nearly all the goods we buy, period. This came home to me this week, when I learned that a medication on which I depend for my health and safety is now on back-order and won't be available for a month ... because it is manufactured in China. After much scrambling, my doctor has prescribed a less effective substitute.
I'm no protectionist, but we have lost our way when we cannot even provide our own citizens with the necessities we used to make so well. We have forced many of them into unemployment in order to ship products halfway around the world, pointlessly burning oil and polluting the oceans in the process.
One crisis ought to be enough to get us back to retooling our factories, paying a living wage to workers, and making our own clothes, medications, foodstuffs, machine parts, and electronics. But I doubt it will teach us anything.
27
@Eve S. Having more than a decade of experience in the pharmaceutical industry including manufacturing, sourcing, forecasting and planning as well as logistics, I highly doubt that a finished prescription drug on the market today actually was imported from China. More than likely some active pharmaceutical ingredients are delayed in production which tells me the epidemic started much earlier than anyone is telling us.
This article is quite alarming but addresses critical cascades of impact that a pandemic will cast. I’m not sure I’m up to the challenge after the past few months. I’m exhausted along with just about everyone else!
9
The earth - a living thing might be performing a natural reaction of healing by trying to slow population growth and over consumption of increasingly scarce resources - kind of like when a human’s white blood cells kick in to attack an infection.
11
@Guidomele I wonder what your comment means to the 'intelligent design' crowd? as it suggests that the world is conscious and can make decisions and force change. What is self evident is that genetic mutation and survival of the fittest is happening minute by minute at every level of biology.
2
If in fact, HIV was spread from eating monkey meat, this new plague seems to come from the many animals the Chinese and Asians eat. WHO should step in and help educate people on the safety and dangers of meat consumption. In the mean time, the whole of China must be quarantined
9
Can’t help but wonder if the result of this will be a baby boom the likes of which
China’s never seen before. I mean...uhhh...miilions of people cooped up in their apartments/houses? They’re doing SOMETHING with their down time.
17
And fact: The bubonic plague actually came from China as well. Historically, China has also gone from expansion to closing itself off many times, it is part of its history.
4
@Pierre. I believe the origin of the Black Plague is thought to be in Asia Minor along the desert fringes of the late Roman Empire. The pathogen is able to “hibernate” under certain desert conditions, as it does today in the American southwest.
People do so easily forget the drawbacks of the global economy and how unresilient it is to catastrophe...
5
@Martha
The business geniuses who outsourced all their manufacturing to save a few bucks made us dependent on others for much of our manufactured goods.
I wonder what happens to their businesses and profits now.
13
Headline:
British coronavirus ‘superspreader’ may have infected at least 11 people in three countries
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/british-coronavirus-super-spreader-may-have-infected-at-least-11-people-in-three-countries/2020/02/10/016e9842-4c14-11ea-967b-e074d302c7d4_story.html
Quote:
A British national, who has not been named, may have unwittingly spread the virus to at least 11 people in the course of his travels from Singapore to France to Switzerland to England, according to public health authorities and accounts in the British media. Infected Britons in England, France and Spain likely caught the virus from him.
End quote
This outbreak of this coronavirus is going to get MUCH worse before it gets better.
You can be a transmitter of the disease before you show any symptoms of it, according to various reports.
I am just waiting for the Trump administration to call all of this "fake news," as if that will make a difference.
9
Our civilization is a series of layers going back to the Rift Valley in Africa from where we initially emerged. The layer between the Medieval times and now is not very thick. With human hubris of course, we feel far removed from those medieval folks but we are not, despite our machines and knowledge. Our behavior is pretty much the same as those folks, with superstition, fear, self preservation, ruling despots well intact.
This pandemic is just the latest but no more important then the others as far as the level of fear, bad behavior, misunderstanding, and fatal outcomes.
We are biologic beings, animals if you will, and therefore subject to the laws of. biology no matter what smart we think we have.become.
15
And a big “Thank You” to The Economist magazine and all those who have preached, incessantly, for capitalist globalization.
12
@Lily - Thank yourself every time you purchased something made overseas...or made yourself a cup of tea - or turned on your computer.
1
@Lily
Thank the business geniuses who outsourced all their manufacturing to save a few bucks who made us dependent on others for much of our manufactured goods.
I wonder what happens to their businesses and profits now.
The US has not be "self-sufficient" since shortly after the end of World War II.
4
And the state of the economy trumps people's lives and health??? Sounds like something our fearless leader would agree with.
3
@YogaGal
Right...
The good state of the economy at the moment means more people are employed which means more people have employer-sponsored healthcare or, if not, more income from which they can buy insurance.
4
Less healthcare = less humans = healthier planet.
1
I have read only one article that says these people are dying of pneumonia. No other source has mentioned pneumonia. Why the secrecy? Is the word virus or the word flu less threatening? Is the US trying to avoid a panic for the stock market? Or did our great white leader, the President , pass an executive order to ban the term pneumonia?
2
The virus causes pneumonia. Most people who die of flu succumb to pneumonia. You’re not being misled, nor is there a coverup.
15
There have been several citations of pneumonia being a side effect of it.
1
@ASW
'Pneumonia' isn't a precise term. Physicians tend to talk about 'pneumonitis'. Many infections - viral, bacterial, fungal, protozoal and atypical can cause inflammation of lung tissue, aka 'pneumonitis'. Chickenpox, Pneumocystis, Legionnaire's etc. There are also non-infective causes - allergic, chemical, auto-immune and so on.
To us older folk, 'pneumonia' means lobar pneumonia, usually caused by Pneumococcus or Heamophilus bacteria. That was the principal killer of people under 30 years old in our grandparents' time, before antibiotics.
1
This is a cakewalk compared to what’s coming with Climate Change and buildups of toxins everywhere. World economies will come to a standstill in about the same amount of time.
7
Hilarious how everyone here thinks the US would be doing any better with this. The only difference is that if it were the US millions of people would be filing for bankruptcy in a year because of the medical cost.
33
The seasonal flu seemingly claimed more lives in the U.S. than the new coronavirus-related pneumonia did in China and beyond though the administration has been all medically supplied and ready to contain the spread of the flu.
1
@marrrrcus
I do not care.
The virus didn't cause this epidemic, Communism did.
6
@Grace
If you believe that, call me the King of Siam.
8
how can you be so certain communism caused the epidemic?
2
@Grace - China is a capitalist system with a dictatorship bolted on top trying to manage the industries earmarked to supercharge their economy deep into the 21st Century. It makes the U.S. looks like a shambles.
1
In one world of internationalized production chains, there must be an effect similar to that caused by recent truckers' strike in the Brazilian economy (When many sectors collapsed without buffers of intermediate supplies on chains values), due to the interruption of Chinese intermediate inputs to internationalized production chains. For example, the stoppage of automotive plants, such as the announced cases of Hyundai and Fiat, will affect the demand for chrome that Brazil exports. The prices of all commodities have fallen. We do not yet know at what scales, scope and duration the economic impacts will be, but I presume they will be much smaller, although in this case they will impact all the entire globe
4
A Chinese colleague who recently returned from Beijing tells me the government in China is sending teams of physicians and other healthcare professionals to Wuhan from Beijing and elsewhere. She knows two physician friends who have been asked to go, though she claims there are many more who are part of the effort. She says they are estimating over 5 million people left Wuhan for other parts of China and the world after the virus outbreak but before the quarantine was put into effect. And China expects to battle the virus for another 18 months before it's under control.
11
@Chris
Yeah, sure. How about the 1917-1918 flu?
Quote:
A large factor in the worldwide occurrence of this flu was increased travel. Modern transportation systems made it easier for soldiers, sailors, and civilian travelers to spread the disease.
In the United States, the disease was first observed in Haskell County, Kansas, in January 1918, prompting local doctor Loring Miner to warn the U.S. Public Health Service's academic journal. On 4 March 1918, company cook Albert Gitchell, from Haskell County, reported sick at Fort Riley, an American military facility that at the time was training American troops during World War I, making him the first recorded victim of the flu. Within days, 522 men at the camp had reported sick. By 11 March 1918, the virus had reached Queens, New York. Failure to take preventive measures in March/April was later criticised.
In August 1918, a more virulent strain appeared simultaneously in Brest, France; in Freetown, Sierra Leone; and in the U.S. in Boston, Massachusetts. The Spanish flu also spread through Ireland, carried there by returning Irish soldiers. The Allies of World War I came to call it the Spanish flu, primarily because the pandemic received greater press attention after it moved from France to Spain in November 1918. Spain was not involved in the war and had not imposed wartime censorship.
end quote
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu
17
well done
4
@Chris
Are you aware that when it’s summer here it’s winter elsewhere?
3
Doesn't seem like we know how big this could get, or if it will eventually fizzles like SARS. Either way, its scary and appears it will roil the markets in the near future.
2
What a mess!! What Trump's fake trade war wanted to do, has been accomplished by the coronavirus. Amazing. Being an authoritarian state is on full display here. I hope those wimpy Republican senators are taking note--we DON'T want Trump to make this country into an authoritarian state!!
4
it was only matter of time before someone evoked Trump's name and associated it with this epidemic. let's not politicize this epidemic.
3
Trump’s wise to decouple US economy from CN. It’s a little late but still better than never.
As long as CCP remains in power with its top down, totalitarian system, more plagues will come for sure .
5
@Fw - I thought it was their culinary habits - not their political system that created the pandemic.
1
What makes governments lie or suppress the truth? Why do governments need to have total control over their image and narrative? Its's a combination of ego, greed, and paranoia, any perceived weaknesses could usurp a Dictator's power: Lying, manipulation, and persecuting those who are truth tellers.
'We'd kill the man who warns of fire, yet we would do nothing to the man who starts the blaze.' (French proverb)
Does any of this sounds familiar?
What can halt capitalism in its tracks, airborne viruses, epidemics, and pandemics? What's happened in China can occur anywhere in the world.
3
@Trina
Yeah, though I can't recall that last time i bought wild, unregulated bat meat for consumption.
Minus that, yes, this "could" happen "anywhere."
6
@Thomas
Coronaviruses can spread through pig and poultry meat, too. Will Americans being giving up Thanksgiving turkeys?
Perhaps I misunderstood, but isn't YouTube full of US made vidoes showing heavily armed Frontiersman types consuming - with relish - a variety of wild animals? Alligators, bears, snakes and so on...
China is in a very difficult position. If they encourage people to return to work and the disease takes off, there could be a widespread pandemic that kills many. If they continue to maintain a strict quarantine, their supply chains will start to fail. Either way, they risk structural and/or political collapse.
If the situation isn’t brought under control, the rest of the world could get pulled down with China as we depend on Chinese-made parts and raw materials.
China will need to thread this needle very carefully--opening up commerce as much as possible while keeping in place a quarantine where warranted.
Frankly, if such a novel illness appeared in a U.S. city, I don’t think we’d do much better than the Chinese. It would be harder for us to establish a quarantine—our states make independent decisions and might reject federal guidelines—and many Americans are used to working when they are sick.
19
This piece is not only a fear-mongering misrepresentation of the situation; it’s racist too. Sure, the rate of infection and death thereof is alarming, but remember that this virus is new, and not nearly (so far as we know) as infectious as other diseases which have plagued mankind for ages.
Comparing a modern country with vast resources and power in a global economy to Europe in the Middle Ages is insulting. Per the insinuation, 40% of Europeans died in the 14th Century bubonic plague to which this article alludes, with deaths higher in some regions and lower in others. This will not be the case for the new virus, and sensationalizing what’s happening is irresponsible and ingenuous. The people at greatest risk right now - Chinese people near the epicenter - deserve all the respect we have, along with those who have died, even if their deaths are the result of government incompetence.
China today is not analogous to Middle Age Europe. It is not just racist, but dangerous to think otherwise. People are people and we should treat all of them as such. Instead of diminishing an entire nation of people to something we in the “West” are so proud to have clawed ourselves out of, why don’t we acknowledge that these are people who are just as smart and worthy as us, that they are suffering at the hands of a cruel disease which could have taken hold anywhere, and that they deserve all the assistance we can give despite the autocracy under which they live?
26
@greg
Great post, though I'd characterize the attitude as elitist rather than racist. Otherwise, agree.
5
@greg It is not racist to point out that the Chinese penchant for eating anything that moves is a serious problem for public health. Wet markets and wild animals for consumption is simply wrong - on many levels.
4
I wish the Chinese the best of luck as they deal with this virus first. We should not cast stones until we prove we can do better. The first moves confronting events like this are often wrong. I am not convinced we can do better.
19
I think the real story is how completely racist everyone becomes when a virus breaks out in a country of non-white people.
7
@Eric the real story is That other countries economies should pick up by not being dependent on china
2
The Big Dragon is in serious trouble/
1
Human beings are panicking and some are dying of a viral infection.
A little compassion or silence would be appropriate.
4
As soon as the Chinese stop eating from medieval wet markets replete with rotting carcasses, flies and waste, they’ll be welcome to stop committing biological warfare on the rest of the planet and live like they belong in the 21st century.
20
@Eric
Sure, Eric.
Racism is the real issue here, huh...
3
The Chinese are not “committing biological warfare,” and if you don’t understand that the person who posted this comment is a racist nationalist blaming sick people for getting sick, then the answer to your question is “yes,” racism is the problem.
Toughen up. There have been recent years in the US where the death toll from flu has exceeded 80,000 people here. You don’t hear the world saying the U.S. is committing biological warfare, do you? Huh.
3
@EGD The best evidence I have seen is that this new virus has crossed over to humans as a result of human consumption or handling of bats or pangolins in a wet market in China. I presume you think that stating this is racist, and asking the Chinese government to stop this lethal combination is racist?
2
China is a key player in many different supply chains. When they're the supplier of component parts timely delivery is critical. 20 or so years ago, to save money and physical space manufacturers moved a "just in time" supply model. That approach keeps minimal inventory on hand and depends on timely delivery by suppliers to keep operating. A major interruption in China's manufacturing base would have a devastating impact in many industries. Because of just in time models that impact will be felt almost immediately and it will be world wide.
4
@AnObserver
Econ 101: Nothing is indispensable. The squeaky wheel can be replaced.
@NorthernVirginia Of course, but the problem becomes one of time. How long does it take a supply chain to adjust and reroute? How long does it take to spin up a manufacturing facility? How long does it take to replace and train workers. That idle time is what creates the economic disruption. It has an especially long spin up when you need do start from scratch too.
Shocking and disappointing to see NYT use this kind of language. How is it possible to equate China to Medieval Europe? It follows the narrative of assuming there is a linear timeline of progress to follow where the West is at the top. Meanwhile, China simultaneously has areas leap years ahead of whatever the "West" is supposed to be. Economists rally to see social problems like this through a monetary lens which eclipses any empathy and emotional outlook onto these issues. There are families diminishing and worried for their lives every day. Stop belittling the Chinese government when the US let H1N1 spread and kill 300,000 people. It's a fickle comparison to make
12
Stop apologizing for China’s dictators.
15
so U.S. failure to contain the H1N1 spread could be so easily justified ??
In medieval times, some cities wisely enforced strong boundaries to protect themselves from the spread of disease, such as Milan, Venice, etc. -- “It’s like Europe in medieval times ... where each city has its checks and crosschecks.”
5
I am going to go out on a limb and predict that this health crisis is going to lead to the unraveling of the communist regime in China. I believe that we will eventually see small, albeit permanent protest throughout the country. And the regime will be unable to stop it. It might take a couple of years, but I believe it or coalesce into a tsunami of popular pressure, and that the Chinese military will participate. And the totalitarian regime in Beijing will not be able to stop it.
11
if this outbreak happened in your home, then a new episode of walking dead would be happily presented, isn't it??
@David H wrote: "I am going to go out on a limb and predict that this health crisis is going to lead to the unraveling of the communist regime in China."
Xi is only dictator for life. Tomorrow is promised to no one.
2
Since the country is an absolute autocracy and have access to the Net, why not educate people about not eating anything that moves, flies, runs or sliders. Until then, there should be a complete stop of all incoming flights and exports.
6
My question is basic: how are people getting their groceries if everyone is trapped at home?
3
@Martha Goff
Food stores are open and produce coming as always from the fields, but animal sources were restricted and as noted transportation network hampered. All creating great humor on line: one image a hardboiled egg with characters for morning, noon, and evening painted on and knife slicing of top section carefully.
Lots of noodle meals but image of lady carefully measuring out a dozen noodles into the pan.
Best laugh than cry.
11
@wsmrer for a change I would like to see the whole of China turn vegetarian. They might just slow down a bit.
@Terry
Historical perspective helps. A generation or so back meat was a once a week event in good times and the raising standard of living brought pork in increasing measure. My mother-in -law ws happy to find tree bark in her 1960 pregnancy. Let then enjoy themselves, but veggie is catching on too.
1
If a vaccine isn’t produced soon, the world economy is heading towards major upheaval. The billions of dollars in damages it has done in only a few weeks will turn to trillions if this virus continues to spread for a year or so.
Just because it hasn’t reached the USA yet doesn’t mean it’s not an imminent threat to public health. The vaccine must be produced immediately.
11
If China would have been less worried about money maybe they would have taken Dr. Li Wenliang seriously and not forced him to be silent.
All the money in China is not going to bring back the dead!
10
China Land of Brave and Home of the Unfree
2
Some perspective is needed. How many people here in the States will die from influenza this year? How many in drunk driving incidents? Diseases related to tobacco and alcohol?
Yes, this is serious business, but much of what I see in the media is fear-mongering.
7
There are Vaccines for influenza , the occurrence of which is predictable . Car accidents and drinking problems are not known as contagious. Plague caused by an unknown virus , a total different story .
By the way ，do you know how many ppl died from influenza in China every year?
5
Before we get too smug and self-righteous, I bet China's coronavirus kills fewer people than our opiodvirus.
19
@Jeff L
Opioidvirus... from fentanyl made in China, you mean?
15
Post SARS China made some changes and sighed and said others were too hard. Time to get back to that list.
On the plus side. China determined a change was needed to medical coverage - with the result that a much larger share of the population now has health coverage as well as lower expected co-pays. China also improved processes for collecting and sharing data across the three segments responsible for providing healthcare (military, local authorities and centralized government).
Still needed:
* close the popular “wet markets” where small scale virus jumps like this happen frequently- with very few getting traction
* change incentives for municipalities that lead them to discount growing epidemics (see happens a lot above) - instead it remains a crime to fear monger
* change the (current) low standing of the (pretty solid) public health agency in the national bureaucracy pecking order
* improve coordination (beyond data gathering) across the three primary providers of healthcare.
So there is China’s “to do” list. As in the US, reworking political structures is easier said than done.
Instead they are falling back on political firmness and broad sweeping steps that may address the problem but not efficiently - in terms of economic and human cost.
Source public health prof from Oklahoma who conducted post SARS research in China digging through their records and data and held a related discussion for the history of medicine folks at the u of mn.
6
Hopefully some lessons will be learned and people will understand that our dependence on China is so great that Trump really has no cards to play. Although an unforeseen outcome, our love affair with cheap labor has left us with this vulnerability.
11
Wait until this thing hits Africa and other areas that have no ability to contain this virus.
We will either learn to accept the consequences and keep commerce going or we will live a dark age until this passes.
5
Telling the truth helps. In Chicago 25 years ago there was a heat wave that killed hundreds of people. Electricity broke down. But the city was honest that people were dropping dead left and right. There was no panic.
14
Plagues, locusts, floods, droughts, conflagrations, damaging storms -- I can't understand why the religious right doesn't get the messages. Somebody's got us on the wrong course. Who's in charge right now?
13
There is criticism regarding the Chinese's governments response to the novel coronavirus, but if one day a novel virus emerges first in the United States can we really say our government will do any better?
Yes, the current damage to supply chains is very real, but China's even though containment efforts have slowed their economy in the short term their actions may have prevented an actual economic doomsday scenario caused by an entire population's workforce being infected with a novel virus with no cure.
2
@Sarah
Please stop apologizing for the totalitarian regime that runs China. The Chinese authorities tried to suppress news about this new virus, and they silenced the Doctor who first initially publicize it. Such atrocities would never happen in the United States under any circumstances.
6
@David H You're right, there have been actions taken that cannot be excused.
1
The Chinese economy will eventually recover, and Apple iPhone demand will shift from one quarter to the next.
However, what this does show is that we cannot rely on China to be the sole supplier of so many key products -- drugs, phones, autoparts, etc. It could be something else tomorrow. We need to make more critical things in the US, and diversify the product supply chain.
19
@RSSF spot on! That is indeed the crux of the matter.
1
All this we hear about China and AI, 5G, e-cars, robots -- but they still have open food markets with living wild animals in cages that get slaughtered right in the market for food. And half their pig population in China died from a virus -- 25 percent of all the pigs in the world. And they have had bird flu viruses that killed millions of chickens that were about to be sold -- these influenza strains can quickly mutate to become highly virulent for humans.
China should modernize its food system before they do all this tech-gadget stuff. China is not only not ready for a 21st century economy, they are going to throw the rest of the world back into the Dark Ages with a new Plague.
17
The CDC says face masks don't work.
So why is everyone wearing face masks?
3
@Janak
Everyday masks are very porous but wearing them likely makes many people feel better about taking action. There are more costly ones considered to be more secure.
4
@Janak
Psychological reassurance.
3
This virus epidemic is just one example of how Autocratic China is failing its own people and how rest of the world is tied to that due to our over dependence on it for various products including medicine.
Capitalism and globalization will never work unless there are some basic conditions of functional democracy (not just regular elections) fulfilled. That include decently open society, effective judiciary, and functional corporate governance- all insulated from political influence.
Communist and theological dictators are totally unfit for it. Rise of China under this more secretive and brutal Communist party is now a global threat. This virus infection is just another example where over secrecy and desire to suppress any news/development perceived to be damaging to the party and its global image made this epidemic so devastating.
But, there are so many reasons why big and utter exploitative corporations and wall street just live strongmen- https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/27/opinion/why-wall-street-loves-strongmen.html. Unless we can address that issue in our own country, we can not handle China and such autocratic regimes around the world.
5
“Like China in Middle Ages” as well, actually
3
@Harnstrutter but I bet medeival China had more spirituality, and treated animals with more dignity. They had Buddhism, Confucianism, and Daoism before current atheism.
oh man, this could be the thing to topple Trump. Amazing.
5
For millennia Central Africa and Central Asia have been human disease center vector points.
Significantly and substantially impacting European history with the Mongol Empire bringing Black Death where it's warriors could not reach.
Effectively long limiting European exploitation of Sub- Saharan Africa to enslavement.
While the Europeans brought African and Asian diseases to the New American World to the deadly detriment of a multitude of Indigenous nations.
See ' Plagues and Peoples' W. S. McNeil
4
@Blackmamba
Here we go again, pinning the blame on us “white Europeans” for all the world’s ills. Enough already.
2
What a shame hindus who are living a healthy life from many generations in a small area with no health virus, world is to ready to learn from them . You are what you eat .
Time to stop meat for few years go back to plant base food .
4
It will take another Deng Xiaoping to recover China's declining economy. But how many people outside of China are still trust a cheating China? Everyone in China is an expert. Really? Coronavirus outbreak will be remembered by all Chinese for a long time. A great lesson to the Chinese people.
7
Is there any self reflection in China that maybe people should stop eating all the disgusting animal products they like?
12
One type of business that seems to be affected in the US are the ones in Chinatown. Forgetting all about the virus, I went to a Chinese supermarket for groceries only to find it mostly empty, and the few sales clerks wearing masks (rarely seen here in Boston, with only 1 self-quarantined case in Mass. ). None of the shoppers wore any.
Then I started wondering if maybe I should have avoided that store and gone instead to the local, more expensive supermarket. This season being bad for a late round of flu or cold, it’s hard to know what one is coming down with ...
3
Welcome to China,
Please check your health and well-being at the door.
4
Interesting ... that's where Trump wishes America was. Him as King, his republican sycophants as his court, Barr and his ilk as his knights, foreign minions as his agents, and the rest of us as serfs ...
9
@Bob
What nonsense. There’s always at least one person here who will take a cheap shot at Mr. Trump, even though the material under discussion has absolutely nothing to do with him.
5
@David H
Bob’s correct. Trump does want the hierarchical structure with him on top. All the .1 %ers envision themselves as Masters of Everything. Except Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, and the others who signed onto their group pledge to share. As I hold my infant grandchild, I worry of all the choices taken from her by the culture driven by Trumpism ideology should it succeed long term. Adelman, Wilbur Ross, Koch, and their ilk, they’d prefer the populace to be quietly subservient to their every whim and order. So, yes, this does relate to Trump and his vision of lording over us all like a feudal king. And along with the return of the feudal state here comes the CoronaV Plague for true repetition in history. Apparently humanity failed it’s lessons from the past and are doomed to repeat them.
2
@David H - Cheap possibly ... but since Trump costs us so much more in every other way, the price was commensurate to how he views America. You got a bargain to contemplate and he got an inexpensive critique on how his lack of ability has lead a great country back towards a past he wants to recreate.
Other than the "virus" slowing America's economy not being of the microorganism variety but is instead of the incompetent at the helm variety, the relevance to the article was ... interestingly relatable.
Far from Wuhan, here in Hunan province, the authorities 2 days ago announced another week of restricted walking and personal interchange in the nation’s effort to limit possible infection. That day the only open shops were food or medicine related, but yesterday many businesses had open doors as we walked to the bank’ s ATM.
Each evening on WeChat we see a picture of Dr. Li Wenlieng, the hero who first notices a SARS-like development in Wuhan and was criticized for putting that online to his friends – spreading rumors as the authorities called it. He became infected and added to the rising numbers of deaths.
We have a personal photo of his family from a friend – may frame that one.
13
We should propose cutting the CDC budget, seems smart. Also, gut Medicaid to prevent folks from getting access to health care.
14
There is some hysteria in many of the comments to this piece. The plague, 1918, end-of-days why don’t you! The truth is, as is noted in an article in today’s NYTs, the true number of casualties is very hard to determine right now because the number of silent carriers- people who are infected but are not terribly sick- is not yet known. The more silent carriers there are, the lower the proportion of fatalities. Also, Wuhan was not alerted on time to the dangers of this outbreak whereas the rest of the world is vigilant so the number of infected will most likely never reach the number of people infected in Wuhan.
2
Power to the NYtimes for free, honest open press! We need you more than ever.
And t to have brought Xi out of hibernation by asking"where is Xi"
7
Soy, Beef, Pork, Chicken, Fish. We had five relatively safe source of protein to eat. Yet, someone said Armadillo bush meat yummy! SMH...
4
@Doug
The only one available these days in China is Soy. All live animal commence stopped when virus occurred; after first restrictions on 'wild animals.' Fact is no one knows what raised that coronavirus as the notorious Market was disinfected before samples could be taken.
Bureaucratic effecentcy?
2
Sure, like medieval Europe ... or like 1980s China.
3
The city of Wuhan has been sacrificed to save China
7
The past month's growth of stories about the spread of the coronavirus suddenly reminded me that I didn't know if the current President has ever had his scheduled 2020 medical check up. This is not to be confused with that mysterious motorcade that took him to be checked out for ... something.
The current President's health is increasingly worrisome with particular emphasis on his mental health, possible drug use, slurred speech and free-association patterns in his public appearances.
Another question just occurred to me. Has the current President spoken out about the whistleblower Chines doctor whose early warning re the virus were hushed up? Are all whistleblowers evil in the eyes of the current President?
7
This will only get a lot worse.
At some point things will collapse.
The virus will win and the Chinese Communist Party, which demands absolute obedience from the Great Chinese Proletariat, will be exposed as the paper tiger it is.
Xi is a traitor to China and along with his servile toadies must be punished.
Then, maybe, just maybe, China can begin to rebuild.
3
@Simon Sez
Wishful thinking? The CCP is a functioning government, one that has created a model of development unsurpassed in human history; now spreading across Asia. Check out Branko Milanovic's chapters on Political Capitalism in Capitalism, Alone.
But you may be right these events will create some tension within the party for whatever effect.
We have a "dangerous outbreak" here.... thousands who have in this country, this season, died from our garden- variety flu.
I'll bet that some of the people buying masks against coronavirus are doing so despite the fact they did not get vaccinated against seasonal influenza this fall.
Too many dramatic headlines, too many hysterical newscasters regarding the coronavirus and too few putting this story in any reasonable context. A shame.
7
@HotGumption,
A couple of things make this virus something newsworthy, first there is no vaccine, second, it has become clear it is extremely contagious, and can be spread before experiencing symptoms. Most importantly however is that this is a global issue. While things may seem sweet in Rhode Island at the moment, and may stay sweet, you may have a different opinion if you lived in Asia. Newspapers are in the business of reporting facts, what the public does with that information is not their responsibility. Lets stop blaming the media for the public’s reaction to their reporting.
15
@Karen
Been in media most of my life and work in healthcare. Every TV report claims "the deadly" coronavirus.
I don't sit in Rhode Island all day and there is no cause for panic. A lot of the drama hype is around photos of people in China being dragged from home and weary people on quarantined cruise ships. These images are entirely different from statistically sound losses.
I live in the United States and thousands of people have already died of flu this year. People ARE dying and there's no panic of these numbers.
2
China gave the U.S. and much of the world cheaper goods and with quality few countries could match. If U.S. companies switch to getting a lot their products and parts from anywhere-but-China, prices will go up and Americans will pay more and get less, not to mention those increased taxes dressed as tariffs.
7
@AGoldstein
To wean ourselves off of our pathological dependence on Chinese goods, that’s a risk I for one would be most willing to take.
8
... and with globalization it will affect the rest of the world's economy, too. Here comes Recession 2020 ... resulting from unforeseen circumstances.
6
Somewhat interesting to note that Taiwan is barely affected.
Did they had intelligence assets on the mainland feeding them info on the virus before it became common knowledge and shut their borders to people from the PRC accordingly?
3
I don’t think there has been that much traffic between China and Taiwan, certainly not as porous a border as Hong Kong’s. Nevertheless there have been cases, and some family members who considered visiting decided not to; others who already bought tickets will be going - there does not appear to be the same level of fear as there had been with SARS, when there was a shortage of masks.
1
@EGD wonder what they eat in Taiwan
Coming soon to a country near you....It's one thing to not go to work for a short whole. But soon the bills will be due, shortages (and anger) will become commonplace, a relatively minor natural disaster will take 5x longer to recover from. We are the richest country in the world yet are completely unprepared for mass scale quarantines
4
Many were expecting a Black Swan Event. This is it.
1
@Nick
If we're going to get one, I'd rather it be now and not after we're stuck with Trump for another 4 years.
5
@Nick
It is the "October surprise" in February, and it may hang around for some time.
1
China manages its economy on the cheap for the benefit of the wealthy at the expense of its population with the most significant disparity of income and wealth in the world.
On the ongoing pandemic of Coronavirus, as will as the previous pandemics of SARS, etc., all of which originated in China, China’s unregulated livestock industry is a cesspool of dangerous viruses and bacteria. There are many reports of the outbreak of dangerous virus among animals, most recently pigs, in China which forces the culling of large herds of animals. This is why the West has a prohibition for the import of any animals, fowl, etc. from China. The science of the transfer of virus from animals to humans has been proved. There will be more pandemics originating from China as long as China’s livestock industry is unregulated.
16
@Gerry O'Brien
Hard to know where to start? Correct PRC gini coefficient has caught up with and possibly surpassed USA's, but China is still battling extensive poverty, but winning, same not true yet in US.
The virus developed in one market among millions and has not appeared anywhere else, and PRC has FDA regulations modeled on the US FDA model -- studied in 2008 after SARS period.
It seems odd (and tragic) that Dr. Li who first recognized the virus died of it, because he was only 34 and presumably in good health and the virus appears to have a fatality rate of only 2%.
Perhaps an initially virulent virus became attenuated as it spread? Or is it a matter of recalculating as Dr. Leung mentioned today in another column in today's paper with reference to SARS?
1
@just thinking - Perhaps he worked himself to death trying to solve the problem. Lots of stress and no sleep can run a body down in no time and leave one vulnerable to illness.
1
Frankly i don't pity them. this is a classic case of ancient culture mentality winning out over modern science. The long standing cultural practice of buying, selling and eating of exotic wildlife. the long and dangerous practices of harboring farms animals of different species close together i.e. chickens living next to pigs that live next to cattle. a dangerous practice ripe for species jumping viruses. The Chinese government last week called for the mixing of ancient folklore remedies with antiviral drugs to treat this virus outbreak, now that should quell all critics who claim there is racial bias against Chinese people. No, its against plain stupidity and superstition, then again we have the faith healers and antivaxxers here who rely on the same type of mindset to prevent much needed legislation to keep our population safe. Soon our country will be "Like Europe in Medieval Times".
8
But we do not live in medieval times, but in a time where everyone is globally interconnected and a virus can travel around the world in a few days.
We also live in a time of technological hubris where we think we have conquered nature and can do anything we want with her. But viruses mutate in the blink of an eye and biologically we live at a turtles's pace.
When will we begin to take nature and our climate seriously? Am I a Cassandra? Unless we do it literally will be the death of us.
232
@just Robert it's true, viruses do travel around the world. But how long will it take the “virus of truth” to reach China and contaminate that country's government?
9
@just Robert
Epedemics help control over population
5
@just Robert - Climate change is not going to end the human species! It's serious, but we are, if anything, an adaptable species. Please stop it -- you're scaring the children.
1
I am struck I can find so little empathy in the previous posts to the millions in China who maybe watching their entire families diminish, while being unable to act, to work, or to commiserate.
I cannot imagine any 21st century neighborhood, town and city so thoroughly socially disrupted.
This is not to defend the actions of Chinese Government, rather to point out how they have built a prosperity so poorly capable of exchanging trusted information from the bottom up or from the outside.
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@W. Michael Johnson Why do you think it would be handled differently here?
10
its called dicatorship
4
@W. Michael Johnson Americans can show empathy by supporting our many Chinese-American friends. Just smile when you see them, instead of showing fear. Patronize their businesses; they need it. If the virus jumps the Pacific, Americans may be wearing face masks next--if they can find one.
5
Did I learn anything given the obvious thesis? No. Does our little modern crisis compare the horrors of the plague, where the cause at the time was not known? No.
9
China wants to take what it feels is its rightful place as a world leader. The problem being that its governmental systems and much of its other support systems remain in feudal times. Under stress there appears to be very little difference between Xi's government and the Emperor & Mandarins of past dynasties. Xi's people seem to be just as unwilling to take any risks or to engage in creative thinking as their counterparts of 2,000 years ago. A Chinese economy would never produce an Apple or a Tesla, or a NASA, too much risk to the Mandarin if something went wrong, the Emperor might lose face.
So remind me again why we are tying so much of our economy to China and its feudal government?
156
@Bruce1253
Because they are the number one purchasers of our enormous debt.
52
@Bruce1253 China does a lot right. Their middle class is now larger than the population of the entire EU....they will be new superpower and top economy in less than twenty years. Of course, the lack of democracy and accountability of leadership and bureaucracy is clearly a huge flaw.
24
$9 sneakers
$100 smartphones
$6 MAGA hats
Etc.
12
I work in world trade ( air cargo) and I can tell you there is close to panic at what could happen if China becomes essentially closed for business. In the short run I already see charters popping up for auto parts, but these should be on a ship not an airplane, this is only done when a factory is running out of a critical part and will shut down without it. This is a short term solution to bridge the gap so to speak. This could get really ugly for the whole world not just China. I know it might be hard for some Americans to understand but pretty much anything manufactured in our country has components from elsewhere. And there are no winners in a pandemic whatever Wilbur Ross thinks.
528
Not to mention our Stock Market.
22
@Chris The winner will be the American people, the Chinese people and everybody else when trump's cult followers realize that the collapse of the Chinese economy is actually bad for them. Hopefully the economy will be bottoming in November so trump and McConnell will be thrown out of office and someone who is a real businessman will replace them.
79
@Mari Not to worry. The Fed’s true mission is to keep the stock market humming. Up again today.
17
To the Isolationists who comment here that we should not be "dependent" on the industrial output of China or other nations: it's not "dependency," but rather "interdependency." The world is a connected place now; unscrambling that egg is a fool's errand.
Not buying things from other countries probably also means not selling anything to other countries. No. Better than trying to make sure that the US grows, manufactures, consumes--and cleans up--everything it wants, we should try harder to be part of the world.
134
@Michael Jacques Yes, but in the big picture most everyone 150 years ago was isolationist by nature because they simply lived in the outback somewhere on a little farm, didn't travel and grew their own food and fiber. No way could they get a virus. Today in six short hours a new virus arrives in an airplane or a new bug arrives in a box of produce. The problem is we have not yet learned how to deal with the ramifications of interdependency.
7
@Michael Jacques. We should also have our eyes wide open on the real cost of these efforts. We have been borrowing from the arbitrage account for far too long.
4
@Michael Jacques It is not "isolationist" to want shorter supply chains, readily available necessities such as food, clothing, and medication, and halfway decent quality control. It is not "isolationist" to object to a staggering loss of jobs in this country, or to a manufacturing system that pollutes dramatically.
We are all interdependent, indeed, and that means that we had better start being concerned about global climate change, overseas workers paid miserably and lacking voting rights, and zero regulatory oversight, instead of chasing the lowest possible wholesale price.
18
Isn't the Chinese Food and Drug Administration responsible for protecting its public health?
China must review the agency from the top -- it cannot afford CFDA's postprandial sleep to paralyze its economy and the global supply chain again.
1
I just l love Gorgonzola cheese! What About you?
1
Do you remember Chernobyl? The USSR tried to hide the disaster. Then the USSR was forced to say what really happened, but the delay in telling the truth caused enormous damage. This is exactly what happened with the coronavirus. China first tried to hide the problem, then was forced to reveal it. The delay caused huge problems here too. That is the problem with undemocratic regimes. For them, the truth is not a value, but something dangerous.
14
Here in Ontario, as with many other parts of the world, there is a high population of seniors. This fact, coupled with the high rate of transmission make this outbreak a very serious concern.
11
@Honeybee
Laughing.... that's sort of a major cavalier brush-off of an entire populace, eh?
1
If we stop for a second and use our Math skills, we would see that over a 900 deaths or whatever its at no, for over 1 Billion people it's hardly a high percentage. Panic and fear on the other hand is at 100%. Influenza kill tens of thousands of American each and every year. I didn't hear any politician crying or proposing better healthcare measures...
8
10K deaths per 300M people isn't a high percentage either.
In all of this who has been conspicuous by his absence? The trouble is that when you take complete control in the country the buck stops with you. Xi will be watching over his shoulder for the inevitable political backlash that will come his way.
3
@neb
I thought you were talking about our Supreme Leader in Washington. He could place a 100 tariff on all imports from China, particularly any food.
"...when you take complete control in the country the buck stops with you."
@Kami Kata Funny I was thinking that exact thought when penned the post. 'Strongmen' seem to go missing in action when the proverbial hits the fan. Who can forget our leader Scott Morrison going to Hawaii with his family during the time that the bush-fires exploded across the country. They all have one thing in common...blame underlings for the problem. Xi will do the same
1
As someone who was involved in the stock market for many years, it will be interesting to see if companies like Apple reapply their mathematics in terms of manufacturing in China and the concomitant costs. A factory in the US, employing mostly robots, may in the end to be much cheaper than a human employing factory in China with workers who can get sick and stay sick due to the actions of an oppressive and incompetent totalitarian regime. I'll bet Tim Cook has has his strategic planning department crunching numbers even as we speak.
8
It is as much about market access as it is about cutting costs. The CEO class is committed to China- because they are committed to making China the economic powerhouse of the 21st century.
5
The bulk of cases are in Wuhan. The rest of China does not have as many cases. The problem with this level of quarantine is that it can often be more deleterious to society than the disease. The disease kills by an immune system being under vigilant initially and then hyper vigilant. We should not let the world economy suffer the same fate.
Schools in areas with cases should remained closed. Public gatherings limited, and face masks should be mandatory at factories and offices. People one degree of separation from people known to be infected should self-quarantine. Hot spots should quarantine to slow the epidemic.
2
I agree. China is a hotspot and all travel out of China should be curtailed. Let the disease burn itself out with the people who created it. No one outside of China should die for the unsanitary habits of the people of China.
2
Any slowdown in the global economy will be met by nations lowering their benchmark interest rates. The stock market is rising not because they expect next quarter's GDP to be higher, but because they see more interest rate drops coming and lasting for another few years.
GDP is a rear-view mirror while the stock market is forward looking. The market is already looking past this short slowdown.
3
We are so addicted to cheap goods and benefits of it for decades. The impact to China due to this virus will not be limited to itself but to the whole world, too. Not to mention, we are so interconnected due to the globalization, we forget we are relying or totally dependent on China on lots of goods and ingredients that are essential here in the US and around the world, just to name a few, the oxygen masks for patients in need, for ingredients to make aspirin, electronic parts and elements and products (iphone). We also need to take this chance to see this crisis as a wake-up call to rethink how we can build a healthier and more sustainable global economy without this kind of risk, man-made or natural, that potentially could have caused the collapsing or at least paralyzing of the world economy for a long time to come.
8
The price for cheaply made plastic garbage is going to go up. How will US consumers cope?
7
@megangin
" Without this kind of risk"? That is wishful thinking at its best.
1
@megangin
Buy American made products, preferably Union made.
2
Let the economy stop for a day, a week, a month. Longer. Time for our global capitalists to refocus their resources, for once, on the people at risk. Sorry to hear about the pause in your profits due to your own corner-cutting in your global supply chains that are so greedily and shoddily set up. Boo boo.
Climate change, weapons proliferation, global business and internet, potential world pandemics, pandemic tax evasion. We need a global governmental body with real power to set, monitor, and enforce human standards more than ever. Less chaotic short term growth. More long term humanity. Or is that just impossible?
36
@Kenneth Bogert Sounds good in theory....but after a few weeks of this, businesses in the most developed economies, those that have relocated the 'dirty' manufacturing bits to China, will begin layoffs of staff who are no longer required. The domino effect will become worse the longer the crisis drags on.
5
Yeah we all live paycheck to paycheck in that sense.
1
@Kenneth Bogert
How can you say that?!!? No profits, how will they breath then? How would they be able to finish that bigger yacht to go with their bigger vacation home, on their bigger private island??? You're just not being rational here and you allow panic to cloud your judgement!
Peace!
2
The response of various governments and other organizations to this virus will inevitably be the cause of more damage than the virus itself. Especially since several of the actions taken are motivated more by the need to be seen as doing something, anything, rather than scientific evidence.
4
@A Cynic And the inverse may be true if governments were to take no action.
What's worse? Risking the lives of billions of people or a few dollars off of investment accounts?
2
@A Cynic
Profits over people? I'll take people first.
1
If you get it, and you live through it (quite likely),
are you immune?
The second season of the 1918 pandemic was worse.
Were the folks who got it early gladly inoculated against the later, more lethal strain? Like when folks exposed their kids to chicken-pox to have them go through it at a time of life less risky for complications?
This thing may well be around for a while. I don't want it, god knows, but what's the science on early vs late infection?
9
@C. Whiting ,
"If you get it, and you live through it (quite likely),
are you immune?"
That is a really important question. The answer for now is simply: Too soon to know. Only following patients for months to years for recurrent infections and/or antibody testing will give us the answer. No doubt there is some immunity (hence individual recovery), but how long will that last? Let's hope it lasts long and plan as though it might not last long.
4
capitalists tell us that money makes the earth go round, but forget to say that a flu can take down global financial markets.
in other words, the fate of the world always is hanging by a mere shoestring.
15
@Jackson
But not for much longer
1
Fragmentation or real lack of information about the virus itself is most markedly an echo of Medieval epidemics.
Do the Chinese have a scientific basis to spray cars with disinfectant? Or are they putting on a show, or terrified without a plan? We need reliable info.
8
I teach at a university here in China, in one of the at risk provinces. We are still on lock down. Normally classes would start this week, but obviously that can't happen, so we're going to do classes remotely. When you're in a situation like this, you follow the protocols and stay positive. There's nothing else you can do.
57
@David
There is something you can do.
China can enact more stringent food safety laws.
If this really originated in the consumption of infected animals, stop consuming bats, monkeys, dogs... and get over the desire for natural viagra from aquatic animals.
I've seen the "medicinal" jars with various animals in the liquid. Been to the food markets with what we consider domestic pets on sale as food. I survived.
8
@David Good luck to you there.
Holding classes online is an easy and logical thing to do.
2
I'm sure all of those economists with PhDs from Ivy League universities that have been aggressively promoting globalization for decades planned for something like this in their econometric models.
Why don't we just ask them what their models say we should do so the global economy isn't brought to its knees by something that may have originated in a wet market in China?
What would David Ricardo do?
17
@TB
Yes that’s it.
It’s all the fault of the Ivy League educated people.
Not businesses who have everything made in China.
@Carla
Never said that.
Economists gave them intellectual cover to destroy the American middle class.
Also, it should be noted that most of the CEOs and upper management at those businesses that "have everything made in China" were MBAs from the Ivy League.
4
Maybe we still have a chance to defeat Trump after all. Contrary to the GOP message of isolationism, we are very dependent on good trade relations with China. If this health crisis continues, it will have a ripple effect on the global economy. Whether we agree with their political system or not, they are a superpower.
7
@Kristin
Sorry, but doesn’t this actually make the exact opposite argument; that we are too dependent on global supply chains that can be easily disrupted?
14
Also, just to be clear, I’m a Democrat who supports Bernie. I agree with his views on trade and think we need to do more to protect American workers. I also think it’s legitimate to have concerns about being dependent on supply chains controlled by totalitarian regimes.
7
@Kristin
Power and economic dependence... not good for USA. We need a strong local economy, Made in the USA.
We need organic food, produced within 10 miles of your home, and manufactured goods from your neighbor.
When we become dependent on some other country, we put our country at risk.
5
For all who think insufficient walls and manufacturing overseas etc are exposing us to harmful disease outbreaks: This outbreak in China is a dress rehearsal for the bugs coming out of the rapidly melting permafrost.
The anti-science government is doing nothing to prepare us -- cutting funding for science, education, and on top of it, the DOJ is trying to undo the ACA.
If Trump won't listen, maybe your state governor will. I'm calling mine to see what plans are in place if the c.virus, or any other outbreak, comes to Arizona. What's the plan? What's their pipeline for being notified? What's their plan to notify and galvanize the resources of our state?
So long as we are a democracy we have a right to know.
So long as we're a democracy...
77
@Terry
What if your state gov is a red state theocracy? Pray?
8
On the plus side, one would imagine that their air quality will now be greatly enhanced. Ironic trade off. Now the masks are for virus prevention vs. lung disease. Way too many people.
17
Chinese state propagandists have spent years trying to convince the world that China is a genuine superpower.
Yet this tragic health crisis shows, rather conclusively I reckon, that China's glamorous, glitzy coastal showcase cities are little more than Potemkin Villages, and that its totalitarian leadership is really no different in mentality from that of the old USSR, where secrecy and sweeping things under the rug were de rigueur.
China is no great power, that's for certain.
37
Yes. Luckily popular culture doesn’t hide social oppression and poverty in the US, and doesn’t just show the Potempkin village movie studios.
1
@NPP
Please do not even begin to make comparisons between the world’s largest open air prison (China) and our grand, if imperfect democracy, the leadership of which we are free to change every two years.
5
@David H Two years?? The elections of 2000, 2004, and 2016 were stolen.
If this ends up anything like the 1918 flu pandemic, there will be a first round and subsequent rounds, with varying death rates for each (Second round was more lethal than the first back then).
We are all in this together. You won't dodge it with a trip to the Sandwich Islands (that didn't work then either...).
So calm yourself, understand that there are risks beyond our control, and others within our control. Know the difference as accurately as you can, and then take sensible action in regard to the latter. Wash your hands. Avoid large groups. Understand that with this virus, no-symtom contact can still be infectious contact, and do what you can to limit it should the larger picture indicate a potential risk in your area.
As to those risks we cannot control, there will always be those.
Asteroids, earthquakes, lions and tigers and bears, oh my. Don't go down that road. Every healthy day is a good day. Cherish it, make it brighter with your presence. Understand that we are all of us on borrowed time, and so it is a gift to be alive, here and now.
Feel the sun on your face. Pray for those who are afraid and suffering with this virus.
And wash your hands. For your kids. And for me.
100
As a teacher and mother of three teenagers, how do I best prepare for the likelihood of a pandemic? Washing hands, check. Avoiding large groups, not so much. I teach almost 400 students ages 5-14. My husband is also a teacher and our children attend schools with 1000-2600 students in an urban setting. I can only imagine that schools are one of the worst settings for spreading a virus.
1
"Year of Wonders". Historical fiction about a small English village that isolates itself during the bubonic plague. I've read it, and now it makes a connection for me to the current outbreak in China.
Worth a perusal (if not an entire literary digestion)!
8
“If the current coronavirus crisis continues to impact production capacity in China," he said, “it will ultimately impact auto assembly plants in the U.S. and Mexico."
Maybe those jobs should not have been in China and Mexico in the first place. If we are so dependent upon China and Mexico then its time for a national security review. Must our nation and our industries come to a halt because a virus has infected China? What else in America is at risk because of the failures of China? We can no longer tolerate industrial, economic, technology and pharmaceutical dependencies on China, Mexico or any other nation. Our Democracy and our independence and national security are at great risk.
25
@Jack Frost
Well go tell all those super rich CEO s that I'm sure they'll listen to you. Even If it were about morals and not money they still wouldn't take your call.
13
@Travis Of course not! I wouldn't bother to call them. But we do have a congress and representatives that are suppose to take our calls and receive mail. We vote for or against these people. It's up to us to take charge. For the record this is about money., ethics, morals and national security. How about a sense of urgency rather than contempt and ridicule of my comment.
4
Jack Frost,
I couldn’t agree with you more. Time to put in place legal methods of “encouragement” to bring manufacturing and self reliance back home to the USA. China cannot be trusted any more than Russia or Korea.
9
It should be understood by our President that the biggest threat he faces is not Joe Biden or Mayor Bloomberg or Mayor Pete or Nancy Pelosi but the collateral damage resulting from a viral pathogen that does not respect border walls and will exploit cuts in pandemic preparedness and social safety nets and healthcare financing and delivery without mercy.
In all likelihood, this President will not survive politically what is coming this way. All war games of biological weapons attacks usually end with failed containment and mass casualties which disrupt economies and supply chains (food stuffs) on which the continuity of urbanized civil society is dependent.
Those GOP senators who voted to acquit have spared their President only temporarily from the judgment of history and his date with a dark destiny. Unlike the Spanish Influenza epidemic of 1919-20, there will be no tolerance by the citizenry for the loss of so many lives and the untold damage it will cause. A 2% to 3% mortality rate would be staggering if even only 1/3 of our 325 million citizens became infected. The political consequence will be seismic and immediate a the science deniers and healthcare haters in the GOP are tarred and feathered.
The ignorance and arrogance of Trumpism is about to get hit the face with the brick of undeniable scientific reality. Incompetence, funding cuts and the usual Trump administration corruption will retard our national pandemic response and millions will pay dearly.
143
@American Akita Team
It should be understood by our “ president”.
But it won’t.
5
@American Akita Team Oh, they'll probably just attribute it to God's punishment of liberals, or something, and not skip a beat.
7
This is one of those wonderful times when nature shows man she’s still got game. If only we got the message.
73
@John
There's nothing natural about eating some of the animals that those people eat, unless you're a coyote.
2
@John are you having a wonderful time?
3
We all agree that the official death toll numbers coming out of Beijing are baloney right?
141
@Russian Bot
I don't think that you can count a person as infected if there has not be a laboratory confirmation of the infection. Testing is a bottleneck. Dying of viral pneumonia is not sufficient confirmation.
1
This is like God sending a signal to the west to relocate its supply chains to more democratically inclined nations like India and the Philippines, who are reliable allies.
14
@Snowball. Well perhaps... but India and the Philippines may not have robust public health systems to contain the virus and we in the US and those in Japan will be fortunate if our public health systems are up to the task.
8
@W. Michael Johnson What good is a robust health system if millions of people can't afford it?
18
@Snowball Sorry. India is a poor, chaotic, democracy. We can't handle stuff like this - China can. Also, we are already the most polluted country with smog choking us. We can't afford to manufacture for others. We don't have environmental regulations - as it is, our people don't have clean air, water or food. With more manufacturing for the West, we will only suffer more. Make everything in USA for US consumption - only then we can see what it really costs to consume.
5
Even Xi can't get a N95 breather mask.
27
It appears that the corona virus is accomplishing all that Trump's tariffs could not do. For the sake of out national security it's imperative that we bring these manufacturing jobs back to the U.S.
19
@Richard Watt
Oh yeah I'm sure that will happen for 2 the dollars a hour wage
Should all be back up and running in 30 or so years.....
All those contracts will just get torn up and we'll forget about the whole shipping industry they can just go fishing. Great work.
4
Yes !!!
1
Perhaps the Chinese are re-considering their laissez faire approach to food safety since this is their third coronavirus outbreak in 20 years. I hope their economy gets badly damaged by this latest viral outbreak. That outcome should be enough to create an attitude to overcome their closed society approach to confronting their screwups.
9
Sadly look to their overpopulation rate, I’d be willing to bet they figure they can afford to lose a few million. Look at their congested air, do they care about that ?
3
The dominoes now falling in China extend to the rest of the developed world.
6
If politics motivated them to cover up, maybe the economic consequence will teach the Chinese leadership the lesson. They should lock down for a few more months so that the pain will be seared into their memory. Then maybe, just maybe, the world will avoid the next real pandemic.
4
Doctors and biologists have been warning that pandemics like this will become more common as population rises, for decades. Like climate change, these warnings have largely been ignored or condemned as alarmist rhetoric. Now they're happening, and everybody's freaking out. Had people used a little foresight and trusted factual science like they do baseless religions, perhaps the most densely populated country on the planet would have the infrastructure to contain their outbreaks. One thing we can be certain of is that this won't be the last. Preparing for the next one might be a good idea.
55
Many foolish comments which display a myopic political zeitgeist about a biological process which does not respect geo-political boundaries.
Mature sober reflection is indicated. If the pathogen has evolved to infect hosts via an influenza type vector (i.e. breathing aerosolized viral loads into the lungs) and the pathogen kills upwards of 2 to 3 percent of those infected who have acute clinical symptoms, even only 1/3 of the American population becomes infected, that is roughly 100 million people and if only 20% of the cases become acute and require hospitalization or breathing treatments and antiviral combo therapy, then that is 20 million inpatient confinement. If 2 to 3 % of all cases progress to respiration cessastion over 3 to 14 days post infection then that is possibly 2 to 3 million deaths. The pathogen is particularly lethal to those with compromised immune systems and comorbitites such that the death toll among children, the sick and the elderly (over 50 in this case) could be staggering and create many orphans and widows. Let me be blunt, we have not seen such a potentially lethal pandemic since Spanish Influenza in 1919-1920 which wiped out families and villages in days or weeks in the US. What is coming this way is not pretty and not containable. No it is not Soviet genetically strains of Anthrax. Marburg, Ebola and Small Pox, but make no mistake, the damage to the economy and the social and political fabric of American will be long lasting.
28
@American Akita Team I applaud all sober and mature thinking, but there are still many unanswered critical questions. Answers to these questions are needed before jumping to conclusions about long-term economic and social risks. There is definitely a risk of a pandemic. That does not mean there will be a pandemic.
The CDC and its sister institutions are focused on selecting policy and protocols that promote changes in the flow of how we all behave. These changes in behavior are plastic and far from equal in their potential effectiveness. We must adapt as we go, gain more information, and gain more confidence in our epidemiologists. That is how Ebola was contained in 2014, and it is by far our best chance in 2020 to limit the epidemic. The likely most important statistic that is not being reported on is the number of people whose have survived and are immune to reinfection.
That is apparently what the regional Chinese government could not do and may yet not be able to do. It is the classic weakness of top-down political systems that they have eliminated systems for leaning how to adapt quickly to new threats.
4
@W. Michael Johnson Based on the rate of transmission on the quarantined cruise ships and the contained and controlled environments existing therein, I don't believe it is productive to understate the virulence of 2019-nCoV and the ease of transmission. The PRC has mobilized PLA medical units - so as far as I can tell, the PRC is dealing with a pandemic. Logically, there is nothing to contain the virus which has spread to every province in the PRC and around the word -especially since not all of those infected show clinical signs or disease or require hospitalization for acute respiratory distress. The "walking infected" who may not recognize the symptoms will infect others and so and so on. Short of a vaccine, there is no way to control contagion and improve immune responses for at risk populations. Contagion among healthcare workers and within hospitals within Wuhan has proven to be as bad it was with MERS and SARS so the belief that behavioral changes in the application of universal precautions for airborne pathogens can slow or contain contagion is perhaps a bit too optimistic. All indications point to a pathogen which can and did readily infect air travelers before such travel was embargoed.
@Honeybee Notwithstanding your profession as a teacher, you would appear not to comprehend what a virulent air borne induced pandemic is in regard to scope, scale and duration.
How many hospital beds do you think there are in all of the USA?
How many people are there in the USA. If 1/3 become ill and 20%of those are in acute respiratory distress, where do you plan to treat these people? Who is going to treat these people. How will you stop hospital borne contagion to non-infected patients without negative pressure and filtration units and isolation wards and hospitals.
How many swing beds with ventilators do you think your local hospital has? How many negative pressure rooms? How many biohazard suits does your hospital staff have on hand. What is the lead time needed to produce sufficient quantities of anti-virals. How many shifts do you think short staffed hospitals staffs can endure. What happens when nurses and doctors stop coming to work. If you think antivirals given after the onset of acute respiratory distress will reverse the massive lung damage, then I feel bad for your students. Your blind faith in modernity is misplaced. Do you tell your students that drug resistant bacterium are not real? You need to understand that viruses mutate and antivirals which may work initially may stop working in successive waves of a mutating pathogen induced pandemic. Your blind faith in modernity is why man made disasters occur over and over again.
2
The lessons learned from this viral outbreak is that no nation should ever become economically, financially, strategically, dependent upon china. Nor for any manufacturing and industrial goods, services and technologies from China.
China handled the crisis first and foremost as a grave threat to the political well being of the government, the Chinese Communists. There was no concern at. any level for the wellbeing of Chinese citizens.
China prizes the image of the Communist Party above the health of the nation. The first thing that Chinese authorities did when warned about the virus was to arrest the doctor who posted the warnings, interrogate him, demean him and compel him to sign documents swearing he will not do it agin. That good doctor has died and the people of China are outraged an ashamed. The government of course censored everything and tried to keep details of spread of the virus a state secret and even downplayed the death of the doctor.
No matter what trade or other agreements we have with China they must be assessed in the reality of the world that the Chinese officials have created. China will defend it's government no matter what the cost. Thousands critically ill and hundreds dying mean nothing.
Four members of the Peoples Republic Army were indicted today for theft from Equifax of the personal data of more than 145 million Americans.
Let's begin to end relationships of every kind with China. The next virus may be deliberately targeted at the U.S.
20
@Jack Frost Hmm... funny how you look at this. I feel countries like China which manufacture for Western consumption of goods pay the bigger price - clean air, clean water... the people there, they work incredibly hard. They have earned your business.
9
I’ve been saying this for years. Business being sent to China is a mistake. Take it back.
4
The belt, road and virus initiative.
Maybe this will be the beginning of the end for China’s Communist Party. They will not go quietly.
Xi might try to deflect and distract by a military action in the South China Sea but that will end badly.
11
In a related development, the Office of Maine Senator Susan Collins has released a Statement: “ I remain completely, consistently, carefully calculated Concerned about this threat to our Country. Hopefully, this Virus learned its lesson and will cease to provoke concern “.
Sad.
121
you had me for a sec.. bravo
9
@Phyliss Dalmatian
I don't suppose you have a citation for that quote, do you?
Because I can't find any reference to it at all.
3
@Eric
Andy Borowitz, maybe?
7
China is a very weak link in the global supply chain. Capitalists, looking for the cheapest labor and cheapest parts...simplistically considering numbers above all other factors...relied heavily on this nation and its incompetent government. Another strong argument for regulated capitalism. How many of our meducations are tied up in thus supply line? Seems to me that alone is a matter of national security. And what is the US plan for thus situation?
22
So is he planning on employing the caged children or the Central American adults running for their lives? Wait, we can afford to fund a whole new American plant. Just make the man who renegs on all the bills he owes to just pay up.
4
Does anyone have a notion when the conveyor belt of Chinese goods, all we need to have a marketplace here, grinds to a halt? Or, if it continues, how much virus will be splattered over everything that makes it here?
4
Glad I got my new iPhone a few months ago.
Will this burst Trump's Bubble?
No doubt the dirty work of the Deep State in order to put Mike Bloomberg in the White House.
4
Another shining example of corporate idiocy at work. Betting on an authoritarian regime that has little or no regard for the lives of its citizens to be the economic engine to help drive the world.
The entire supply chain disrupted because of a disease likely caused by filthy "wet" (live) exotic meat markets. Yet what we laughingly call business "leaders" fall over themselves to get a better place in the Chinese line.
Another businessman for President? No thanks.
20
Since Trump has cut funding to vital first responders in the CDC and other programs.....all I can say is God help us IF the Coronavirus becomes the pandemic many think it is!
27
@mari,
And, if there is a spread of cases in the US, how will people with no health insurance get the care they need?
16
@Andrea, exactly!
1
The plagues of the Middle Ages (and of earlier and later periods) were hardly confined to Europe. The Black Death in Europe of 1347 to 1351 is thought to have originated in central or east Asia. Graves dating to 1338–1339 in Kyrgyzstan have inscriptions referring to plague and are thought by many epidemiologists to mark the outbreak of the epidemic. In October 2010, medical geneticists suggested that all three of the great waves of the plague originated in China. Epidemics that may have included the plague killed an estimated 25 million Chinese and other Asians during the fifteen years before it reached Constantinople in 1347. At recently as 1855–1859 the third Yersinia pestis plague pandemic started in China, spreading to all inhabited continents and killing 10 million people in India alone. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death
14
China brought this virus on themselves with their total disregard for animals and the environment. Maybe this will finally teach their leaders that nature is always, always in charge, and no dictator can change that fact.
22
@Aaron
China isn't the only country who has leaders that need to learn this.
3
@Aaron, tens of thousands of people are ill now and the cause is still unknown. I am certain that most, if not all, of those poor people didn’t eat bats, civets, or did whatever you think they did. The people are the victims of the dictator too.
1
That part of China is probably going to experience the first clean air and clean water that they have had in decades. Every action has a good side and a bad side. China knows this very well.
10
Chinese leaders are about as open minded as the GOP. Don’t hold your breath.
1
The coronavirus will give Trump the perfect scapegoat when his "juiced" economic boom starts to slide into recession.
12
And this, in a nutshell, is why we need to insist on investment in American industrial capacity.
It’s not about nationalism. Or being anti-globalisation.
It’s about common sense and an awareness of the downsides of our insane reliance on other nations to provide for us what we’re more than capable of providing for ourselves.
61
We may be stopped by the insane greed of our own oligarchs. They have gotten quite reliant on a tax-free ride on the backs of the working class.
12
The drone videos of major cities showing almost no one on the streets is very eerie. It looks like something you see in a movie, but this is reality and is happening today. I really hope this will get better soon since this will impact the global economy in some ways, and worst of all more lives are being lost.
4
Since the economy is the major issue to the Country's Leaders I am fairly convinced they will now crack down on this disgusting trade in rare animals for their medicine and exotic dishes. It is time they involve these people in a legitimate trade that does not ignore the codes or norms of Western Societies, of course they should not give up their culture, but this is not that.
5
Until the Chinese government gets serious and bans the sale of wildlife in markets, similar viruses will continue to emerge there and spread. It is interesting that a government rhat can effectively lock down entire cities and transportation systems and tracks its citizens with facial recognition, can’t seem to close the wildlife markets that are both cruel and dangerous. They simply do not want to close the markets. And the viruses will continue to spread.
103
Are the wild markets a way to keep the peasants occupied? I really do think Chinese leaders live in Medieval times.
5
@Theresa Nelson
US governments (local, state, national) also have trouble getting citizens to do the right thing. To name a few: anti-vaxxers, anti-pasteurization for milk products, anti-regulatory factions related to clean water and air, food preparation etc. China has a better chance of controlling its population than the US does, which should scare the bejesus out of you when it comes to pandemics.
6
Was it worth the civet cat soup? I can only hope this comes as a wake-up call to China— to change the way they think about food and the environment.
175
SARS wasn’t a wake up call this won’t be either.
7
@ElizabethA The way they think about food? Can we (Americans) really cast stones when our factory farming processes lead to just as destructive biological outbreaks? I'm talking about the ecololi in our produce, the resistant super bugs in our meat, and the mountains of animal waste we flush into rivers, lakes, our bury away.
34
@ElizabethA That and pangolins!
5
Is anyone looking into how this is affecting air quality in China? I imagine some parts of the country are seeing the sun for the first time in a long time.
72
SP, right. Mother Earth would very much like to quarantine mankind for quite a while. Not only in China.
26
@Helleborus The same Mother Earth that oversaw 5 mass extinctions, some wiping out 97% of life on Earth?
The Earth and life has survived much worse (Earth covered with ice, Earth blacked out by volcanic activity). If you think the Earth cares one lick about the small impact of humans, you may want to study geologic history.
11
The corona virus has led to falling demand for oil, which strengthens Vladimir Putin's hand as he seeks to corner the petroleum market. As the newly designated head of OPEC, or "ROPEC" as we should now call it, Putin is in a perfect position to destroy the U.S. fracking industry with the help of his admirer and ally Donald Trump. Once the nascent U.S. oil export business is shut down, Putin will have a free hand to alienate the U.S. from its allies and exacerbate tensions with China. Putin will make Venezuela another Cuba. He already controls the Middle East, including Libya and is building alliances in West Africa. During the Cold War, Russia created a Mutually Assured Destruction System called "The Dead Hand." Ironic, isn't it, that the "Dead Hand" s now in control of global economics.
13
@Big Text He will not succeed but he has Europe in his pocket.
2
Before you drool to much over your fantasy of Putin success, understand that Putin is ill and will likely not be with us for more than a year or two.
The way China is handling the coronavirus reminds me a bit of the way the current US administration recently handled the TBI cases among military service members in Iraq. Another preview of what authoritarian power structures can do to people. We might want to pay attention.
145
@Meg Larsson I like how you very carefully side-stepped the words "Socialism" and "Communism."
Barely anyone even noticed.
3
@Meg Larsson While I agree this "authoritarian" treatment should have happened long ago to quash the primitive practices which have led to this. Most have forgotten how the British beef market was decimated by their cattle raising greedy owners, who fed the cattle brain from dead animals leading the BCSE...even worse than coronavirus, except the mumbers are much higher already.
16
@Russian Bot Are you trying to say that our military is communist? That our president is?
Revenge of the bats. Finally a small win for wildlife. Maybe China will end the inhumane and dangerous practice of trading in and eating wildlife, much of it endangered. They did for a few months after SARS but then went right back to it only to start this next outbreak. I hope they learn their lesson this time and that the problem remains theirs.
184
@LHP For you, “a small win for the wildlife” is equivalent to the loss of 900+ innocent human lives? Such lack of empathy is truly astonishing, especially on a platform like the NYTimes.
17
There are billions of people on this planet. It’s overpopulated with humans-and we are decimating all forms of life. No species escapes our destruction. We are not the only living creatures who have the right to this planet.
41
@Christine
What does this platform have to do with it?
I say it is about time that nature has a chance to fight back . How many innocent species have to go extinct because the Chinese, in their massive numbers, want to cut just one piece off their bodies and throw the rest away?
Nature is not mocked, you know.
34
Why has the United States been filled with immigrants from East, South, and Southeast Asia when I and many people I know have lived a life for serfdom for the past forty years? Why is there a ceaseless press for more immigrants to the United States when the American economy does not even sustain a viable middle class economy for many of us who have been in the country for one hundred, two hundred, three hundred years? Why is there an endless propagandizing by corporate media that the United States is still first world country (of course, in comparison to some other countries, that is true) when it is for many of us functioning like a failed state?
I get it. The millionaire and billionaire elites who control everything do not see this, or do not care about this situation, or feel that it benefits them by causing more strife, providing cheaper labor, or importing a fresh group of "innocents" to manipulate. But in reality, the many people I know/see working for Uber and Amazon, with nary a chance of saving a dollar, are sick to the core of this system.
Moreover, they do not need a bunch of people coming here to compete with them for serfdom jobs in the "gig" economy, or to become their overlords by engaging in the parent-pleasing "look what expensive university I graduated from" superficiality.
That is really what this whole "experiment" has evolved into, and there is not a single voice among the nation's elites who will do anything about it.
35
@Chaparral Lover Yes, corporations set national policy as they please. But the truth is, you never deserved to be a step above the third-world circumstances many of these immigrants came from. Compete with them in an open marketplace, fail and lose your standard of living. It’s not a good trend, but at least I can take some small pleasure in the suffering of xenophobes.
36
@Chaparral Lover
I understand your general point, the economy is a mess. But...
You haven't been in the country for 300 years ;) Why should distant family beyond a century be used as a status symbol for someone who had absolutely zero to do with it. How far can you stretch the years? 1000? 10000? You mention superficiality with university but are trying to claim the same thing with past family heritage.
33
@Magician
I think you are missing my point. I am saying that if the current system cannot work for immigrants who have been in the country for such a long time, it has no business advocating for more people to come into the country. This system is not set up to provide meaningful jobs for the bulk of the population who already have college degrees, or professional training, or whatever. These people in power need to stop pretending that it's 1965 or even 1995. There are too many people here with too many disparate assumptions about what "America" means and consumption alone is not a coherent way to organize a functional nation state. This is especially true when the majority of the population is teetering on bankruptcy, which is the case in the United States of 2020.
23
Human life does not have the same value in China as is the case in other parts of the world. And China has not been forthcoming about the situation.
You can see it in the environment. You can see it in the lack of regulations to safeguard the people. You can see it in the spread of Wuhan virus and its lethality.
Those safeguards are in place in the USA now, but trump is deregulating by executive order and putting us at risk.
He cares little about anybody but himself.
When China suffers, the rest of us will suffer, too. And trump has damaged the economic tools needed to deal with it. We are heading down the road to destruction.
194
@Steve Ell what regulations and safeguards does the United States have and China does not? I'm struggling to understand how any government can stop a virus like this without isolating it to the first patients to fall ill. It seems as futile as trying to prevent the flu or common cold. If anything, it just proves how vulnerable we are to disease despite advances in technology and medicine.
26
@Steve Ell "Human life does not have the same value in China as is the case in other parts of the world"
The US has been sending men and women to die in wars fought for nothing but greed. A healthcare system that is broken and focused on making as much money as possible AT ALL COST. Workers being squeezed to the point of desperation even though they work 50+ hours a week.
The value of your life is tied to how it helps them stay in power and milk the population for all they can. They cannot quite get away with as much but that is certainly not because they care.
99
@Steve Ell "Human life does not have the same value in China as is the case in other parts of the world." This is not true and a very mean thing to say to a nation of people who are suffering. Is human life less valuable in the United States? Let's see:
How many people die everyday from gun violence when we collectively as a society stood by and did essentially nothing to stop it?
How many homeless people do we see everyday on our streets, inside of our subway stations, under the overpasses of freeways everywhere when we just go on with our own business?
As the richest nation in the world, how many of our children do we allow to go to bed everyday hungry?
As a nation who value "human life", how many of our African American brothers and sisters do we allow the system to put in prison at a disproportionate percentage and without justification?
Please get off your high horses. If you really value human life, show it to the people not just in your family, your neighborhood, your city. Show it to the people in China as well. Show some compassion at this time of their hardship.
64
An unintentional benefit to US companies of Trump's economic China policy is that many diversified their supply lines well before the Virus struck.
South China Morning Post (SCMP)
"China manufacturing exodus, US trade war tariffs spur investment in Malaysia’s ‘Silicon Valley’"
Sub header
Malaysia’s electronic industry has seen a surge in investment as US and Chinese companies look to escape tariffs placed on each other’s products
Reliable infrastructure, established supply chain and skilled workforce give it an edge over other parts of Southeast Asia as manufacturing hub, Malaysian companies say
SCMP 9:00am, 31 Jan, 2020
Vietnam is another winner. Again from the SCMP
"Why Vietnam became the winner from the first year of the US-China trade war"
Sub header
"The economy of the southeast Asian nation was boosted by almost 8 per cent due to the shift in production as importers sought to avoid Donald Trump’s tariffs
Analysis by Japanese investment bank Nomura also shows that trade diversion benefited Taiwan, South Korea, Chile, Malaysia and Argentina"
SCMP :00am, 5 Jun, 2019
More generally, management theory tells you to have a diversified supply chain - ignored for too long by US companies such as Apple
13
Absolutely. Notwithstanding the human tragedy and horror stories of quarantined ships, fear of the virus is even more economically damaging than the virus itself. Chinese GDP will tank, and take down the rest of the globe with it. This is psychologically far worse than SARS, and the nearest vaccine (even with accelerated FDA approvals) is at least 18 months away.
24
This economic situation has come to resemble a slow dripping faucet rather than a catastrophic drop in supply chain/production activity. And just as China continues to quarantine its own citizens in an attempt to get ahead of the virus, the rest of the world continues to quarantine China in an attempt to ward off an increase in economic downturn or viral spread. The US markets, though, seem oddly detached from the potential for further disruptions, (as write the Nasdaq has hit a new high intraday) and are either anticipating there is no need to worry or, more ominously, completely ignoring that events are about to get much worse.
24
@boji3
Or the markets assume (or hope) that the virus will be contained; infections and deaths will decrease and sooner than later the "events" will return to something more like normal (whatever that is). Or the virus will run its course (as all do - some more deadly and disruptive than others) ,or there will be a successful treatment (possibly, but a long shot) .I suppose a good deal is relative, 500,000 are killed in Syria (although not part of the manufacturing and supply chain)and few even blink. Perhaps we are becoming a bit more desensitized to crisis after crisis and less prone to panic?
2
@boji3
There is the idea out there that no asset managers want to be the first to pull out of the market because they will look like total fools and lose business if they're wrong. After the 2008/2009 crash, very few managers lost business because they failed to foresee the problem because very few did. Apparently, there's not much money in being a contrarian. Watch to see if any prominent investment firm or adviser throws in the towel on this one. Eventually the herd will catch up and there may be a real slide.
@Barbara great points, all. Yes, contrarians are only 'geniuses' when the tide is about to turn and finally does. I think if/when some hedge fund or big investment house does 'throw in the towel' as you put it, that may in fact be the contrarian call to jump back in big time. So far the most interesting thing about this (not speaking of the human toll, which is quite sad) is something I learned a few minutes ago. That the NHL is running out of hockey sticks, because most are made in China.
There's an order of magnitude more people infected with the flu currently. I've seen stats saying 12,000 will die from the flu in the US alone this year. Why, *exactly*, is coronavirus scary and the flu is not? I'm frustrated in that I can't find a clear, smart answer to this. There was a Wired article that was a joke, please don't reference that. I'd like to see some real statistics or clear explanation.
9
@mcomfort Maybe the answer is that it is is scary because it's a new virus and we don't know how bad it will be.
20
@mcomfort A simple answer to why coronavirus is scarier than the flu is because the death rate of coronavirus is much larger than that of the flu. The death rate of the flu is 0.09%. The best estimate I can get so far for the coronavirus is a death rate of 2.1% (this of course could change and could potentially be a lot higher but this is the best estimate that I've been able to find so far). So, if the same number of people that catch the flu every year wind up catching the coronavirus, much more people would die from coronavirus than the flu. This is why the government is trying so hard to contain it.
124
@mcomfort
There are 19mm flu infections YTD in the US right now, and roughly 10k deaths. That's a fatality rate of 0.05%. And the flu has available vaccines and treatment regimens as well as known transmission/contagion characteristics.
Coronavirus death rates in the Wuhan epicenter -- where the outbreak is the worst -- are above 3% on published data. While the infection rate is almost certainly under-stated, so are the deaths for a number of reasons, not all nefarious. Best-case, Imperial College of London estimates right now, on avl data, that the virus may have a real death rate of 1%.
That makes it 20x as lethal as a flu, and possibly far more contagious. When you get the flu, your doctor does not wear a full-body bio-suit for fear that your cough will kill him.
Panic is inappropriate, but so is complacency. 60mm people are in lock-down for a reason.
296
Living through this nightmare now managing a factory and office in Shanghai. People who think this will be only a “blip” on the world economy this year do not realize the extent to which the government is willing to let commerce die in order to eradicate this virus. My feeling is that this will knock GDP growth in China to negative this year. Companies who rely solely on China for critical parts of their supply chain will suffer greatly.
203
I hope you are right. We need to decouple.
31
Oddly enough, the Coronavirus might actually defeat Donald Trump's premise that he alone is driving our economic engine. Is this really the time to cut America's social safety net? How will the NIH and the CDC be funded in Trump's attempt to legitimize tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy? There's still plenty of money for the military but you can't shoot the Coronavirus with a bullet. You can't summon a skilled work force into existence or put Chinese-made goods for American companies on American shelves when the Chinese are unable to manufacture them. The dots are all there but will Trump be able to connect them?
268
@Andrew Pritzker
NO because he doesn't want to. I have a fear that because of his ignorance and/or determination to do whatever he wants, he will bankrupt the US. IF we are 1 trillion in debt, I sincerely want to know how is this economy of his functioning? Apparently, he is robbing from Peter to pay Paul! And doesn't Congress have to approve the budget OR is can this be another thing that is subject to his executive order?
19
@Andrew Pritzker It does not matter what Donald Trump thinks, only what the American people think about his myth of independence.
... and if you can't find a replacement for your iPhone you dropped in the river, you may begin to doubt the President knows what he is doing.
10
No, and he can’t paint by numbers either.
1
China, rightfully, likes to brag about how fast they get things done. After a bungled start with this crisis, the world hopes they quickly apply their high energy and deep skills to this nightmare.
21
@Paul Shindler
Maybe they can take over the Iowa caucus?
1
@Ted
Maybe they already did.
1