‘Not Just an Italian Problem’: Coronavirus Threatens Europe’s Economy

This virus kills at a rate of around 2 to 2.5%, which is 20 times more lethal than the flu, which kills at a rate of 0.1% People are reacting with reasonable fear given the mortality. I wish the Chinese would ban trafficking of wildlife, it would go a long way toward preventing the spread of these coronaviruses.

There is so much more to this than the NYSE and fluctuations in the Euro. It’s too easy to make corporate economics the focus of this, and so much other coverage. What of the human cost? How are workers being supported in the furlough, in Italy and also in China? For example, is China prying loose any of the grotesque profits they make on their compulsory labor force to give them the equivalent of unemployment benefits? Since they are state capitalism and not communism, I doubt it. I would very much like to see coverage of the human experience through the Wuhan lockdowns. Surely you can muster a stringer there, even after the severe shrinkage of foreign desks. I object, as well, to the politicization of the quarantines. This has nothing to do with ‘testing’ the EU’s open borders in the Schengen area. What is needed is checks and bottlenecks at the edge of towns or regions with outbreak clusters, versus copping some kind of weird Brexit-esque schadenfreude at the supposed implications this has for frictionless international travel on a continent that has had few borders for most of humanity’s 40,000 years thereon. Where governing (versus politics) is concerned. several commenters have raised the razing cuts to the CDC’s and Homeland Security’s pandemic teams. I wish we had some rogue sources there, tweeting or leaking out the reality behind the scenes. Americans need to know what’s happening as Trump hollows out government. C’mon, New York Times, to the Batmobile!

He might think the Italian government is over-reacting but they aren't. The city of Wuhan where the epidemic started is a "provincial" city only in China. It's larger than every city in the US and they completely shut it down along with a bunch of other larger cities and they might have stopped the pandemic in China. Italy cannot lock down cities the way the Chinese Communists can. The factory owner will eat his words in three weeks (if he is still alive then).

I am going to France in two weeks anyway. I live in a city of 8 million, take the subway everyday,a and work in a school of 500. How is flying to paris more dangerous? if I am quarantined over there, I prefer that to the US with Donald Duck running things. If I die, well , then it was my time. Panic is not going to save us and neither is the current corrupt and utterly useless govt. This is the new world folks, deny it as much as you like. With the glaciers melting, and habitats destroyed, there will be much more diseases for which we have no immunity. The Australian fires said it all: the apocalypse is here.

It seems that Italy screened 3,000 people while France had done only 300. This might have something to do with the number of found cases. However, it seems that while Italy blocked all flights from China, it did not control the people who came to Italy through a third airport, Frankfort, Amsterdam or London, for example. In any event, the situation is what it is. It is good to keep in mind that more than 600,000 people die of seasonal influenza each year world-wide. https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2017/p1213-flu-death-estimate.html

All anyone speaks of is “the economy”. What about people’s lives?

No it is also an American problem No trump America will NOT benefit from this virus No ‘Dr’ MD Larry Kudliw it is not nor will it be contained and it WILL sink the Dow -Never has America been so ill prepared to deal with a public health crisis Thx for taking us backwards Republicans, Trump and Evangelicals Making America great and destroyed by your sustained and willful ignorance

Could there be any link between the cases in Codogno and his Chinese factory? This seems so obvious

The stock market will not be our biggest problem if/when the corona virus comes here, which the CDC says it will. We could potentially see widespread panic, overrun medical facilities, disruptions in food supplies and pharmaceuticals, closed businesses, and being at the mercy of an incompetent government headed by a man who cannot be trusted and who dismantled Obama's entire epidemic response structure. The GOP had a chance to get rid of this nightmare president and the did not so they own everything that is happening. It could get really bad before the election but the long term answer is simple-vote Democratic at all levels.

Our very stable genius is likely already plotting the cancelation of our November elections for our own well being. We have so much to be grateful for!

Fortunately, the USA is in the hands of a very stable genius and has nothing to worry about. In 2018, the Trump administration fired the government’s entire pandemic response chain of command, including the White House management infrastructure. In May 2018, Trump ordered the NSC’s entire global health security unit shut down, calling for reassignment of Rear Adm. Timothy Ziemer and dissolution of his team inside the agency. The month before, then-White House National Security Advisor John Bolton pressured Ziemer’s DHS counterpart, Tom Bossert, to resign along with his team. Neither the NSC nor DHS epidemic teams have been replaced. The global health section of the CDC was so drastically cut in 2018 that much of its staff was laid off and the number of countries it was working in was reduced from 49 to merely 10. Meanwhile, throughout 2018, the U.S. Agency for International Development and its director, Mark Green, came repeatedly under fire from both the White House and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. And though Congress has so far managed to block Trump administration plans to cut the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps by 40%, the disease-fighting cadres have steadily eroded as retiring officers go unreplaced. “I think the whole situation will start working out,” Mr. Trump said during his photo op tour in India. Everybody loves award-winning ignorance, incompetence, negligence and a total lack of preparation.

This situation speaks FAR more to the deplorable condition of human immunity in a polluted, stressed-out, unglued hyper artificial environment. ZERO mention in mass media (NY Times ... anybody home?) regarding the proven immune-boosting benefits of getting enough sleep, unplugging at night from hormone-destructive blue light generating electronic devices, and time-tested herbal support (which NY Times categorically slander as "unproven"). But sadly, this mode of reasoning is FAR too commonsense, FAR too empowering and FAR too practical to ever show up in news outlets such as this one where the only images ever to be found, without exception, constellate around sealing ourselves up in plastic hazmat suits (which outgas toxic volatile compounds) and breathing thru ineffective face masks whose apertures are thousands of times larger than viruses.

The world economy has taken a one, two punch.Trump has slapped trade sanctions on countries in retaliation for not giving US goods the preference he wants-he has also strangled economies like that of Iran because he wants to change their behavior.Now the Coronavirus has spread and interrupted manufacturing and sales.The economies were under strain because of tariff wars- now they are at the breaking point because of a dangerous disease which needs to be contained.No one should be surprised if this triggers a recession-Trump”s “happy talk” about the great economy is hollow and another big lie.

The title of this article should state how the outbreak is affecting an Italian company. I followed a link that said 'the spread across Europe'. I want to know what other countries have the virus.

Trump will use this as an excuse to suspend the 2020 elections. Mark my words.

It’s tough, but people have to realize that businesses and even the economy can’t come first... unless people want to maybe cause a lot more death. I just don’t understand why some people don’t understand this. Getting people back to work too early can mean they all get sick and there’s a new outbreak to contain. Idk if it’s possible, but it seems like governments need to promise assistance so companies and people can focus on limiting the spread of Sars-Cov-2 without feeling like they’ll go out of business, lose their jobs, or starve.

Please do not argue with open borders in Europe. This is not a problem regarding the virus. Every single state of the Union can put controls in place if necessary for public health. As we see such measures are usually deemed necessary for smaller entities like towns within states and are so far established without hesitation in Italy. Additionally please keep in mind the opposite of an open boarder is not a closed border, but a controlled border. So far the US has led in thousand and thousands of Chinese with and without US passport. The same has happened in Europe. We have no open border with China or whatsoever. Europe's concept of open borders do not place health risks on anybody as safety measures are not forbidden and so far taken by Austria and Switzerland (member of the Schengen Treaty not the European Union).

Tourism in Europe is also likely to take a hit. My wife and I have canceled a Baltic cruise for this June because: 1. Most cruise lines reserve the right to alter or curtail the schedule/itinerary without refunds; and cancel-for-any reason insurance will be about half the cost of the cruise. 2. We are both over 70 and thus at higher risk of becoming seriously ill or even dying from COVID-19 if we catch it. 3. In the best of times cruise ships are floating Petri dishes that easily spread noroviruses; note the current COVID-19 transmissions on the Diamond Princess. 4. While our cruise ports are in countries that now have fewer than 25 cases, the coronavirus could become a pandemic affecting many countries, including those on our itinerary. Our nightmare scenario is that we or other passengers contract the disease prior to boarding the ship, aboard or in port. Do we want to be treated or quarantined on the ship or in Europe where Medicare is not accepted? No way. For us the medical/financial risks are just too great, so for 2020 we are planning to limit our travel to US destinations we can reach easily by car or short flights. Over time we will evaluate the coronavirus situation and see how cruise lines and foreign countries are coping. There’s always next year.

The world economy is going to slow dramatically for awhile. This will be a test of how well we can all come together to defeat the virus. We all must be prepared to make sacrifices to minimize the human suffering in all aspects. Scientists are racing to develop a vaccine. They must get the utmost support of all governments world wide. All nations must be united to win this war. Life is fragile. Let's recognize how interconnected the entire human race truly is and act accordingly.

Love it when Authorties, CEOs and the like, state “they are closely monitoring the situation”, means they have no clue and most of all do not want to take any decision...

If i were the President of the United States i would suspend all flight to our country for two weeks until this virus gets under control. We face a situation that is almost perfect for terrorism. What would stop a terrorist from going to Iran and infecting himself with the Corona Virus, flying to the United States and going everywhere where large crowds gather. What would stop 100 terrorists from doing this. A virus is the perfect weapon for terrorism, there is nothing like it to instill fear and terror. We are about 6 weeks from the time of year when nature becomes the best weapon against Virus, the stronger sunshine and longer days are perfect weapons for pathogens that like dry cold weather. Right now we are playing for time, but while the window of opportunity to stop this narrows, our President plays golf and eats cheeseburgers and does absolutely nothing. Nero is infamous for fiddling while Rome burned. He and Trump have a lot of similarities.

I believe that financial markets are desperate to contain the ramifications of this terrible issue and that, in a very short time, markets will nosedive across the world. China has been barely functioning for a month now - CHINA! - and now that people are rightly freaking out in Italy and across Europe, how the world economy can continue nearly unaffected is simply wishful thinking. It's true that some readjustment has already taken with decreases of 3-6% having occurred this week, but don't be surprised to see additional drops of 8-10% or more very shortly. People are not shopping!! People are not traveling or going out to restaurants or leaving their homes unnecessarily in large cities around the world! It's only a matter of time before the US is affected, experts are telling us. I'm hardly an alarmist but I've spoken to my friends in Shanghai and Veneto (Italy) and they're telling me that they're basically living isolated lives by avoiding crowded events and subways and so forth. I myself was advised today by Emirates that I could refund my ticket at no charge that I had booked for Milan for the middle of this month. It's frightening and surreal.

Just like with climate change, new viruses affect the global community and it does not distinguish between rich and poor or one country over another and it can bring down economies. It seems that the realization that we live in a global community would benefit us all in working together to solve these problems.

I know –its easy for me to say this because I am not infected – yet. But are we overreacting to this virus which seems to be just another flu? I am no health expert but it's fatality rate is only 4 times or so that is about 2 out of 1,000. My point is like this Italian – by overreacting, are we making the problem worse.

A lot of industries, including the food industry, use machines made in Germany or Northern Italy. This means local production of critically needed supplies may be impacted.