Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[The Minsky Moment]

This is moving from the territory of stuff I didn't take very seriously to something seems rather alarming.

Putting aside the Trump/political angle, I don't get the sense that comparatively speaking, the US is on top of this. Hope I'm mistaken.

[alfred russel]

Our tax dollars at work.  And leftists wonder why I'm against giving more power to the government.

No, I wonder why you think any government would be as incompetent as your current government.

The corona virus is now in Lagos. I'm happy Nigeria has a more competent government that will be able to keep this under control.

[Hamilcar]

Switzerland has banned gatherings of over 1000 people and canceled the Geneva motor show.
The auto industry is not in for a good year

Saw that. Mostly affects football people, so I don't care.

[dps]

Switzerland has banned gatherings of over 1000 people and canceled the Geneva motor show.
The auto industry is not in for a good year

Saw that. Mostly affects football people, so I don’t care.

Doesn't a bad year for the automobile industry mostly affect, say, auto workers?

[Iormlund]

It's not just going to be bad for auto manufacturers. Tourism, retail ...

[The Minsky Moment]

And trillions of market cap have disappeared--a large portion of which can be attributed to anticipated lost economic activity due to the response to the virus. It doesn't cost a penny to tell people to avoid unnecessary trips outside the home but the restaurant owner that has his business fail has suffered a real costs (which won't even be directly included in those market cap losses, btw).

I think you are making unwarranted assumptions about causation.

"Market cap" is an abstraction as for that matter is the market itself.  There are lots of reasons why stock markets go up or down.  Stock markets have no agency so one is left to guess at the motivations of millions of disparate people that participate in them.

In this case, key contributor tothe decline could be:
1) The markets went way up in recent months despite weak fundamentals like earnings. Participants thought that markets were due for a correction and thus any decline for any reason was prone to result in a rout.
2) The news that China was shutting down huge swaths of factory production including quarantines of entire major industrial centers is a big negative indicator for a world economy reliant on Chinese workers and companies to perform basic production and assembly tasks and where those same workers and companies are also a significant and rising source of demand.
3) Uncertainty about what the full effects of the virus will ultimately be.  "Markets" hate radical uncertainty.
4) Reaction to the observed response or expected response of individuals worldwide.
5) Reaction to actual or expected US government directives to stay home.

Of all these possible reasons, (5) is clearly the least plausible, for the simple reason no such directives have been issued and US leadership has clearly signaled a comparative lack of urgency.

If (3) and (4) are major contributors, then the best way for the government to address the problem is to take very aggressive approach to try to end the crisis as soon as possible.  The upfront cost of doing that is more than offset by accelerating the timeframe for a return to normality.  Since markets are forward looking, there should be a quick recovery once the crisis is in the rearview mirror.

If I am correct, then a perceived lax response by the US government to the virus is likely to panic markets further.

[Razgovory]

Syt posted this topic over a month ago.  How long has this virus been out there?  Are we getting fucked over because the Chinese tried to hide this to save face?

[Sheilbh]

I don't want to be too conspiratorial but I suspect that local officials in Wuhan were aware of something for a while. But authoritarian regimes aren't great at communicating bad news upwards. So I wonder if it got a little out of hand locally, but they tried to keep it quiet and handle it locally until that stopped being possible at Chinese New Year.

[grumbler]

I don't want to be too conspiratorial but I suspect that local officials in Wuhan were aware of something for a while. But authoritarian regimes aren't great at communicating bad news upwards. So I wonder if it got a little out of hand locally, but they tried to keep it quiet and handle it locally until that stopped being possible at Chinese New Year.

I suspect that, when they make the TV movie of this, they will just take the script from Chernobyl where the party types are arguing about the crisis while in the bunker, and change a few words to have their Wuhan script of the party types arguing about the crisis while in a bunker.

[merithyn]

I do wonder whether anyone on languish has had it yet and just not realised.

Seedy works at a hospital with multiple CV patients right now. Luckily, he doesn't have direct patient care, but he does directly deal with the caregivers. So far he's fine, but they just hit his space in the last week or so. He's also a relatively healthy younger man compared to a geriatric patient with COPD.

Still.... a person worries.

Is he still smoking?  That's supposed to be a risk factor, or so they think.

No. He quit a while ago. And his blood pressure is under control now, too.

Funny how that works.

Good to hear.

Leaving Languish may have helped with that, too.

[merithyn]

I wonder what the effect on election an outbreak would have.  One obvious outcome is that Buttigieg will be the nominee by default.  The stakes would also get much higher with five or so openings on the Supreme Court.

What about the GOP candidate? Brokered convention?

Trump is a germaphobe. I imagine he'll go full Howard Hughes in the White House.

Might be too late though.

I wonder what would happen if he died say, in two weeks, from this because he just traveled overseas. That would make for some interesting news shows.

[merithyn]

Syt posted this topic over a month ago.  How long has this virus been out there?  Are we getting fucked over because the Chinese tried to hide this to save face?

I've been wondering what the timeline is expected to be before it's crossed the seven seas and infected the seven continents. And eventually blown through.

Will it be faster or slower than the Spanish Flu? That took a little over a year before the deaths slowed down significantly.

[garbon]

Syt posted this topic over a month ago.  How long has this virus been out there?  Are we getting fucked over because the Chinese tried to hide this to save face?

I've been wondering what the timeline is expected to be before it's crossed the seven seas and infected the seven continents. And eventually blown through.

Will it be faster or slower than the Spanish Flu? That took a little over a year before the deaths slowed down significantly.

Don't the 6 inhabited continents now all have cases?

[viper37]

Our tax dollars at work.  And leftists wonder why I'm against giving more power to the government.

No, I wonder why you think any government would be as incompetent as your current government.

Well, if Trudeau was to make a speech about how he has everything under control and said something like "just watch me", I'd be really worried too. 

[viper37]

I don't think most of them would be able to bake bread.

Very easy to do:
https://www.bestbuy.ca/en-ca/category/bread-makers/32301