Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Sheilbh]

I do love the Chief Science Advisor after a very economy focused briefing being asked do you have anything to add and just saying "no"

[Legbiter]

Closed the border in January plus getting a visa is a real hassle.

[Sheilbh]

Reason #657 the UK political press shouldn't be covering this - a question about Boris Johnson's dad

Edit: Two questions about Boris Johnson's dad

[celedhring]

There were two snap regional elections planned for next month in Spain. They have been postponed by their respective regional governments. The constitutionality of this is rather dubious, but I don't think anybody is going to take this to the Constitutional Court...

[HVC]

Italy banning layoffs for 60 days. This sounds desperate. 

so what happens there, companies just go bankrupt? I mean large companies can probably absorb it, but what about small to medium?

[Maladict]

Government to pay up to 90% of salary to anyone home without work (but still employed), company to pay remaining 10%.
Good effort to prevent mass layoffs, let's see how long they can keep his up.

[celedhring]

Italy banning layoffs for 60 days. This sounds desperate. 

so what happens there, companies just go bankrupt? I mean large companies can probably absorb it, but what about small to medium?

I guess it's the way the state has to force companies to take those state loans and pay the bills during the crisis, instead of turning off the lights.

[Legbiter]

so what happens there, companies just go bankrupt? I mean large companies can probably absorb it, but what about small to medium?

We'll need to backstop the banking system again. Write off the debts and begin again. It'll be interesting to see what unintentional knockon effects decimating the entire service industry sector will reveal.

This will have gigantic consequences on culture, trade and politics. The center-right here has a sudden fondness for more government intervention and the tumblr-left suddenly discovered borders.

[alfred russel]

so what happens there, companies just go bankrupt? I mean large companies can probably absorb it, but what about small to medium?

We'll need to backstop the banking system again. Write off the debts and begin again. It'll be interesting to see what unintentional knockon effects decimating the entire service industry sector will reveal.

This will have gigantic consequences on culture, trade and politics. The center-right here has a sudden fondness for more government intervention and the tumblr-left suddenly discovered borders.

I think that, if push comes to shove, we are going to discover that while you can bail out the big boys in a financial crisis caused by higher than expected default rates on debt, there aren't enough government resources in the world to fix an economy broken by millions of hourly workers put out of work and the productivity of tens of millions of other workers significantly degraded.

[HVC]

Government to pay up to 90% of salary to anyone home without work (but still employed), company to pay remaining 10%.
Good effort to prevent mass layoffs, let's see how long they can keep his up.

that makes more sense. I mean you can quibble on the percent covered

[Sheilbh]

Impression of those economic plans - those loans are never going to be repaid and I think the government will end up at that position so it is big. Most of the measures seem designed to basically leverage off existing policies so that they can be rolled out very quickly - end of this week or early next week.

I don't think it'll be enough.

[Maladict]

Government to pay up to 90% of salary to anyone home without work (but still employed), company to pay remaining 10%.
Good effort to prevent mass layoffs, let's see how long they can keep his up.

that makes more sense. I mean you can quibble on the percent covered

They're going all in on this. Blank check, whatever it takes.

[Camerus]

The Chinese government seems to be weathering the economic impacts from all external signs with the worst hopefully behind them 

[Valmy]

The Chinese government seems to be weathering the economic impacts from all external signs with the worst hopefully behind them 

Whew. I was really worried that the Chinese Government would be ok.

[alfred russel]

The Chinese government seems to be weathering the economic impacts from all external signs with the worst hopefully behind them

Why is the worst behind them?

I don't want to be rude, but why do you think they are weathering the economic impacts? All evidence is to the contrary. Goldman Sachs just estimated that they will be -9% GDP growth for the quarter.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-economy-goldman/goldman-cuts-first-quarter-gdp-estimate-for-china-sees-9-contraction-vs-2-5-earlier-idUSKBN2140PL

They are a higher growth economy than western developed countries - I'd expect us to be worse (not in Q1 because they are ahead of the curve on the disease outbreak, but as time progresses).