Impact of the new Coronavirus where you are?

[PigFish]

59 minutes ago, MIKA27 said:

The lord may forgive you for buying those boots, but I won't !  Enjoy your "Best cigars" in good health! 

Hey they are damn nice boots. I want to say that they are about 20 years old now!!! -the Pig

[El Presidente]

2 hours ago, Corylax18 said:

 

4,281 total cases, 70 deaths. a .016% death rate, much lower than the death rate of the regular old flu at about .1% 

 

Corey, I am always a sceptic to media but the following concerns me. 

I can't recall medical staff in this country treating a flu......dying from that flu that they were treating. 

[Lotusguy]

I’m in the semiconductor industry and my customers are mostly consumer companies. I am seeing almost every project being pushed out - even if the manufacturing is outside of China, there are many components that are in shortage because they come from China. Conferences are being canceled and virtually all international business travel has ceased.

Overhyped or not (I feel that concern is warranted but that this won’t be the end of civilization), the economic impact is very real and will be much longer lasting than most anticipate.

[Lotusguy]

It's hard to overstate how much money Japan will lose - they've spent insane amounts on construction and infrastructure, never mind the lost tourist revenue - if the Olympics are cancelled.  This is bad for business everywhere for sure, and Japan probably the worst.  Again, I find it hard to believe that the powers that be - who stand to lose the most money - would be blowing this out of proportion in the advancement of some nebulous plot to panic the world.  If anything it's worse than what's been reported, as you note Ken, and the world's delay in taking real action supports that argument.
We don't know what the human cost of Coronavirus will be yet, but we do know that the financial impact will be huge.

I read that Japan just closed all schools until end of March.

[Deeg]

3 minutes ago, Lotusguy said:

 

I read that Japan just closed all schools until end of March.

 

Who could have predicted? ?

The school year ends in about 2 weeks here, so it's not quite as drastic as it sounds - it's basically a two-week advancement of the spring break, with the hope that the new school year can start as scheduled afterwards.

[Lotusguy]

Who could have predicted? 
The school year ends in about 2 weeks here, so it's not quite as drastic as it sounds - it's basically a two-week advancement of the spring break, with the hope that the new school year can start as scheduled afterwards.

I think even two weeks nationwide is quite drastic.

[El Presidente]

4 minutes ago, Lotusguy said:

I think even two weeks nationwide is quite drastic.

Agreed.  I know Japanese parents who would now be fearful their 9 year old has just blown his/her chance at getting into University 

[BellevilleMXZ]

24 minutes ago, El Presidente said:

Corey, I am always a sceptic to media but the following concerns me. 

I can't recall medical staff in this country treating a flu......dying from that flu that they were treating. 

I agree.....

[Meklown]

3 hours ago, Deeg said:

never mind the lost tourist revenue

I know if I'm not being banned through travel restrictions, I will be picking up the tourism spending slack through last min discount deals! ?

[Richongkong]

I manage a hotel in Hong Kong Hotel ICON. It's a bloodbath here,  First the riots now the virus double whammy.

Both my children 12 and 14 have been doing home learning for weeks and they wont be reopening until April 20th earliest.

 

[Duxnutz]

Travel demand that I’m seeing from japan is still pretty high but I worry about forward bookings. Airline I work for just cancelled Korea, if they did the same to Japan for any length of time then I’d probably be out on the street quick smart. 

Amazing how fickle the travel industry is. 

There were folks at Costco today lining up for toilet paper. The cdc article on having two weeks of food on hand has sparked a bit of a frenzy. 

Next 2 weeks will define whether we all end up in a global recession imho. 

[nKostyan]

A some humor from our Chinese friends

[TheCigarslayer]

16 hours ago, Lotusguy said:

I’m in the semiconductor industry and my customers are mostly consumer companies. I am seeing almost every project being pushed out - even if the manufacturing is outside of China, there are many components that are in shortage because they come from China. Conferences are being canceled and virtually all international business travel has ceased.

Overhyped or not (I feel that concern is warranted but that this won’t be the end of civilization), the economic impact is very real and will be much longer lasting than most anticipate.

My clients are across a few industries and travel has basically halted in its steps. This isn't just the coronavirus but there was belt tightening as far back as Nov due to economy concerns. I think this is deeper than most portrayed as we were due for a correction for a bit, this is just a heavy catalyst. The dip will be interesting to watch, and the recovery will be more interesting. I see a multitude of dominos playing out  

[Doctortrent]

https://wr.al/1HWra

[fungi]

Local news is reporting a case in Oregon (rumored to be a suburb of PDX), but not yet confirmed by the CDC. I would expect to see an email from management encouraging folks to work from home.

 

Life goes on for me. Headed back out to the coast tomorrow morning to camp next to the beach (and hopefully smoke a cigar or two)!

[mwaller]

Just read that the first death in the US occurred 1/2 mile down the road at Evergreen Hospital...

[Ken Gargett]

28 minutes ago, mwaller said:

Just read that the first death in the US occurred 1/2 mile down the road at Evergreen Hospital...

and first death here in oz. 

on a lighter side, i saw that someone tested their dog. and it came back positive. not that the dig seemed any worse for wear. 

[Habana Mike]

So we held the conference I mentioned in the original post - Viva Las Vegas!

Headed down to the airport this afternoon for a flight to SFO to run a new-hire training program in San Mateo. A few miles north of Santa Clara county.

I'm just getting to the check-in line and get a message the training is cancelled due to Coronavirus concerns. Got in the car and headed back home.

At least I got two smokes in comfortably, avoided the cross-country flights and the possibility of contracting Covid-19 out there or on the way I guess......

Still not panicking but it's getting real. 3 cases reported in Cuba now too.

 

[Rhinoww]

Current capacity in the entire United States is to test 75,000 people. That probably means that there are that many kits, all of which have to be processed at the CDC. 

 

When more testing gets online, like in China, there will be a spike in reported cases in the US and elsewhere that is not yet testing  
 

it’s hard to say we know what’s going on right now when we either can’t or don’t test and have sufficient labs to process.
 

Fun times with a seemingly slow government response and incomplete preparation. It’s not like we didn’t see this evolving in China for many many weeks. It’s almost like we don’t want to know what’s really happening. 
 

  

 

[Deeg]

33 minutes ago, Rhinoww said:

Current capacity in the entire United States is to test 75,000 people. That probably means that there are that many kits, all of which have to be processed at the CDC. 

 

butWhen more testing gets online, like in China, there will be a spike in reported cases in the US and elsewhere that is not yet testing  
 

it’s hard to say we know what’s going on right now when we either can’t or don’t test and have sufficient labs to process.
 

Fun times with a seemingly slow government response and incomplete preparation. It’s not like we didn’t see this evolving in China for many many weeks. It’s almost like we don’t want to know what’s really happening. 
 

  

 

Ya think?

South Korea is testing tens of thousands of people for free in 10 minutes at drivethrough centers.  Japan is behind them, but subsidizing the full cost of the test.  In the States, extremely narrow protocols for who should be tested are in place, and those that are tested are being charged $3000.

This is a pretty sobering report on U.S. preparedness.  It could be worse, but decisions being taken are not making it any better.  And today there are reports that the CDC has been instructed to withhold patient information that could be extremely useful to professionals on the frontlines trying to manage the impending crisis in treatment.  There's every reason to be concerned about whether the U.S. is ready for this either logistically or existentially.

[Mikeltee]

The USA is the greatest technology innovator in the world. We dont need no stinking test kits!

[HopeUgood]

On 2/27/2020 at 7:42 PM, El Presidente said:

Corey, I am always a sceptic to media but the following concerns me. 

I can't recall medical staff in this country treating a flu......dying from that flu that they were treating. 

Like you, I am generally skeptical of the media. I was trying to parse out what was happening with all of the conflictual actions and words. 
I reached out to my cousin. She and her husband are both epidemiologist. She is a professor at a Uni, he was a professor and now runs a lab for the CDC. I texted her a couple weeks back asking her thoughts on COVID-19 and the level of danger the disease itself carries. I was wondering if I was under reacting to what was transpiring. Her response was basically that people of comprised immune systems need to worry, but that goes for other diseases as well. I felt like she implied that COVID-19 is already everywhere and/or is going to be everywhere.  That was a couple weeks back, before the fire alarms were ringing all over the globe of new cases.  
All of that has lead to me to wonder why the governments and media are acting the way they are.  Mind you her husband works for the US government, but he is not a spokes person or the guy that is giving interviews to the media. 
I could ask her if anything has changed or why the severe reaction from the media and governments.  If there is something specific you want answered I could try to get that answered as well. If she updates me on anything that is crucial, profound, or of any interest I will post it up here. 

[nKostyan]

[Cubadust]

So far in the US, both in Washington state, 2 men died. One was 50, one was 70, both had underlying medical issues. 
I tend to agree with [mention=28746]Corylax18[/mention] on this one, I don't think this is as big of a problem as the media is blowing it out to be. SARS was much worse as far as mortality rates are concerned. 

Sars had a mortality rate of 10%. On the other hand just about 8000 were infected. I don’t know if your media in the US have a different angle when they report this, but I haven’t read a single article here in Sweden were they say that this virus is going to kill us all and that the end is near. I’ve read lots of people saying that the media is saying it, though. But yeah, maybe the US is different.

[Chibearsv]

9 minutes ago, Cubadust said:

Sars had a mortality rate of 10%. On the other hand just about 8000 were infected. I don’t know if your media in the US have a different angle when they report this, but I haven’t read a single article here in Sweden were they say that this virus is going to kill us all and that the end is near. I’ve read lots of people saying that the media is saying it, though. But yeah, maybe the US is different.

One of our Chicago papers had an article with a front page headline "Another U.S, Virus Death" that went on to describe how people in northern CA and Oregon are stocking up on bottled water, toilet paper, and hand sanitizer to the point of emptying a large warehouse store simply because a 2nd person in Washington state died from the virus.  I'm willing to bet, as a result of that article, that people in the Chicago area will start stocking up on supplies as if the apocalypse is imminent. 

Panic and fear leads to action and the media loves action, so they just keep pumping the scary news out.  Maybe in Sweden, you don't get bombarded with virus news but here it comes at us non-stop from every news source.  I haven't seen it actually said that the virus is going to kill us all, but they have no problem implying how "deadly" it is.