The coronavirus is edging closer to global pandemic status. Meanwhile, Wall St’s confidence slides, the global tourism economy takes a hit, and serious questions emerge about the level of preparedness of major countries.
By the numbers
- For the first time since the start of the outbreak, there are more new cases of COVID-19 outside of China than in, the World Health Organisation said yesterday.
- According to the latest figures (they change by the minute), 81,322 have been infected worldwide, with 2770 deaths.
- The reported mortality rate is dramatically higher in Iran (14%) than elsewhere (about 1% globally and 2% in Wuhan), but this could be because of reporting problems.
- Despite worldwide spread, China has reported an 80% drop in new cases over the last two weeks — but experts warn this figure may be a result of new recording practices, and a product of Xi Jinping’s desire to restart the economy.
- After initially brushing off fears, investors are getting spooked. On Monday, the S&P 500 fell over 3%, its worst single day slide in two years, while European stocks have fallen nearly 7% in the last week.
- Risk analysts Moody’s Analytics yesterday predicted a 40% chance the virus would evolve into a global pandemic, making a global recession likely.
- Tourism has already taken a hit — visitors to France have fallen 30-40%, airlines are anticipating a $28 billion loss in revenue this year, while countries in South East Asia reliant on Chinese tourists are expected to lose $3 billion.
Reaching new ground
The spikes in COVID-19 cases in Iran and Italy have led to the spread of the virus into new countries.
A Brazilian man returning from a business trip in Italy has tested positive, the first known case in all Latin America. In the last 24 hours, Georgia, Norway, Romania and Algeria all recorded their first cases.
But Indonesia has still recorded no cases, despite its close tourism ties to China, leading to concerns that the world’s fourth-most-populated country is seriously under-prepared.
America leads from behind
As the outbreak gets closer to a pandemic, there are serious questions about the Trump administration’s preparedness.
The US has been sluggish in testing people, in part because the Centre for Disease Control (CDC) distributed faulty testing kits.
After flip-flopping over whether to nominate a separate “coronavirus czar”, Trump put his Vice President Mike Pence in charge of leading the response. Critics immediately pointed to Pence’s failure to curb an HIV outbreak in Indiana when he was governor.
The administration has recently cut funding to the CDC, and narrowed its global epidemic work two years ago. But never fear — this week Trump boasted that the US was “in great shape”, and blamed “Fake News” for spreading fear about the virus.
Indonesia is not just not testing, it appears to be either willfully misleading, or totally ignorant. The Nine mastheads yesterday reported that the situation in Indonesia is parlous to say the least.
They have had a case of SARS-CoV-2, or SARS Coronavirus Type 2, which Indonesian authorities were quick to point out was not COVID-19. Ummm, COVID-19 is the name of the disease, not the virus that causes it. And that disease is caused by …… SARS-CoV-2. So someone has the virus, but not the disease. Really?
And Indonesia have carried out just 136 tests on a population of 270,000,000 or one in every two million people. Compared to Australia’s 4000 tests on 25 million, one in every 6,250 people. And reports in same the media indicate many of those tests were not transported properly, so may not have detected the disease when it was present.
Which all means that the hoi polloi returning from their cheap sojourn in Kuta may well be the way the disease is most likely to become established in Australia.
And there I was thinking that Covid19 was merely a nice way of saying corona virus id.19.
Due to sensitivities regarding the name corona virus Wuhan.
Just as two almost totally antibiotic resistant e coli were identified in the wounds of an injured Australian upon his medical evacuation back to Australia.
Initially called New Delhi one and New Delhi two they are resistant to everything except our last line antibiotic in high dose, which can in itself kill a patient with any renal impairment.
The Indian government was upset and expressed outrage, with the name of these e coli infections, which are a direct result of no regulation of antibiotic use in India.
The new names are ND.1 and ND.2.
How will Australia respond if the coronavirus outbreak becomes a pandemic?
Copy three decades of bipartisan policy – offload the costs and problems onto the individuals while pressing ahead with last year’s huge tax giveaways! Coronavirus fears wiped $82 billion off the stock market in just 48 hours, but not a cent went to useful services, certainly not to public health services.
—–No government delivery of a day’s or a week’s rations to the front gate (Saddam Hussein arranged it for Iraqis during the West’s sanctions, but we are clearly not worthy of such consideration from those happy to launch a criminal and illegal war to depose him),
—–no provision of emergency mobile phones or cordless phones to those without them,
—–no provision for the group care of individuals who could not look after themselves or be looked after for that period,
—–no Centrelink advance for those who still need to pay bills,
—–no funding for hospital beds,
—–no funding or planning to maintain food, fuel, and pharmaceuticals supply chains.
Note that a pandemic is merely a formal description; it does not imply mass or even any deaths.
Australia has weathered these sorts of problems before, and if anyone cares to ask some of the older doctors most will be able to tell you how Polio and Tuberculosis were managed and consultation regarding diphtheria probably would need text book descriptions.
Now, all of these are nasty pieces of work with high mortality and morbidity rates and were very difficult to bring under control last time and dangerously will be again, if an epidemic got a foothold.
My mother described how she was deemed a carrier of Diphtheria and so, sent back out to the property whenever an outbreak occurred. My grandmother would put the food order in the mail box which was collected once a week, when the mailman delivered both the mail, papers and groceries.
This time as far as I can see, we have a new cold virus, slightly more virulent than a normal cold, with a mortality rate in the first world, of less than influenza.
No immunization is available yet.
Speaking of which, there are so many people who refuse to get the Flu immunization, that I am struggling with the panic about this nasty cold.
“global pandemic”.
Yep, heard this phrase on the news last night, and wondered if there was such a thing as a local or national pandemic. Pretty sure pandemic means global. It’s all in the “pan”.
Journalists!!!!
Anyway, I sat myself down and drank a glass of watery water, then had a stiff, scotchish scotch.
So should we start taking bets?