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World Economy Shudders as Coronavirus Threatens Global Supply Chains
- nugget 7y agoI have a lot of very smart, research-inclined friends and it's been interesting to watch their reactions as this potential pandemic develops. About half are taking it extremely seriously (prepping and encouraging others to do the same) and have been since China declared a quarantine of Hubei. The other half are completely brushing it off with statements like "the flu kills [x] people every year anyway". It's one extreme or the other; almost nobody I talk with, who is following the storyline, has a moderate perspective.
- 01100011 7y agoCOVID-19 makes ~20% seriously ill and 10% dead. Influenza kills about, what, 2 out of every 100,000? Don't get me wrong, the flu killed my aunt in her early 50s, but COVID-19 is much worse. Beyond the immediate medical consequences, there is also the societal reaction and potential overreaction. The world economy has been poised for a pullback and this just might trigger the next global recession(my money is on that happening, even if we find a vaccine next week). Like always, it's a good idea to have a disaster plan in place. Make sure you have a few weeks of critical medications and food on hand. Help those around you put the current events into perspective, help them stay calm, and help them prepare.
- zzzzzzzza 7y agomy understanding is 2% dead (think that number is being borne out in both italy and s korea), which is still much more lethal than the flu
- huonpine 7y agoYour probably both right 10% if you get put in a big room on a bed with just basic med care and 2% with the best hospital care we are currently able to provide (antiviral pumped oxygen ect).
- eveningcoffee 7y agoIt is 2% dead if you assume that all today infected will recover in the end. It is much more pessimistic when you do not have such assumption but project current dead to number of infected about 2-3 weeks ago.
- Vomzor 7y agoI think it would help people understand this is is worse than the flu if we start calling it sars 2.0. Because that’s what it is, sars. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndrome_coronavirus_2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndr...
- TheOperator 7y agoPeople had the same dismissive attitude towards SARS which turned out to be much less deadly than the seasonal flu. I am a betting man and say that this year Coronavirus won't become as big as the flu this year.
- Vomzor 7y agoSARS had a mortality rate of 10 %. The flu is 0.1 %
- Zenst 7y agoYes, though factor in how many get it. In this case say 100 people got SAR - 10 people die Now Flu - 1000 people get that and - same net result. Lets face it, how many got SARS in total - less than 10k How many people catch the flu each year? - millions litterly millions. But as with most of these - it is overall health and underlying preexisting conditions that can and do skew statistics and not all countries log things to the same standard.
- usaar333 7y agoYou are forgetting that highly aggressive measures are put in place to fight SARS. If you did what China is doing now to deal with flu, you'd drastically cut transmission rates.
- Vomzor 7y agoWe got lucky last time. Does it seem logical to you that China would put half the country, 750 million people, on lockdown and crash the economy if it was just some flu equivalent? China’s actions speak for itself.
- Barrin92 7y ago>COVID-19 makes ~20% seriously ill and 10% dead COVID-19 death rates in China are about 2-3% and significantly lower outside of China. (less than one percent). Probably due to the healthcare systems in the Hubei region being pushed to its limits. Bad flu seasons in the US generally have a fatality rate of about 0.2% and infect about 30 million people annually, killing about 60000. So even if COVID-19 cannot be contained and will linger around it will likely not be as deadly as influenza.
- new_realist 7y ago10% is dead / recovered. Don’t look at dead / infected, that’s skewed by an exponential infection rate.
- whatshisface 7y agoDead/recovered is also skewed because if someone is going to die, they will die before the illness has "run its course," whereas someone who is going to recover will have it for longer before they count for their statistic. As a result it is also skewed by the exponential growth, albeit in the opposite direction. I really feel like none of the statistics I am seeing are satisfying...
- cameldrv 7y agoThat's not clear. Many people are getting antivirals and clearing the disease in a few days.
- whatshisface 7y agoPresumably there are also people who die abnormally early. Unfortunately I have not seen what we really need to see: a breakdown of dead/recovered by day since infection. Without it there is no way to accurately assess the deathrate in an environment where new people are quickly falling ill.
- jdkee 7y ago
- faitswulff 7y agoIt's more like 3% dead, according to Johns Hopkins: https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6 https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.h...
- forgingahead 7y agoThe latter extreme ("Flu / falling off ladders is worse!") is a dangerously misguided line of thinking. Inconvenience is always better than dead, and lest anyone think "dead" is an abstract/unlikely outcome, collapse of supply chains (medical or otherwise), overloaded health systems, lack of hospital/ICU beds, etc can all contribute to death-rates-in-a-pandemic, even if those folks never got infected in the first place. So the smart money is to be cautiously prepared -- have 1-2 weeks of "stay-at-home" supplies, that is food, water, and self-medicating items. You do not want to dependent on being out and about if this gets worse. Best case, you can have a canned food party once this clears.
- Allower 7y ago1-2 weeks? That seems dangerously optimistic to me.
- droithomme 7y agoYes. But more than that and you run into space issues. FWIW, Mormons are experts at having enough for a full year for a family that might be 12 members, but they have special things they get like gallon sized cans of unground wheatberries, for making flour by grinding it. US Government is currently recommending citizens have enough food and water for 2 weeks for every member: https://www.ready.gov/pandemic https://www.ready.gov/pandemic This isn't a new page it's their advice for being prepared in general for a pandemic. Here's a similar page put together by the CDC: https://cchealth.org/pandemic-flu/pdf/individuals_and_families_checklist.pdf https://cchealth.org/pandemic-flu/pdf/individuals_and_famili...
- ryanmercer 7y ago> FWIW, Mormons are experts at having enough for a full year for a family that might be 12 members, but they have special things they get like gallon sized cans of unground wheatberries, for making flour by grinding it. Latter-day Saint here. This indeed was a teaching of the Church for quite some time, not so much anymore as it has shifted to general emergency preparedness [1][2][3][etc]. Some indeed still keep decent food stores though, we can order cases of #10 cans for varying things from the Church online [4] (the general public can too). Some people keep a lot of freeze dried stuff, some can their excess that they grow, others just keep a lot of staples on hand that they rotate through. Personally I can feed myself for a few months on freeze dried stuff and 10-30 year canned staples then another 1-2 months on stuff I rotate through and eat daily (beans, oats). [1] - https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics/emergency-preparedness?lang=eng https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topi... [2] - https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/preparedness https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/preparednes... [3] - https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/church/news/church-announces-updates-to-food-storage-emergency-preparedness?lang=eng https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/church/news/church-annou... [4] - https://store.churchofjesuschrist.org/ https://store.churchofjesuschrist.org/ click all categories, food storage (direct linking to the page will often generate errors)
- eveningcoffee 7y agoWhat are they doing for prepping?
- Zenst 7y agoWell, for me - having an nice supply of lucozade and other foods that can consume whilst having bad flu based upon experience of a few bad flu's in my life (50 yrs+). So basic foods - soups (non dairy based ones btw as always find anything diary for me turns instantly into mucus and soon builds up on my lungs). Biscuits and other dry foods that palatable. Kinda things you stock for a just in case period anyhow. Oh and tissues and toilet rolls, never want to be short of those. In general, common sense and what works for you when you're ill.
- 3fe9a03ccd14ca5 7y ago> Oh and tissues and toilet rolls, never want to be short of those. Better yet, buy and install a cheap bidet.
- Zenst 7y ago> Better yet, buy and install a cheap bidet. I rent and live in a flat, and I've also tried a bidet before. I would say that I've more success with the three shells.
- ryanmercer 7y agoAgreed, I'm more of the "you are fined 1 credit for a violation of the verbal morality statute" kinda guy when it comes to the toilet. The way you get stuff clean is by scrubbing, not squiring it with water and calling it a day and I'm sure as heck not squirting my under carriage and then using my fingers to scrub it outside of a shower.
- 3fe9a03ccd14ca5 7y agoYou spray then use a piece of toilet paper to finish the business. Probably the same way you’d clean anything.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 7y agoI might be the middle you are referring to. I see it as a potential issue that may or may not become a larger issue. I am buying extra case of water, ramen during weekly grocery runs. But I did not go into full prep mode. I initially completely dismissed it as media induced panic though.
- aiyodev 7y agoSecond group of friends needs to take a class in network theory.
- Vomzor 7y agoThe daily updates in r/supplychain are a good overview of what’s going on. https://www.reddit.com/r/supplychain/comments/f87aec/covid19_update_sun_23rd_february/ https://www.reddit.com/r/supplychain/comments/f87aec/covid19...
- andrewflnr 7y agoWhat a neat little subreddit.
- taiwanboy 7y agoEvery country needs to take a hard look at the supply chain of critical goods such as medical supplies or chemicals and figure out how to reshore these factories. Even if the Chinese migrant workers comes back to the factory (estimated only around 20-30% did), most of the small businesses might be gone by then. https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Industry-in-focus/Virus-hits-China-s-economic-heart-its-small-businesses https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Industry-in-focus/Virus-hit... 35% of 1,506 Chinese SMEs surveyed in early February expect to run out of cash within 1 month, 85% within 3 months. Chinese small business which account for 99.8% of registered companies in China and employ 79.4% of workers, according to the latest official statistics. They contribute more than 60% of gross domestic product and, for the government, more than 50% of tax revenue. https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/chinese-workers-refuse-go-back-work-despite-beijings-demands https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/chinese-workers-refuse-g... Chinese workers refuse to go back to work https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/jpmorgan-now-expects-china-q1-gdp-drop-1-crash-4-if-coronavirus-not-contained https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/jpmorgan-now-expects-chi... JPMorgan Now Expects China Q1 GDP To Drop To 1%, Crash To -4% If Coronavirus Is Not Contained
- throwawayhhakdl 7y ago-4% Chinese GDP would kill a lot more than the virus...
- rfoo 7y agoAnd imagine what would happen if an incident like this hits TSMC, the world definitely needs some reconsideration on where we manufacture things.
- iends 7y agoAmerica's response has been somewhat alarming. In 2018, the Trump admin cut funding to a lot of health programs to deal with pandemic responses at the CDC, HHS, etc: https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/31/coronavirus-china-trump-united-states-public-health-emergency-response/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/31/coronavirus-china-trump... Recent proposals are asking for more cuts: https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/02/10/trump-world-health-organization-funding-coronavirus-state-department-usaid-budget-cuts/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/02/10/trump-world-health-orga... Recently, the CDC has botched test kit rollouts, preventing widespread testing: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/20/cdc-coronavirus-116529 https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/20/cdc-coronavirus-116... Without getting too political, I don't have any confidence that America's response will get it done.
- pbourke 7y agoYeah the messed up testing is very concerning. The US has done 500 or so tests in total. SK is ramping to 10,000 per day. I don’t think it’s clear when the US would be in a position to mount a similar response if needed.
- xvilka 7y agoIt might trigger the bigger move to automation and robotization of the scale manufacturing and services. On the other hand, more people will be left without the job.
- flukus 7y agoIt's hard to tell the scale of it, especially as an outsider but I've read a couple of articles like this one: https://www.techinasia.com/chinas-ecommerce-robots-delivery https://www.techinasia.com/chinas-ecommerce-robots-delivery . Once the dust has settled many might not have jobs to go back to and in turn this probably makes it harder to quarantine people, would you take a "holiday" if there was a good chance you'd be replaced by a robot before you returned?
- wangxiaofeng 7y agomore unemployment definitely... whatever..
- remote_phone 7y agoThis is the exact equivalent of distributed service going down or suffering latency issues and affecting critical downstream services. There are supply chains set up but no real thoughts or solutions when catastrophic problems occur, like if China suffers a pandemic crisis for example. I wonder if those things will be in consideration going forward or if we will keep making the same mistakes over and over again.
- icegreentea2 7y agoI mean, it's literally a coordination problem. Redundancy and resiliency rarely decrease costs in normal operation. If you're operating in a vertical, and all your competitors are operating diverse/redundant supply lines, you are at a tremendous advantage to defect and slim down. It's only when disruptions become frequent enough to model in a straight forward way (and also frequent enough to loom in people's memories) that we can expect a pure market solution. The same way tech companies rarely actually go for multi-cloud setups. Our primary system of incentives are not setup to consistently deliver black swan redundancy.
- danans 7y agoWe shouldn't forget that the novelty of this disease, and the unknowns surrounding it, are causing the (probably necessary) extreme reactions like those we're seeing now. In the longer run, after the patterns are better understood and treatment protocols are in place, we will probably normalize to whatever the non-zero steady state infection and fatality rates that results, much as we do with diseases like influenza, malaria, etc. As that happens, the reactionary controls that are in place today will gradually lessen and we'll be back to a business as usual. Of course, the short term shock of this might send a fragile world economy off the rails, but pretty much any globally correlated emergency incident would have done that.
- elkos 7y agoI understand that the impact of COVID-19 plays an important role. Shouldn't we be pointing out on other systemic issues that impact the global economic system? Is it as robust as it could get?