Day Zero for Global Pandemic

There’s very little serious Covid-19 content on Medium, this might be due to their curation guidelines. I’m not overly familiar with them, but the pandemic is on my mind a lot these days.

CDC and Health officials are predicting community spread in the U.S., meanwhile Italy is fuelling a spread in European countries of the outbreak including:

• Austria
• Switzerland
• Spain
• Croatia
• Canary Islands
• Including increased spread throughout Italy itself.

Meanwhile the situation in the gulf is more dire and likely about 1 week ahead in spread due to Iran’s completely uncontained situation and the fact that religion and pilgrims accelerates the spread considerably.

This likely means that March, 2020 could be one of the worst months for the pandemic globally even as China’s figures indicates it’s in decline there. The WHO refuses to admit this is a pandemic yet, but assures us that the world isn’t ready for one — a bit counter-productive if you ask me.

However a faulty CDC coronavirus test means community transmission of Covid-19 is likely already occurring in the United States. You have to warn the public, if your own test actually contributes to a poor screening and early detection scenario.

However much it angers a President obsessed with the stockmarket, who has insisted to have a Press conference with the CDC tonight at 6pm. The U.S. has only tested 426 people for the coronavirus, which means the world’s biggest economy is truly not prepared for what is coming.

Given how we see information systems in China, Iran and even in the United States, I don’t think we can expect transparency from governments over such a fear-stimulating topic as a pandemic. The need for social stability always outweighs the ethics of information transparency to citizens.

In late February 2020, the big-three outbreak are Iran, Italy and South Korea. South Korea is well insulated though they do have a population over 50 million. However spread from Iran to other gulf and Middle-eastern countries has truly taken a pandemic step with cases surging in:

• Bahrain
• Kuwait
• Oman
• Iraq

With the first cases reported in Brazil via Italy, this means Antarctica is the only continent without the coronavirus.

When containment fails, mitigation is the order of the day and this means extreme tactics of social distancing since we do not have a vaccine and may not have one for 12 to 18 months.

All that is left is for community transmission to occur in North America, which the CDC says is imminent. Compounded by severe economic consequences of a sustained global outbreak, Covid-19 will be a disaster for supply chains, SMEs and rises in unemployment.

Judging from traffic and coal data figures from Beijing, it does not appear that economic normalization is occurring, in spite of what China is telling its citizens and the rest of the world. It’s week 12 of the pandemic in China, so if they have not yet returned to normal now, it’s an ominous sigh for the outbreak for countries that are just at day zero.