STORY OF CORONAVIRUS
Regarding the World Health Organisation (WHO), the current outbreak of novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) was first reported from Wuhan, China, on 31 December 2019. Based on the experts’ explanations, in this article, we will examine how to prevent this virus and how it is infected, humans. At the same time, we will analyze the economic and social effects of the Coronavirus for states. In particular, its effects on the Chinese and United States economy.
What is a virus?
Viruses occupy a special taxonomic position: they are not plants, animals, or prokaryotic bacteria, and they are generally placed in their own kingdom. In fact, viruses should not even be considered organisms, in the strictest sense, because they are not free-living; i.e., they cannot reproduce and carry on metabolic processes without a host cell. However, since the beginning of the first humans’ viruses are living with humanity.
To give an example from the past, the most known virus outbreak, the Black Death is thought to have originated in the dry plains of Central Asia or East Asia, like the novel coronavirus, where it traveled along the Silk Road and caused the most devastating pandemic in human history, resulting in the deaths of an estimated 75 to 200 million people in Eurasia, peaking in Europe from 1347 to 1351.
How did the Coronavirus appear and what are the effects on humans?
It was first identified in Wuhan late last year and is believed to have jumped from animals to humans at a local seafood market that also sold other wild animal meat. Authorities have since confirmed cases of human-to-human transmission. Its incubation period is between 2 to 14 days, but there is evidence that it may still be contagious during this period and possibly for several days after recovery. Symptoms include fever, coughing and breathing difficulties, and it can be fatal. But the good news is; among symptomatic people, the mortality rate is around 2 percent. It was 10 percent with SARS and 30 to 35 percent with MERS. It may be less virulent than those two or it may evolve. It’s too early to know.
As of 2 February 2020, approximately 14,642 cases have been confirmed, including in every province-level division of China. The first confirmed death occurred on 9 January and since then, as of 2 February 2020, 305 deaths have been confirmed.
Contagion rate and spread of Coronavirus in different countries
With the coronavirus continuing to spread beyond China’s borders some countries sharply restricted entry to people traveling from or through China, as the number of cases confirmed outside the mainland continues to grow.
Also, more countries moving to close their doors to foreign nationals who have visited there. New Zealand, Iraq, Indonesia, and the Philippines joined those countries.
The virus has been detected in small numbers in some 20 other countries — from the United States and France to Thailand and Australia — while the number of infections in China has surged to almost 14,400, according to the latest National Health Commission figures.
The number of dead has risen to 304, although anecdotal reports suggest the true number could be much higher.
First death outside China
A 44-year-old Wuhan man died in a Manila hospital (Philippines), after arriving, via Hong Kong, on Jan. 21. He was admitted to hospital with pneumonia four days later and his 38-year-old companion remains hospitalized, but there was no evidence of local transmission, the Department of Health said. Even before the man’s death, President Rodrigo Duterte had decided to expand the Philippines’ travel restrictions from those traveling from Hubei province, the epicenter of the outbreak, to the rest of mainland China as well as its special administrative regions, Macao and Hong Kong.
Coronavirus declared a global emergency by the World Health Organization
The head of the WHO, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has declared the coronavirus outbreak a global health emergency.
He told a news conference in Geneva that the declaration was not a vote of no confidence in China’s handling of the outbreak, but a reflection of the damage the virus could do if it spread to countries with a weaker health infrastructure.
RECOMMENDATIONS AND ADVICE FOR THE PUBLIC
⦁ Avoiding close contact with people suffering from acute respiratory infections.
⦁ Frequent hand-washing, especially after direct contact with ill people or their environment.
⦁ Avoiding unprotected contact with farm or wild animals.
⦁ People with symptoms of acute respiratory infection should practice cough etiquette (maintain distance, cover coughs and sneezes with disposable tissues or clothing, and wash hands).
⦁ Within healthcare facilities, enhance standard infection prevention and control practices in hospitals, especially in emergency departments.
Economic and social effects of coronavirus for China and United States
Coronavirus will cost the Chinese economy nearly a quarter of its growth in the first months of 2020.
That’s according to JPMorgan analyst Haibin Zhu, who on Wednesday revised China’s growth projections down to 4.9% for the quarter, from 6.3%. Sectors like tourism, transportation, offline retail, and entertainment will be hit the hardest, he said: “The [Lunar New Year] holiday is usually the golden season for consumer spending, and the fear factor and stay-home control measures have almost paralyzed the above-mentioned vulnerable sectors.”
Zhu said the fallout will be concentrated in the first quarter of the year, adding that the second quarter should see 7% growth, a percentage point higher than previously projected. But that bump won’t be enough to save annual growth, which Zhu notched down 0.13% to 5.80%.
Factories in major cities and provinces such as Shanghai, Guangdong, and Zhenjiang are locked down until February 9. “Undoubtedly the impact will be visible,” Zhu said, adding, “if the virus outbreak keeps on escalating and factory shutdowns are extended and also expanded to other regions, then the shock will also evolve into a supply shock and the impact on China and the rest of the world will be even bigger.” As of now Zhu primarily sees coronavirus as a demand-side shock to the Chinese economy.
If the world manages to contain the disease primarily in China, experts warn, there will still be a global economic impact.
“Even if it is potentially contained within the borders of a country or a region, there’s so much global manufacturing and trade that happens in these areas, they can still be impacted by factors such as employee absenteeism that could reach high levels in these areas,” said Nita Madhav, chief executive officer of Metabiota, a San Francisco company that studies the spread and impact of epidemics. “And that could disrupt … the manufacturing of different goods and the shipping of them across the world.”
Indeed, Chinese companies provide both finished goods and component parts for other manufacturers, and even a brief disruption in their operations could cascade through the global economy in ways that aren’t yet well understood.
“We have these phenomenally complex, just-in-time systems that are amazingly powerful, but they have a kind of systemic fragility that creates a real concern,” said Ben Oppenheim, a senior director at Metabiota. Those systems have not really been tested in the context of a major infectious disease outbreak, he said.
Trade with the US
In the U.S., experts warn that a major economic slowdown in China could also make it difficult for Beijing to follow through on promises it made to the Trump administration as part of a “Phase One” trade deal signed this month.
Beijing committed to increasing its purchases of U.S. goods and services by $200 billion over two years and “to continue on this same trajectory for several years.” Even before the coronavirus outbreak, experts were skeptical about whether China would or could keep that promise, but in the event of a major economic crisis, it seems all but certain that it would not. That could be bad news for U.S. farmers in particular, who have suffered from declining Chinese purchases in recent years.
Powell: “If growth slows down in China, we feel it too.”
The prominent headline at the press conference of US Central Bank President Jerome Powell on Wednesday was China. “If the Chinese economy slows down, we would still feel it, though not as close to China or as some of the Western European countries doing active trade with China,” Powell said.
SARS, which killed 800 people between 2002 and 2003, had a cost of 33 billion dollars for the global economy. Today, the Chinese economy has more share in the world cake, and the Coronavirus is concerned that the cost of the global economy is higher.
As a conclusion; forthcoming days we will see the global impact of the novel coronavirus more clearly in the areas of the economy, public health, and state politics. From now on, we will continue to share actual information about coronavirus.
Originally published at https://thefeasjournal.com on February 2, 2020.
