The New York Times published an article yesterday about how the new coronavirus affecting China's production of goods on one hand and the influx of influenza patients to U.S. hospitals on the other were causing a lack of medical supplies in American hospitals, putting the whole health system at risk: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/07/health/hospitals-coronavirus.html
It has been a couple of days since I started hearing about the impact that the new coronavirus will have on the global economy (or is already having). Weeks before this, it was all about the now famous city of Wuhan under lockdown (or 'draconian lockdown' as some buzzword-loving media outlets like to report), about the number of patients, and about the way the local government was handling the situation. The scope of the news has gradually widened, from the first infected patients in the U.S., the cancellation of all flights in and out of China by several of the major airlines, the plea of Americans trapped in Wuhan for the government to fly them out of the city, the anti-China sentiment, racism and xenophobia spurred by the outbreak, and much more, until finally arriving to the disruption of the global supply chain.
The Times' article reminded me of a piece from CNN about how Americans set out on a buying spree for respirator masks to protect themselves against the new virus; a piece published about ten days ago. For me, is hard to understand why would people in the States do such a thing. I live in China and yes here we are all scrambling for face masks, which are pretty hard to come by these days, but why would this happen in the U.S.? I can only attribute it to media-induced panic. Reading about these things led me to a piece in a Chinese newspaper about how Hong Kongers were stockpiling toilet paper amid fears that the city may suffer a lack of supply, again from Chinese sources, caused by the virus crisis. Yes, toilet paper. The sea of information spilling out of our screens can be overwhelming. Many of us easily overreact. These are tense times all over the world after all, with radical protests, highly contagious viruses, trade wars, precision air strikes, impeachments, and much more going on. But in these times of uncertainty, falling under the sway of alarming news and panicking is the worst we can do.
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/01/28/health/coronavirus-us-masks-prevention-trnd/index.html
A few hours before publishing this article I read the story about a Chinese financial analyst' expressing the view that China cannot allow the virus to affect its economic targets and that Chinese society should find a balance between keeping the people safe and keeping the economy on track to meet the goals set by president Xi Jin Ping for 2020. The analyst mentioned that China should not risk losing its position in the global supply chain. I'm pretty sure that financial analysts, with all their tools and knowledge, must be capable of some deep insights and may be able to come up with some far-reaching predictions, but to suggest that the country should not let a highly contagious disease disrupt its economy amid the growing wave of infected patients that has swept the majority of Chinese provinces is just blatantly insensitive, even a bit unrealistic. Many of us living here haven't worked for days, many services will not reopen until late February, others perhaps until March. Even so, I can understand that letting the economy plunge is as bad as letting the virus spread and those in charge of the economy will push people to put up with the risk of infection, chip in, and make the economy move back to normal.
For those of us who live in China, disruption is readily felt. Many of us who have been fortunate enough to not have been infected have already been financially hurt, many of us will go for weeks without pay, personally I will go without pay for the whole of February, and even so, I believe that the worst thing to do is to panic every time an alarming news comes out. I don't know how bad the virus will hit the economies around the world in the long run, it's impact is already here, nevertheless, I think it is imperative that we contribute amid chaos in a good way, with a little bit of calm, without going out there and emptying shelves leaving no trace of respirator masks or toilet paper. Buy what you need, yes, but, unless you live right in the epicenter of a virus outbreak, don't panic.