Let’s create a dedicated thread for the Wuhan Corona so we don’t clutter other threads, as the information flow on this could be immense. (This way, important things won’t go unnoticed if someone shares them)
Aston already posted a link to a live map of the virus spread:
However, this could accelerate the spread of the virus:
In my opinion, this is not that serious yet. How good do you think the general healthcare in China is? Can everyone even afford to go there? In Western countries, people are probably better at seeking medical attention when needed, and medicines are generally more accessible.
Good luck to those who have cash, buying opportunities will come. I personally believe that the possibility of a longer-term disruption is perhaps around 10%.
But as ZH states, valuations are now so optimistic that I wouldn’t be surprised by a 10-15% correction quite justifiably. Anything beyond that is a bit of an overreaction, and at least I myself will then put on my buying pants, a face mask, and go wading into the markets to look for quality papers among the virus victims.
Let’s hope the mortality rate stays low… then the overall risk is much smaller… I would think though that if the mortality rate is around 5% now, this could turn into some smaller Spanish flu?
Experts on Twitter are writing that if R0 is 2.6, then 60-90% of the population (apparently global) would likely be infected (sounds wild). Well, from that, with a 5% mortality rate, one could calculate that 200-300M people would die.
I don’t personally dabble in cash (because I can use loans if needed), but I did buy some hedges for my portfolio on Friday… just in case. Since the weekend was approaching, I shorted indices a bit (0.5% of the portfolio’s value in shorts). I was thinking that if a big virus spreading wave happened over the weekend, Monday might be quite dreadful. Well, that didn’t happen… but at least I got to spend the weekend 0.5% more peacefully
I lived in that area for a couple of years. Medicines were available, and needles for every occasion. The medicines, by the way, were ones no longer used in Finland, and you could get plenty. I got the impression that locals visit healthcare professionals quite easily. Those professionals, however, didn’t seem to be quite on Finland’s level. I’m not 100% sure that easily spreading viruses would be under their full control, given that. Even though almost all of them are sympathetic and nice people.
They always wear a mask if they’re sick and moving in public places, by the way. Great. Some also wear one if they can’t bother to put on makeup in the morning. That’s also handy.
It is good to note, however, that that small area has many times more people than all of Finland. Over a hundred people die daily from normal flu/cold.
If we think about these traditional coronavirus-based flus that are rampant here in Finland during the winter, they spread relatively easily to people in the close circle, meaning the contagiousness is certainly high here as well, but I bet that in the long run, the mortality rate will fall significantly below what was predicted.
Xi Jinping is naturally taking advantage of this to increase the central government’s power.
Money is made from conspiracy theory videos the more they are shared. In the exact same way that most of the false political propaganda during the US presidential elections was made for money. However, there are a lot of foreign journalists in China and Wuhan, so secrecy wouldn’t stay hidden. A little media literacy now.
There are already coronavirus patients around the world, but the spread has not exploded in these countries. Mostly those who got sick were tourists from Wuhan. In Thailand, for example, there are 8 cases, 5 of whom have already recovered and apparently been sent home.
