An additional 69 deaths and nearly 2,500 new cases of the coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in the last 24 hours have been reported by China’s Hubei province, site of the city of Wuhan and the epicenter of the outbreak. The total count is now 618 dead and over 22,000 cases.

As the disease rampages through China, the response of governments, health authorities, and businesses around the globe is also growing in depth and intensity:

  • The U.S. has identified 11 military facilities near major airports that can support the needs of quarantined evacuees from China. The bases are in Hawaii, Illinois, Texas, California, Georgia, New York, Washington state, New Jersey, Michigan and the District of Columbia.
  • The World Health Organization (WHO) is mourning the loss of Dr. Li Wenliang, the Chinese ophthalmologist who first sounded the alarm on the coronavirus after he recalled seeing reports in December of an unusual cluster of pneumonia cases linked to an animal market in Wuhan. Before his passing, he claimed that he had contracted the virus from a patient he was treading for glaucoma. He also claimed on social media that the local police had tried to silence him.
  • The 2020 Summer Olympics are slated to begin July 24 and end on Aug. 9. According to Reuters, the event’s organizers have created the Novel Coronavirus Countermeasures Task Force with Tokyo 2020 CEO Toshiro Muto at the helm.
  • More than 46,000 flights into China have been canceled as China becomes more isolated from the rest of the world. This will drive down airline revenue but will have a spillover effect on other travel-related industries, hotels, and retailers due to the absence of high-spending tourists.
  • Economists and financial analysts are busy trying to estimate the impact the coronavirus will have on the global economy. The 2002-2003 SARS outbreak cost the global economy an estimated $40 billion but at that time, China had only a 4.2% share compared to 16.3% today. Moving from the 6th largest economy to 2nd place will increase the impact that events in China have on world markets be they good or bad.

Has any good news emerged in the last 24 hours? Dan Egan, managing director of behavioral finance and investing at Betterment said, “On a forward-looking basis, dengue fever, swine flu, Ebola, measles, rubella, Zika, they don’t hurt the stock market that much.” He pointed out the 2016 Zika Virus, where the global stock market dropped 6% but had mostly recovered 6 months after the outbreak faded. The same thing happened with the 2018 Ebola virus in that any loss was largely recovered in about 6 months.

The other bit of good news comes from AccuWeather founder Joel N. Myers who said, “There is less viral spread when the sun is strong, and the temperatures are warm from May to September. It’s possible the sunshine intensity, the longer daylight periods and the warmer weather could suppress the virus in the summer months.” His statements were based on studies of past outbreaks including SARS in 2003, the 1918 Spanish Flu and U.S. flu data over the last decade that followed this pattern.

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