Novel coronavirus is spreading to the four corners of the globe, creating fear and panic about a potential out-of-control global pandemic. But another major threat is the economic impact of this disease, which is already disrupting China's global supply chains and threatening to trigger a collapse.
Reports indicate that people are increasingly deciding not to travel to China for business, as one example, while cruise lines, airlines, and other components of business and tourism are modifying or canceling their Chinese travel routes.
The China Law Blog, which is geared towards high-profile attorneys who engage in cross-border business, is now warning its readers that traveling to and from China is not only a substantial risk, it's also increasingly difficult, if not impossible.
"[T]he coronavirus is impacting pretty much everyone in China," writes China Law Blog editor Dan Harris, whose Harris Bricken law firm runs the blog.
Besides the fact that entire cities in China are now quarantined and off-limits to visitors, travel in and out of many of China's international airports is also coming to a grinding halt. It's taking longer and longer for Chinese people to obtain visas to travel to other countries, and both Chinese nationals and expatriates alike are increasingly fearful of even trying to leave China "because they may be denied entry into the country of destination and may not be able to return to their place of residence," warns The Epoch Times.
Foreign embassies and consulates in China are scaling down and planning evacuation flights – will the global economy collapse from all this mayhem?
The first group of American ambassadors and officials living in China was recently brought back to America via special charter flight, and are now being held at March Air Reserve Base near Corona, California, under a mandatory two-week quarantine.
But there are still many more to go, as other foreign embassies and consulates in China scale down their personnel and formulate "plans to eventually evacuate them as well." In other words, China's entire economy is rapidly dwindling down as coronavirus continues to wreak havoc there and abroad.
The implications of all this for the global economy can't be ignored, either, seeing as how China manufactures much of the world's goods. How long will it be before the shelves at Walmart and Target are bare because cheap Chinese garbage is no longer making it to American ports?
Couple this with the fact that the official number of coronavirus victims is being kept artificially low to save face, and the writing on the wall becomes clearer than ever.
"... virtually nobody trusts the veracity of the Chinese government," contends Harris, further warning that hospitals in China are running out of coronavirus testing kits, as well as classifying new cases of coronavirus as "pneumonia or other sicknesses."
An epidemiological study conducted by researchers at Yale University predicts that by February 4, there will be 190,000 coronavirus infections in Wuhan alone – and there's no telling what the global number will be.
Meanwhile, major corporations like Foxconn, which makes computer chips for Apple, as well as Johnson & Johnson and Samsung Electronics, are all temporarily shutting down production in China. But rather than call it a shutdown, these multinational corporations claim they're simply prolonging the Chinese Lunar New Year holiday break for their employees.
"Gee, let me cry a big crocodile tear over the greedy companies using slave labor and Christian and Muslim prisoners to make cheap products and receive the benefit of no pollution law enforcement," wrote one commenter at The Epoch Times about the almost divine retributive nature of this coronavirus judgment on big industry for even doing business in communist China in the first place.
For more breaking news about coronavirus, be sure to check out Pandemic.news and Outbreak.news.
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