Jack of Harts

As I write this, the Corona Virus has killed just over 100 Americans, and we have cases in both the Western and Eastern seaboards. Though most are in the west, which makes a certain amount of sense when you consider it started in China.

It would seem that President Trump’s decision to close all travel from China was a good one. Despite the many calls of his Racism for doing so at the time, and others saying he never even did it now that it seems it was a good idea, it appears to have worked. Most of our cases have come from cruise ships coming in off the Pacific, though the much-feared “Community Spread” is starting to catch on in various areas. But we are much better off than countries like Italy, Iran, Japan, and South Korea.

The travel ban greatly slowed the virus’ propagation into America, which gave our health organizations time to study it, figure out what tests could work, and begin coming up with treatment regimes for it. I’m not sure we will ever be able to calculate how many lives that saved, both here in America and around the world. Remember that people from all over the world come here. We seem to have stopped ourselves from being a major propagator of the virus to other countries with that travel ban.

That may change if the virus continues to spread, but so far I think we can be cautiously optimistic that we will avoid the utter devastation that has occurred in China and the other countries worst hit by this. As I noted in a previous post, we will almost certainly suffer some supply issues. Delayed kickstarters, various critical goods will run short, and have already in some areas if the news reports are to be believed. This will almost certainly get worse, but I am cautiously optimistic that we can avoid a broad recession or depression here in America.

That will change if the Corona virus hits general distribution in major American population centers. Or if the speculative “second vector” of science fiction bugs hits us with a far more deadly second string of the virus. But the current virus appears to be little more dangerous than the normal flu bug, killing mainly those with reduced immune systems, whether via age or other health problem. Normally healthy people appear to get it, get over it, and go back to normal life. And there is evidence that many people get it, get over it, and never even realized they had it.

Unless it gets far more deadly, or becomes far more widespread, I predict only minor to moderate economic damage. And while any death is a tragedy, this looks like it may end up being on the rather low scale when compared to other worldwide pandemics. The trick of course is how quickly China gets up and running again. I think this has shown us all how much we depend on Chinese factories. The old story about how when China sneezes, the rest of the world gets a cold has a sudden visible relevance now. I hope we all learn from this and incentivize the return of production of certain vital strategic interest materials back to America. If not a far broader program in all areas.

Assuming this isn’t the precursor of a real life, world ending, zombie apocalypse. That could neatly mess up all our plans, you know.