Definitely scared the shit out of me.
I have friends who scoff at the legitimacy of this virus but I feel like thats pretty naive. I’m not saying it’s the end of the world but I feel like there should be some concern, right?
Of course there should be concern even if it's something that will just give 99% of people a nasty flu for a week or two and then be done with it. The flooding of hospitals and medical facilities means that the bulk of resources are going to be devoted toward COVID patients (at least, those who are deemed "in the range of saving" since it's likely that the older you are, the less likely you'll be prioritized), meaning fewer resources for medical staff and supplies to tend to other issues, not to mention, more and more physicians and nurses will inevitably contract it while handling patients which will further dwindle the remaining resources. Not to mention, there's likely going to be a shitty situation in time of mass outbreak where, god forbid, you have a totally necessary medical emergency that requires hospitalization which will pretty much guarantee you'll be getting your own COVID once they've settled you in (being that hospitals, while sterile, tend to be breeding grounds for spreading viral infections like crazy).
Add in all the businesses that depend on high foot traffic as people begin to stay home are already feeling the pinch this early, if things continue to get exponentially worse in the next month and millions are home quarantined, there are going to be MANY stores and services that won't be able to weather the financial fallout and are going to end up closing and causing massive surges of unemployment in due time.
Then, of course, as international trade keeps being affected, there will be more shortages both on finished product we need coming into the USA, as well as many who need various parts fabricated elsewhere that may not be able to be allowed in for some time, which is going to hit manufacturing very hard as well.
There's just so much fragility due to our interconnectedness of how the world currently operates that there's no way this situation will NOT have devastating effects that we'll be dealing with for a long time to come. It will be bad enough if this ends up being a single wave that dissipates by mid summer as could certainly happen, but it will be MUCH worse if there are mutations and the potential that has been discussed of having yearly COVID cycles that are entirely possible for time to come, as the cyclical disruption will force a LOT of change on each nation's self-sustainability, which is why I predict that the future means a lot less dependence on sourcing things from other nations and a potential return to much more being made here as was the case years ago.
Problem right now is, we simply don't have enough information to know how this will be in the coming months, it could either end up being bad, but something we will all recover from in due time, or, a literal world-changing event that forces us to re-evaluate how all of our systems operate from top to bottom.
Topic: Corona Virus. What's going on where you live? (Read 93700 times)