Stock Market Is Signaling a Severe Depression.

There is mild depressions and severe depressions. But we are in a grand novel experiment which sits outside all history.  

Why the Coronavirus Could Threaten the U.S. Economy Even More Than China’sWhy the Coronavirus Could Threaten the U.S. Economy Even More Than China’s

If people stop traveling and going to the dentist, the gym or even March Madness basketball games, the impact could be enormous, an economist says.

The coronavirus could be especially dangerous for more mature economies.Credit...Alyssa Schukar for The New York Times

By Austan Goolsbee
March 6, 2020, 5:32 a.m. ET

After a string of deaths, some heart-stopping plunges in the stock market and an emergency rate cut by the Federal Reserve, there is reason to be concerned about the ultimate economic impact of the coronavirus in the United States.

The first place to look for answers is China, where the virus has spread most widely. The news has been grim with deaths, rolling quarantines and the economy’s seeming to flat line, though the number of new cases has begun to fall.

Advanced economies like the United States are hardly immune to these effects. To the contrary, a broad outbreak of the disease in them could be even worse for their economies than in China. That is because face-to-face service industries — the kind of businesses that go into a tailspin when fearful people withdraw from one another — tend to dominate economies in high-income countries more than they do in China. If people stay home from school, stop traveling and don’t go to sporting events, the gym or the dentist, the economic consequence would be worse.

In a sense, this is the economic equivalent of the virus’s varied health effects. Just as the disease poses a particular threat to older patients, it could be especially dangerous for more mature economies.

This is not to minimize the indiscriminate and widespread damage that the disease has caused by disrupting the global supply chain. With shortages of everything from auto parts to generic medicines and production delays in things like iPhones and Diet Coke, a great deal of pain is coming from the closing of Chinese factories. That proliferating damage has central banks and financial analysts talking about a global recession in the coming months.

Nor is it to discount the possibility that the United States will be spared the worst effects. Scientific and public health efforts might limit the spread of the virus or quickly find a treatment or vaccine. The warmer weather of summer might slow the spread of the coronavirus as it usually does with the seasonal flu. Many things could prevent an outbreak as large as the one in China.

But it is to say that an equivalent outbreak in the United States might easily have a worse economic impact.

As a baseline, several factors work against the United States. China’s authoritarian government can quarantine entire cities or order people off the streets in a way that would be hard to imagine in America, presumably giving China an advantage in slowing the spread of the disease. In addition, a large share of American workers lack paid sick days and millions lack health care coverage, so people may be less likely to stay home or to get proper medical care. And 41 percent of China’s population lives outside urban areas, more than twice the share in the United States. Diseases generally spread faster in urban areas.

Beyond those issues, however, is a fundamental difference in economic structure: When people pull back from interacting with others because of their fear of disease, the things they stop doing will frequently affect much bigger industries in the United States.

Consider travel. The average American takes three flights a year; the average Chinese person less than half a flight. And the epidemiological disaster of the Diamond Princess has persuaded many people to hold off on cruises. That cruise ship stigma alone potentially affects about 3.5 percent of the United States, which has about 11.5 million passengers each year, compared with only 0.17 percent of China, which has about 2.3 million passengers.

People may stop attending American sporting events. There have even been calls for the N.C.A.A. to play its March Madness college basketball tournament without an audience. But sports is a huge business in the United States. People spend upward of 10 times as much on sporting events as they do in China.

And if 60 million Americans stop spending $19 billion a year on gyms, that would be a much a bigger deal than if the 6.6 million gym members in China stopped spending the $6 billion they devote to gyms now.

That’s just a start. Who wants to go to the dentist or the hospital during an outbreak if a visit isn’t necessary? Yet health spending is 17 percent of the U.S. economy — more than triple the proportion spent in China.

Of course, not every service sector is so much larger than in China. Retail and restaurants, for example, have comparable shares of gross domestic product in both countries.

But over all, the United States is substantially more reliant on services than China is. And, on the flip side, agriculture, a sector not noted for day-to-day social interaction and so potentially less harmed by social withdrawal, is a 10 times larger share of China’s economy than it is in the United States.

So for all the talk about the global “supply shock” set off by the coronavirus outbreak and its impact on supply chains, we may have more to fear from an old-fashioned “demand shock” that emerges when everyone simply stays home. A major coronavirus epidemic in the United States might be like a big snowstorm that shuts down most economic activity and social interaction only until the snow is cleared away. But the coronavirus could be a “Snowmaggedon-style storm” that hits the whole country and lasts for months.

So go wash your hands for the full 20 seconds. And show some more sympathy for the folks quarantined in China and elsewhere. Because if it spreads rapidly in the United States, it could be a heck of a lot worse.

Austan Goolsbee, a professor of economics at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, was an adviser to President Barack Obama. Follow him on Twitter: @austan_goolsbee

Coronavirus Fatality Rate

Everyone thinks the fatality rate is much lower because we yet can't count how many are infected. I think everyone is " not" counting the dead because this would emediately crater the world's  financial system and put hundreds of million people out of work.

There is no doubt in my mind we are heading for a world wide financial freeze up worst than the great recession of 2008.  My guess its going to be a depression. The 50 point fed decline in interest rate I contend is a result of the rising tsunami tide of bankruptcies based on the all the economic damage caused the virus. The world's financial system was never stress tested for the scale of this economic devastation.  

You got to know after all this horror rolls across our eyeballs, our consumer sentiment is going to tank. Consumer spending makes up to 70% of our economy.  

When Are Our Courts Going Be Overwhelmed by Coronavirus

Update March 12

N.H. Superior Courts cancelling trials for 30 days due to coronavirus

Update March 7

US federal court operations altered by the coronavirus

From CNN's Ariane de Vogue and Kevin Bohn

The coronavirus is impacting the operations of some federal courts across the US.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which hears cases from nine western states including Washington, as well as a district court in Washington state, which has seen at least 80 cases, have altered some of the procedures as the virus continues to spread.

The appeals court, which has four courthouses including one in Seattle, said it is cancelling all hearings involving multiple judges as well as non-case related meetings, scheduled for next week.

The court said in an order posted online it was taking this measure “in light of the concerns about community spread of the COVID-19 virus throughout” the region covered by it.

All scheduled oral arguments in all locations will go forward, the court said.

“Counsel who wish to appear remotely for any hearing may file a motion in that case for such relief,” the court said.

***So when are we going to get to the point of the missing court employees overwhelming the courts?

On a Pandemic level event, can you just imagine the scale of legal suits? 

Are We Near Losing The Dartmouth-Hitchcock Hospital System In NH

Can you imagine the horror if this hospital infects a lot of people in a few weeks or a month? Following the pre coronavirus rules and laws just don't work anymore.  

DHMC confident no patients put at risk from virus-infected medical resident

And now WCAX has learned that the first individual who tested positive sees patients at the medical center. According to Vermont health officials, he is a physician trainee, commonly known as a resident. 

 update

outbreak 

‘Wildly unprepared’: survey of nurses highlights coronavirus concerns 

A northern California nurse criticizes the CDC for delays in testing after she fell ill while caring for a patient with coronavirus

As the number of US coronavirus cases and deaths continue to increase, healthcare workers on the frontlines of fighting the outbreak are finding themselves increasingly concerned over what they have described as a shocking lack of preparedness across the healthcare sector.

Supply and staffing shortages, combined with conflicting guidance and lack of information, have created a perfect-storm situation that’s poised to perpetuate illness, they told the Guardian.

National Nurses United (NNU) released results from a survey of more than 6,500 nurses across 48 states, Washington DC, and the Virgin Islands. Less than half of nurses surveyed – 44% – said their employers provided them information on novel coronavirus and “how to recognize and respond to possible cases”.

Washington state residents frustrated over obstacles to get coronavirus tests

Read more

Just 63% of nurses surveyed had access to N95 respirators in their units, while a mere 27% had access to powered air purifying respirators.

Only 30% of survey participants said that their employers had enough personal protective equipment (PPE) stocked in the event of a quick uptick in potential coronavirus patients, while 38% didn’t know.

Sixty-five percent of nurses in the survey said they had been trained in safely using PPE in the year prior.

During an NNU news conference Thursday, organization officials read one northern California nurse’s shocking description of her own healthcare ordeal stemming from Covid-19.

“As a nurse, I’m very concerned that not enough is being done to stop the spread of the coronavirus. I know because I am currently sick and in quarantine after caring for a patient who tested positive,” the unnamed nurse said in her statement. “I’m awaiting permission from the federal government to allow for my testing, even after my physician and county health professional ordered it.”

The nurse said that she volunteered to be on a team caring for this patient, who was known to have coronavirus.

“I did this assuming that if something happened to me, of course I, too, would be cared for,” the statement said. “Then, what was a small concern after a few days of caring for this patient, became my reality: I started getting sick.

Update

At a minimum, you need emergency coronavirus testing for every employee at the medical center. Thereafter surveillance testing of the employees. More emergency surveillance for the local population 
surrounding the center. 

This is the live free or die state with everyone hating government, rules and all laws. Because of that, I think it will be worst in NH. Extraordinarily vulnerable because tourism and big city second home owners. I bet you tourism is already in a great decline in NE and NH. It is just the beginning of this That is why NH is playing this close to their vest. 

NH tests for coronavirus at Lebanon airport

WEST LEBANON — State health officials brought in a mobile medical truck Thursday afternoon to screen some Upper Valley residents who may have come into contact with two Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center employees who are both presumed to be positive for the new coronavirus.

This sounds like a coverup. You got to do this out in the open, secrecy will lead to a deeper and wider public panic.

Christopoulos, who was speaking from Florida where he is on vacation, said he doesn’t know how many people were tested, but that the mobile screening was set up at the remote location to keep people who may have COVID-19 away from the general public, including at hospitals.

A pilot from the Upper Valley said there was a sizable police presence, and he was prevented from accessing his plane early Thursday evening.

The below is pre novel coronavirus thinking. We just have to wait to the unreliable testing shows up. Weeks go by infecting  many hundreds of additional people before actions are taken. Only draconian social distancing at the first whiff works on this. The end point is too many infected, too complicated to control and all containment ability is lost. We are already at the point of total failure with containment based on the unimaginable complexity we built into the system. The delay creating unimaginable new infections just piles on more unimaginable complexity. It is widespread complexity that that leads to a out of control virus. All of the last month is all for show trying not to panic the public. We should have realize in hindsight extreme public panic is a eventuality and plan for it. 

I remember being at the world trade center a few months after 911. I was a truck driver. I believe I was in the area of the shuttered huge subway station that was destroyed by the collapse of the buildings. I had to go through three military check points with full military rifles strapped on the soldier's shoulders ringing NYC. They are on every interstate or big highway. So I am standing right in front of the shuttered subway station. Unimaginable big building all around me and very high population density. I kept thinking about all the people in the vicinity...how this must have been so terrorizing. I began noticing police cars pulling off the side of the streets. The cops getting out of their cruisers and just milling around. It was the most astonishing thing I ever seen. There was a least 200 police cruisers filling the streets. I am thinking 500 cops. The cops weren't nervous so I knew this wasn't about terrorism. I was in a sea of police uniforms. Then I heard a yell, all the police got into a straight up and down body military poster. The stood there is absolute silence and no movement for 15 minutes. Then just got into their cruisers and disappeared into the amazing Manhattan streets. I got the skinny on what they were doing. The NYC officials thought the local residents were so terrorized, they called out the police in mass gathering in a attempt to alleviate the sense of being terrorized. You know,the image of NYC is huge and we got you.

We got to call up the military in a big way in a show of force for national duty.          

The DHMC medical resident, who tested “presumptive positive” for the virus on Monday, went to the event despite being told to self-isolate after going to an D-H ambulatory clinic earlier on Friday. Officials said he was exhibiting symptoms after returning from a trip to Italy, one of the hotspots of the strain of coronavirus that first appeared in Wuhan city in China in December.

In a phone interview Thursday evening, Dr. Edward Merrens, Dartmouth-Hitchcock’s chief clinical officer, said the health system had placed some employees on quarantine, and administered some test swabs that were sent to the state lab, but declined to divulge how many. He also said the quarantine issue is being revisited on a daily basis.

“We are taking a very judicious approach to how we are going to manage these folks, because we take care of people in the community, and these are our colleagues,” Merrens said.

Several Dartmouth Students Under Self-Quarantine

Dartmouth College says a business school student who attended an event also attended by a hospital worker who tested positive for the new coronavirus feels flu-like symptoms and is under self-quarantine.

***See, everyone in the back woods NH thinks the rules don't count for them. The special people. Behind all our facades, don't we think we are all special people. The Washington state nursing home is a perfect model for this. Most everyone in the Dartmouth-Hitchcock

'U.S. health system is showing why it’s not ready for a coronavirus pandemic"

hospital have a compromised immune system. There would be a sickening fatality rate of the coronavirus if it rage through the hospital. The first thing all the officials are saying is nobody else but these two are infected. Nobody shows any symptoms. What everyone knows for a fact is the coronavirus is in deep into the population of Lebanon and we won't see the result of the testing for many weeks.  

1) Coronavirus is raging in Lebanon and we are heading to a catastrophe with the hospital and their patients. 

2)The hospital should have been completely shutdown on the first whiff of the virus. This could quickly pass onto other hospitals

3) All schools, businesses and gathering should shutdown, really these guys should now be in a lockdown.   

I will give you a local example with the handling of coronavirus because we think our children our highly valuable. The River Valley community college in Keene was shutdown because of a indirect link to the virus. Why is the Lebanon still open...you want to threaten you other hospitals? Do you see where I am heading, we could be heading for a shutdown of a large proportion of our hospital system. 

NH’s 1st Coronavirus Patient, Told to Stay Isolated, Went to Event Instead

New Hampshire has identified a second, presumptive case of coronavirus in a man who was in close contact with the first patient, who attended an event across the state border in Vermont

By Asher Klein • Published March 3, 2020 • Updated on March 4, 2020 at 9:00 am

New Hampshire's first coronavirus patient, a hospital employee, went to an event tied to Dartmouth business school on Friday despite being told to stay isolated, officials say, and all others who went to the event are now being told to stay isolated.

The announcement on Tuesday came as state health officials said a second person in the state is presumed to have the new coronavirus, COVID-19. That person was in close contact with the first patient, and the officials expect more coronavirus cases may be found as they investigate.


The second, presumed patient is a man, according to the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services, which didn't provide additional details or say exactly where he came into contact with the first patient.

The first patient is an employee at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, the hospital has announced. It is not aware of any patients being exposed in clinical areas and has identified any staff who might have been exposed.

State health officials said that the first coronavirus patient "attended an invitation-only private event on Friday" despite being told to stay isolated. That person has now been ordered to remain isolated and all others who came into "close contact" with them at the event were asked to stay isolated for 14 days.

The second presumptive positive case of the new coronavirus, COVID-19, is isolated at their home in Grafton County, officials said.

"We expect additional cases may be identified that are related to this investigation," the New Hampshire health officials' news release said.

Read more information from New Hampshire about observing COVID-19 symptoms here. Anyone who thinks they may have those symptoms, like fever or coughing and shortness of breath, should call their health care provider or the health and human services department at 603-271-4496 or after hours at 603-271-5300.

More details about the private event the first patient attended were released by the Vermont Department of Health and Dartmouth College Tuesday evening.

It took place at White River Junction's Engine Room, an event space across the river from New Hampshire, according to Vermont health officials. Dartmouth said it was a social event for the Tuck School of Business.

"An investigation of those who were in close contact with that individual is underway and all close contacts have been notified; at this time, there are no Dartmouth students considered to be close contacts," Dartmouth said in a statement that acknowledged that many in the community may be stressed by the news.

The event space itself is being sanitized, according to Vermont health officials, who are asking anyone who was there at the private event Friday night to reach out to the department at 802-863-7240.

The general manager of the Engine Room said there were between 175 to 200 people at the event, plus an additional seven staff members. They have been told it is very low risk and they can move forward with planned events. The venue's next big event is on Wednesday night and will go on as planned.

"People in this situation – with only minimal possible contact with a case – are still considered to be at low risk for infection, but out of an abundance of caution the department is seeking contact from anyone in attendance," Health Commissioner Mark Levine said in a statement.

The Engine Room said in a Facebook post that its management was informed Tuesday morning about the coronavirus patient having attended an event there Friday. Health officials told them there is no reason to cancel any events after the recommended cleaning, which is being done by professionals.

"We just want to let the public know we are taking this seriously and following all the recommendations of the VT & NH Health Departments. Thank you!" the post read.

The New Hampshire cases are among the more than 125 U.S. coronavirus diagnoses reported as of Wednesday evening. All nine U.S. deaths attributed to the illness are in Washington State.

The outbreak has spread from Wuhan, China, to dozens of countries and has sickened tens of thousands of people. Nearly 3,000 have died in China, more than 75 in each of Iran and Italy and more than 30 in South Korea.

As countries attempt to limit the spread of the virus, the fallout has been felt among travelers banned from going to outbreak hotspots, athletes whose games have been canceled, business people whose conventions have been canceled and much more. Stocks have fallen worldwide amid fears that COVID-19 will become a pandemic.

Will Voting Participation Be Down Tonight Because of Coronavirus

Is it really a fair election if everyone is terrified to go out and vote.

When Are All large Scale Political Gatherings Events Going To Be Banded In USA

It is the only responsible thing to do at this point.  What will the political and new media response be over this.