What is the Coronavirus?
The newest thing out of China isn’t a new piece of technology or cheaply made clothing, it’s a virus that is spreading scarily fast.
In the past few weeks we’ve been hearing various reports about this mysterious virus ranging from it being a lab created virus to something contracted by eating bats and/or snakes.
According to the WHO, signs of infection include fever, cough, shortness of breath and breathing difficulties.
In more severe cases, it can lead to pneumonia, severe acute respiratory syndrome, kidney failure and even death.
The incubation period of the Coronavirus remains unknown. Some sources say it could be between 10 to 14 days.
There have also been reports of how many are infected ranging from 2000 to 90,000. China has confirmed at least 80 deaths from this mystery illness so far.
Most of those deaths were in the central province of Hubei, the center of the outbreak.
There are a confirmed 110 cases of Coronavirus in the US. Canada has seen it’s first person to person transmission of the disease outside of China. (Meaning every other confirmed case has been from someone who traveled to China.)
There are currently 15 countries that are affected by this virus.
Cambodia, Canada, China, France, Japan, Malayasia, Nepal, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, United States, and Vietnam.
Beijing has placed their 50 million inhabitants in quarantine.
The Pandemic is Affecting More than Health
It’s not just everyone’s health that is being affected by the quarantine and even the travel bans that some countries are putting on China and Chinese nationals, the stock market has taken a tumble.
Investors across the globe are worried about what’s going to happen. The S&P fell 1.6%. Shares of airlines and other companies that depend on tourism, particularly those reliant on China, have taken a very hard it.
American Airlines dropped more than 4% in early trading, and Wynn Resorts, which operates casinos in Macau, a special administrative region of China and a gambling haven for Chinese high rollers, dropped more than 7 percent.
Major stock benchmarks in Europe were down more than 2%. While many markets in Asia were closed for the holiday, Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei 225 index also sank 2 percent.
The price of oil dropped, on fears that demand could slip. China’s currency also fell, while investors moved into safe havens like gold.
China’s economy, which is experiencing its worst slowdown in almost 30 years is already hurting from the impact of the outbreak, and there are fears that consumer spending will go down as more residents stay home over the Lunar New Year.
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