I saw a diagram a few days back of the propagation of flu versus C-19. A person infected with flu typically infects 2 others. A C-19 infected person can infect significantly more .... as in 8 or more other people. Both are geometric progressions, but this means that C-19 is considerably worse.
For example, without any barriers to propagation, using these infection rates, it would take 33 cycles of infection for flu to infect 5 billion people.
It would take 11 cycles for C-19 to infect the same number of people with an 8-fold transmission. In other words, once this thing sets in it's off to the races unless it encounters a barrier to propagation. What are those? It has been reported that apparently the very young, whose immune systems are fully charged and operational fighting off a trove of other insults, do not succumb to the infection. If they exist, the naturally immune. And, there's voluntary or forced individual or community isolation. Testing is a post facto exercise: it determines the treatment protocol, but does nothing to slow propagation .... by the time an individual is sick enough to seek treatment and thereby get tested, there's already been contact with others and possible transmission.
My take is that unless you're living in a glass bubble or a hermit, you're going to get this much sooner than later. So the big question is: what can you do to minimize at the first appearance of any symptom.
If you're living in a dense urban center where mass transit is the main mode of transportation ... you're fucked. If you have to go to work, you're susceptible to coming into contact with someone who is likely carrying the infection ... the bigger, denser the work place, the greater the odds of contact, and the harder it is to avoid. Other than isolation there's no natural way for a normal person with a normal life style to avoid contact without taking on some serious hygiene protocols and being religious about it. I am fortunate in that I work from home, my primary level of contact is with a very, very small group of people all of whom I know; but, secondarily, I "come" into contact with the people they have been in contact with. With flu, you can tap dance around this. With C-19, I don't see how this works.
With global supply chains the way they are, we are going to slide into a supply-side driven recession. Central banks can do nothing about this. You can't sell what you don't have in stock regardless of the demand or the Central Bank stimulus. The major sea ports on the USA west coast are already showing marked down turn in traffic ... any component sourced from China is going to have scarcity. Missing components in a just-in-time inventory flow will shut down domestic production, cause work force furloughs, which is going to induce demand-side recession forces.
Another question is what is the virus' mutation rate. Each year, yet another flu variant appears, so it's an ever present but relatively low grade problem. It is a problem that virologists can keep up with and get their arms around. The flu vaccine can be effective but doesn't mean you will stay clear of infection of a new strain. If this C-19 similarly mutates, then every year we could have a new strain of virus impervious to vaccination. The southern hemisphere is about to enter autumn and winter months when seasonal viruses like the flu wax. If seasonality is a factor., these countries ... say South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Chile and Argentina are going to be the leading indicators of impact.
