Too much money and face at stake to cancel and the IOC doesn't give a darn anyway.
We can always bolt the doors shut and make new ones out of apartment buildings like the Chinese do.
Apple should have reported revised earnings a month ago... a blind monkey could have seen it coming. Then again it may have been a case of executives needing time to sell stocks.New Estimates Suggest Chinese Tech Shipments Are About To Crash
by Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Wednesday, 02/19/2020 - 23:25
Now that Apple has opened the floodgates and made it entirely clear that China's economic collapse will slash revenue guidance on the year and lead to production woes through April, an onslaughter of earnings downgrades from other top technology companies with significant operations in China could be imminent.
Evidence grows by the day of supply chains grinding to a halt as the second-largest economy in the world falters (as described here last week)...
We've described how China's economic output remains frozen, and even if supply chains were able to restart, companies don't have enough capital to cover wages, or have delayed or stopped paying workers, suggesting that the Covid-19 outbreak has left businesses on the brink of disaster. Worse, workers can't freely move around the country, and many are subjected to travel restrictions and quarantines, which has forced a massive labor shortage.
This is creating a perfect storm that could lead to an extended period of depressed factory output, triggering future shortages of products destined for Eastern and Western markets, and even more ripples across global supply chains.
As we've routinely noted in the last several weeks, the most exposed sector to the continued crunch across Chinese factories is technology.
Putting what we've already summarized together, there's no way that full production can be seen by the end of this month or in early March, which means a massive reduction in shipments and product shortages are imminent. This will ultimately force many tech companies with exposure to China to revise their full-year earnings on the year.
TrendForce published a report earlier this week that serves as a preview of what's to come for technology shipments.
The research firm said shipments of smartwatches, smartphones, computers, monitors, TVs, video game consoles, smart speakers, and automobiles, will take a big hit in the first quarter.
Here's what the firm said about shipments for smartwatches, smart bracelets, and TWS Bluetooth earphones:
TrendForce said the virus outbreak is having a "high impact on the smartphone industry because the smartphone supply chain is highly labor-intensive. 1Q20 smartphone production is projected to decline by 12% YoY, making it the quarter with the lowest output within the past five years."
As for notebooks, LCD monitors, and LCD TVs, these supply chains have been "undoubtedly hit the most by the coronavirus outbreak."
We expect a waterfall of negative earnings preannouncements to start for many technology companies with modest exposure to Chinese output. Apple's downgrade on Monday was only the beginning...
Wall Street has priced the stock market for perfection while ignoring China's virus crisis as one of the biggest shocks to hit the global economy since a decade ago.
Is the virus outbreak in China about to pop the Fed-induced stock market bubble?
Zerohedge
ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zerowww.zerohedge.com
Jaws was reality TV in a movie....
The mechanisms of death from a viral infection can be very similar regardless of the underlying virus. It is helpful to understand how a virus produces illness in a person and how that infection can progress to the point of being fatal.
Yet to say 'no need to worry about Virus X because we already have deaths from Influenza' is … at minimum whistling past the graveyard. And if we get epidemic levels of Virus X here, the graveyard may require a long whistle to get past. We do not know, we cannot know, but telling less than the truth as it is known is but small comfort, to me at least. YMMV of course.
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Warning for parents: Child flu deaths hit record high for this time of year
This year's flu season has been especially deadly for children, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said, with 27 children dying from flu complications nationwide through the end ofwww.fox23.com
Warning for parents: Child flu deaths hit record high for this time of year
Child flu deaths on the rise
By: Debbie Lord, Cox Media Group National Content Desk
Updated: January 9, 2020 - 9:14 AM
This year’s flu season has been especially deadly for children, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said, with 27 children dying from flu complications nationwide through the end of December.
That is the highest number of child deaths from influenza at this point in any season in the past 16 years, the CDC says.
The number of deaths for children under age 18 is more than twice the number of 2017-2018 pediatric deaths from influenza. That flu season was considered one of the worst on record with 187 children dead from influenza by the end of the season.
The CDC reports that “widespread” flu activity has been seen in 45 states and Puerto Rico, and that, unusually, the flu virus Influenza B has been the dominant strain of flu seen this season.
Doctors say children are particularly susceptible to influenza B. Adults contract influenza B less often, as many adults gain immunity from that flu strain since the virus does not change much from year to year, the CDC says.
The fact that B strains are being seen this early does not bode well for the rest of the season."Hopefully, this turns around and comes down, but if it continues on the trajectory it’s on, it’s not going to be good," Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CNN.
Flu season started early this year, and so far, it does not appear to have peaked as more cases of A strains – H1N1 and H3N2 – of flu are being seen. In most years, A strains come early in the season and B strains follow.
Even more concerning is that while the flu vaccine seems to be a good match for the A strain of the flu, this season’s flu shot does not look like a good match for the B Victoria flu, according to the CDC.
However, CDC officials stress that it is better to get a flu vaccination even if it is not as effective against the current dominant strain. The shot, doctors say, can lessen flu complications even if it does not prevent you from getting the flu.
It is not too late to get the vaccination, CDC officials said. It takes about two weeks after receiving the shot for the body to build the antibodies necessary to fight the virus. The vaccines protect against two strains of influenza A virus and two strains of influenza B.
At least 6.4 million flu-related illnesses, 55,000 flu-related hospitalizations and 2,900 deaths from the flu have been recorded so far this season, the CDC reported.
Symptoms of the flu include:
- Fever, which may be as high as 103°F to 105°F
- Body aches, which may be severe
- Headache
- Sore throat
- Cough that gets worse
- Tiredness
- Runny or stuffy nose
The last week of December saw these flu activity levels:
- High level – The District of Columbia, New York City, Puerto Rico, and these 34 states: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, and Wisconsin
- Moderate level – Nine states: Florida, Maine, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Ohio, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming
- Low level – Five states: Hawaii, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, and Nevada
- Minimal –Two states: Delaware and Idaho
VIVIAN, LA - DECEMBER 12: With a temperature of 103.8, Asa Moore, 6, of Vivian, Louisiana is examined by John Messier, a physician's assistant, at the North Caddo Surgical and Medical Center for symptoms of Influenza December 12, 2003 in Vivian, Louisiana. Moore had not received a flu shot and the medical center was out of the vaccine. (Photo by Mario Villafuerte/Getty Images/Getty Images)
Yeah, judging from the Chinese response, they're gonna need to figure out how to make BSL-4 Stadiums.
So, just speculating here, but, what if you're a dictatorial country. And, what if you have a population of 1.5 billion, or so. And, what if you decided that several hundred million of that population is too expensive to maintain because being a socialist country, you pay for their housing, medical care, food, et cetera. And, what if you had a way of separating the workers from the useless eaters, say a holiday where the workers all went away from the population centers. And what if then you decided to release a virus with a high kill rate in these population centers while the workers were away. But what if it wasn't spreading fast enough so you decide to seal up apartment buildings that have a few cases and then don't feed them; it wouldn't be long before they'd be too sick to do anything about it. And, what if you also take healthy people and lock them up with those who are contagious in "hospitals" built in less than a month and soccer stadiums but don't actually provide medical care for them. And, what if you prevented the workers from traveling back to the population centers until the crisis was over so that they wouldn't catch the virus and die. And, what if instead of cleaning the bodies and infectious diseases out the buildings, you had new cities for the workers to move to. What if you wanted, as a country, to provide the facade that you're a first world country and that your cities are all new and shiny (and not some steaming third world shit hole).
I never looked at it that way, but it only reinforces the idea that something else is going on that they are not telling us if they quarantine one in ten for the FLU?
www.ksat.com
It's just some what ifs. But, others would be, what if that country has a vaccine and will administer it when the time is right and has amazing production capacity (almost enough to make one think that they have been producing it for months instead of days)? What if this country then sells the vaccine and the rights to it for a huge sum of money, or power, or removal of tariffs?
I think this truly bears watching for.
That's an impressively astute observation.
The word you use to define something has a great deal of influence over how you react or behave.In my mind
Quarantine is when you have it or may have it.
Self-isolation is when you are trying to avoid it.
It's all just semantics any way, just different words to describe the behavior.
Yes, I thought that was what the post I commented on was referring too.
Been checking for info and there is a certain reluctance to disclose anything negative. There are situations like cargo ships with infected crews being held offshore. Many refused docking with or without health certificate. The general projection sees a delay until April, but this is certainly optimistic. Dead workers do not return to the work force.
By the way, my Dr. was so worried about the reg. flu in our area he postponed a blood test till May to reduce my exposure to it and thought self isolating was a very good idea. And this is only the regular flu. CV wasn't mentioned.
Note that they seem to be running an exponential growth rate at around 2 - 2.5 days per cycle.
Chris martenson said something brilliant about this period not a perfect "but it was something along the lines of this: "This virus moves too fast for official policy to keep up with it."
And produce. What about produce? I was getting some the other day and realized I and everybody else pick it up and test it for ripeness. What to do?
www.breitbart.com
