By: Todd Wheatley

The "Wuhan Coronavirus" is now formally known as COVID-19. Other less informed or less culturally sensitive still make reference to the "Chinese Virus". Naming problems aside, the novel virus has a surge in new cases and has shown up in new places. The reports started late Friday. By Monday most of the news centered around a surge in Italy and South Korea.

Newsworthy, but no big deal. Those cases are in "First World" nations with advanced medical infrastructure. The real threat and thus, the real news, comes from new cases in Iran and Afghanistan where the medical infrastructure is far less advanced and the governments are far less stable. Therefore an outbreak in that region could do great damage. Even to the point of disrupting the global oil supply.

But so what? Disruptions to the oil supply have always drawn attention. How is this time different? How is this news?

First, this isn't a hit or miss hurricane that will pass through. Nor an Iranian drone attack (Saudi oil facilities / 9-15-19). It's not market manipulation nor a political ideology to restrict supply. Instead it's the great UNKNOWN. The big, bad monster that causes irrational fear and panic. In other words, it's the one thing that can't be planned around or estimated. In fact many apocalyptic scenarios feature an unstable oil market as THE FIRST DOMINO TO FALL.

Fortunately oil prices will remain relatively stable as a mild disruption in supply become offset by a corresponding reduction in demand. Even a slow downward spiral would keep supply and demand somewhat stable over a period of time. So where's the breaking point? Six months? Nine months? Consider what might happen with a twelve month disruption....

Having followed CURRENT EVENTS very closely for forty years, news of a NOVEL VIRUS was less spectacular (sg. SARS, MERS, Bird Flu, ect.) than the response of sending an entire mega-city (Wuhan) into quarantine. That event coupled with the oil market speculation prompted the DR-KNOW (blog): NEWS EVENT (series) .... unlike other blogs and news sources this series isn't for petty partisan politics or inconsequential economic emanations. It's speculation over events with the potential to become big news. Like Donald Trump's ill advised comment about raining "fire and fury" on North Korea; or the UK's no deal BREXIT. Or something like the Iranian drone attack previously mentioned.

Like the three examples, the coronavirus NEWS EVENT has the potential to become very big news. Today, however, it's only a matter of some concern. So this blog entry will provide some speculation on a broad COVID-19 outbreak. Yes it's a bit scary, but reports over the last month put the probability of death on par with an annual flu outbreak (ie. less than 2%). The symptoms?! ... no worse or on par with the annual flu. On the other hand, the cases reported Australia and Thailand (now in the summer months) indicate that COVID-19 is more environmentally resistant (ie. non-seasonal).

As in all EVENTS only time will filter the false reports and misconceptions. Clearly this is the early stage with a great deal of unknowns. At just over two months the economic slow down draws the greatest concern aside from the disease related mortality. Before the new outbreak the U.S. stock market only offered denial and insanity as noted in my previous post. Yesterday stock markets around the globe fell including markets in the United States. The heavy losses yesterday were extended today with the U.S. stock market also dropping sharply (-3.5%). The two day total has reached close to 7%. It's been said that "money never sleeps". Obviously that's not true since it seems pretty sure that investors were caught snoozing.

Unfortunately investors weren't alone. The media was asleep at the helm and treated this like the boy "who cried wolf" ... SARS, MERS, swine flu and the bird flu ... nothing to worry about they implied by their lax efforts ... those isolated cases outside of China provided confidence the virus could be contained ... NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT.

For us non-sleepers the early news was the concern; an entire megacity under quarantine. This didn't happen with SARS, MERS, or any other "scary" outbreak". This NEWS EVENT was exceptional from the beginning .... AN ENTIRE MEGACITY QUARANTINED! Then a case here. A case there ... still, NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT ... At least that was the impression given the tone of the media. Then the news friday ... basically the virus is out.

Some NEWS EVENTS are so large they become instant HISTORY: 9/11, Dec.7th Pearl Harbor, the Oct.29th stock market crash and the Wuhan quarantine (for people who pay attention). Other events take time and most fizzle out. Take the Cuban Missile Crisis, for example. It played out over ten days in October 1962. The symbolic win for the U.S. helped even the score given our black eye in the space race.

Even though one could argue that the Wuhan Quarantine was instant history we are just over two months into the after effects.The new cases mentioned Friday and Monday amplify the shock of that drastic measure and in a few days the picture may be more bleak.

The next domino and potential source of big news may come from Hong Kong. Since the BBC also reported Friday that a Hong Kong cab driver tested positive for COVID-19. Today an additional report from PRI's, "The World", of a Hong Kong public transit worker testing positive. The concern is locality and diversity. Unlike the Wuhan epicenter in central China, Hong Kong is an internationally diverse city on the coast. It's also semi-autonomous so the Chinese government has much less control.

Finally there's the problem with the virus surge in Iran as reported Monday. On the plus side the social isolation of Iran and the wider Middle East may only produce a regional health crisis with the outbreak of COVID-19. On the other hand it could spark a serious oil supply problem. Still, the news to wait for is coming from Hong Kong. It's a racially diverse hub of commerce and puts the entire globe at risk. Obviously the death toll would be shockingly large in the wake of a COVID-19 GLOBAL PANDEMIC, but percentage wise very small. The real threat is social and economic instability; Panic by the uninformed.

================= (2-27-20) addendum - out of the clear blue sky a possible "COMMUNITY TRANSMISSION" of COVID-19 has been confirmed in California. It came within hours of President Trump's claim that the U.S. would not suffer a virus outbreak ... can anyone say IRONY ?? Once again the stock market was quick to react.

================= (12-07-20) addendum - this was indeed the news of the year. Big, scary, and still ongoing despite the imminent release of two successful vaccines. The biggest surprise has been the resilience of the economy. Three days ago the stock market (DOW JONES) hit an all time high (30,218). Many business analysts credit to wide availability of "free money" for the miraculous economic recovery. Which seems very likely, but also a bit unnerving given the level of initial shock.

Hong Kong never became big news - The whole of China never became big news. Are they hiding it like everything else in their society or did they weather storm successfully? We may never know. Personally, having had the disease twice, both times under mysterious circumstances I can safely say that it is unlikely for contact tracers to contain this disease in the United States. Then again where the fuck were they?? Nobody attempted to contact me for my information.

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