Pandemic !

Perhaps we are about to experience a Pandemic.  If Covid-19 escapes isolation attempts and rages across the world it may cause a million deaths - or two million - or three  ?  Very distressing for the loved ones of those who die but really of little consequence in a now overcrowded world of seven billion people.

What is far more frightening is the prospect of economic upheaval that may change the ordered world we live in - forever.  Our world is now integrated in what we call " globalization ".  China has emerged as the world's workshop and its Communist rulers have clamped down on movement to try and stop the spread of the disease.  Even a slowdown of exports out of China is going to affect manufacturing  jobs in the rest of the world.  Attempts to stop the spread of this disease seem likely to trigger something even more fearful - a world recession.

China is an enigma we in the west do not fully understand.  When Chairman Mao won the civil war he installed a Communist state that killed millions with famine and his disastrous " great leap forward . This was followed by the disaster of the " Cultural Revolution " and finally China got a reprieve under Deng and adopted a Capitalist economy within a Communist state.  Its people live under a totalitarian regime but can amass wealth and travel the world.  How they would react to unemployment is a nightmare that scares their Communist masters.

Here in the west we have seen billions wiped off our stock exchange.  That will flow on to superannuation funds that will reduce retirement incomes.  We face the prospect of huge numbers of retired people having to reduce living standards and move to the age pension.  That impact on government finance will be felt across all stratas of society.

Perhaps the greatest impact of a world recession will fall on the food supply,. A great many countries now have a population that exceeds the ability of its agricultural resources to meet their food needs, and this comes at a time when agriculture is under threat from a hotter, drier world caused by global warming.  Countries that rely on imports to feed their citizens face fierce competition for dwindling world supplies.

That is a depressing scenario unfolding before our eyes and it is not caused by a pandemic, but by world efforts to prevent a pandemic. Because Covid-19 originated in Wuhan it is China that is isolating person to person contact.   The curtailing of jobs in China will have an ongoing effect across the entire world.  The thought of a Pandemic sweeping the world may be delivering more harm than the actual disease can impact in its worst form.

The impact with which we measure a Pandemic is the Spanish Flu that swept the world in 1918/19.  It is estimate that it killed about two percent of the world population at that time.  The world today has very different logistics.  It is possible that attempts to provide a shield against Covid-19 could deliver an economic disaster that is felt many decades into the future.

It seems to be a case of being very careful about what we wish for !