I am torn on this question and would like to hear more opinions about it.

Whilst I think it could tank markets/economy further, I also think people tend to vote for incumbents in times of crisis (war, outbreak, etc).

Thoughts?

idk. anybody who says they can say this is going to be one way or the other regarding the virus, regarding the markets, regarding the election...i dont see how anyone can tell. i will say i dont see how a downturn or a crash in the markets can be good for trump. but markets can comeback, maybe this is a seasonal thing...idk man.

Very hard to say.

Trump will get some mud on him but there's rarely much electoral gain from pointing the finger and it can easily backfire. As you say, in a crises people want unity and safety which puts the opposition in a very awkward place of supporting the government or risk being seen as trying to gain from the crises by scoring political points.

Probably worst for trump if it's not too serious a crises but lingers so that people get fed up with the whole thing more than scared by it.

btw: in case you're unaware TS isn't allowed to post here so some of the political discussion will inevitably remain in the business thread.

Remains to be seen.

That said the virus right now isn't looking like something a developed economy and modern system of healthcare can't contain or handle.

Still, that doesn't mean you can't bungle it up and make things worse. The leader of the US lying about the number of infected and telling people there is nothing to worry about is fairly horrifying. Plenty of people (elderly, people with health conditions) have something to worry about, and an informed populace would better protect them. Even some healthy people can require substantial health treatment to escape unscathed if infected, so the president should speak the truth.

But Trump has an extremely powerful party apparatus supporting him. He has a history of violating norms, laws, being corrupt and making stupid mistakes and lying about it all - but he's still very popular with his voting base as this apparatus stands firmly behind him. And it is a voting base that actually bothers to vote, something democrats struggle with.

Why do you think this? What are your assumptions?

Agreed, but the US may have a lot of problems with it.

I'm basing my very much layman assessment on the situation in South Korea. It is certainly serious, but as of right now it seems manageable. The death ratios have not risen to the % we see in China. However, I'm certainly no expert and could very well be wrong.

Sources I've read is WHO articles and Q+A, my country's National Health Institute information pages and a national independent research think-tank who has conducted Q+A with experts.

I'm not downplaying the threat of the disease. It is a dangerous one. If you have pre-existing conditions or are older it can be very dangerous, and those people should be protected as well as we can. Some healthy people will can also be hit hard enough to die (per WHO Q/A), and hospital care might be required in many cases. You can also get unlucky and get it together with something like pneumonia, which would be very dangerous.

Biggest way this could affect the election is if one of the lead candidates gets it. Especially if they die.

I don't see that happening as it really only kills the elderly and those with medical issues

Savage.

it's interesting........

obviously, at some first level, the virus isn't trump's fault. the economy will probably tank if it goes on much longer. but voters might give trump a pass on the virus killing the economy. or maybe not.

of course, trump takes credit for everything good that happens, even though most of it isn't directly related to him. so i think he should take the blame for this too. fair's fair

I've listened to virologists and epidemiologists (i.e. "experts") being interviewed on television. The fact that the incubation period - the time between contracting the virus and initial symptoms appearing - is two weeks. This means that people with coronavirus will be "spreading it around" before they realize they're sick, so those individuals are likely to infect many more people. When awareness of this virus was first becoming evident in China, a [CDC?] virologist ran a simulation which predicted that "millions" of people would be infected. (I wish I could recall the source who conducted this simulation, but he claimed that statistics - to this point - are confirming the results of his simulation.) With each infected person infecting two other people, (during the incubation period), it won't take that many days for this to become a real problem.

Not sure about this, but wasn't the very first confirmed case of coronavirus in China reported in mid-January? (For some reason I seem to recall the first mention of this - in the media - around January 16th, but I could be wrong.) If coronavirus has been spreading since mid-January, (and each person who contracts it will spread it to two other people), I haven't done the math; but it seems to me that the number of infected people should now be fairly large.

Adding to this is the fact that there is not an effective vaccine. Dr. Anthony Fauchi - and other experts - are saying that a "safe" vaccine won't be available for [at least] 12 months, so the only effective way to fight this disease in the short run is prevention - as in washing your hands and wearing face masks.

Maybe (hopefully) this is not as bad as people are fearing, but there's certainly the potential that this could get a lot worse - especially if some of the more dire "simulations" turn out to be accurate. The fact that the stock market is dropping like a rock is an indication that the more gloomy assessments may be right. The big players on Wall Street have better access to information than you or I. It's their job to accurately assess the [financial] impact of events like this. (It's called risk analysis.)

When the "Masters of the Universe" are panicking and selling, it's an indication that we may have a real problem.

I'm just not sure how they can keep campaigning in the traditional way if there is widespread illness across the country. All those rallies, close quarters, shaking hands... seems like a terrible idea, especially for the candidates who are all in their 70s.

revots33:

The answer to that one is pretty simple. As soon as the first candidate - or any politician for that matter - is diagnosed with coronavirus, all the others will cancel all their rallies (and public appearances) and immediately start doing all their "campaigning" via television and social media. If a politician dies from the virus, you can bet all other pols will immediately cease shaking hands and kissing babies!

5D chess move would be for one of the trailing candidates to cancel all rallies and go off on the other candidates for helping to spread the coronavirus.

This doesn't seem insignificant to me should the virus really get out of hand and end up killing hundreds of thousands of people. Given that it kills old people at like ten times the rate it kills young people, and old people skew significantly toward Trump, it's possible it kills off or incapacitates enough people in swing states to sway the election.

A counterpoint is that the virus is likely to kill people in cities at a higher rate (due to high transmission rates in cities), and people in cities vote more Democratic. That's harder to gauge though.

Both of these scenarios obviously require huge death numbers that a lot of experts are saying are possible, but that we haven't seen anywhere. My prediction is that in late summer, Richard Simmons will come out of hiding and run as an independent and win with a slight plurality.

If there is an outbreak, then I would hope it adds another talking point to dispel the delusion of American health care exceptionalism. For example, researchers can compare the effectiveness of quarantine and medical procedure in Canada, where BC has tested more people for corona than the entire USA, and see what pops out.

In reality the issue will likely just be partisan between those wanting medical care for all, and those blaming the chinese/iranians with bonus allusions to depraved dog-eating ways.

So I would say unlikely to effect the general election, but could have some effects to the democratic nomination.

Somebody needs to make some Feel the Bern? masks.

Well if Bernie dies from it then yes it will affect the election.

NonSS:

I know you made that quip with tongue planted firmly in cheek, but I'm already encountering people who - out of an abundance of caution - are preferring not to shake hands. Because of their constant contact with "voters" - who expect to have their hands shook and a "selfie" taken with the candidate - these politicians are at much greater risk than the average citizen.

It's not hard to imagine there are some pretty intense discussions going on in the campaigns between the candidate and his/her top advisers. As soon as a pol is diagnosed with the coronavirus, I suspect those "discussions" will get much more intense.

Consider this [remote?] possibility. We get down to September/October when the two parties have selected their President/Vice Presidental nominees and it's time for the Presidential debates. If either candidate has contracted the virus, our "President-Elect" could win the election but be dead before inauguration day! (I suppose the real question will be whether Trump refuses to shake hands with his opponent since he's such a germ-o-phobe anyway.)

An Indication of How Bad Coronavirus Could Get …

According to this article:

https://apnews.com/00d9680372ff4945449f670c10a88fe9

thus far (worldwide) 85,000 people have contracted the virus with 2,900 deaths. Doing the math, that's a mortality rate of 3.4 percent. If the disease continues spreading and the mortality rate holds steady at 3.4 percent, we get over 1,000,000 deaths if 30,000,000 people are infected. That's probably a worst-case scenario. I hate to think of it getting any worse than that, but the numbers to this point are already disconcerting enough and nobody knows when this virus will be brought under control.

Economist Mark Zandi (on CNBC) stated that this virus is "a real threat" to Trump's re-election giving the odds that this public health problem can sink him at "at least 50-50" and a recession "hard to avoid" if the spread of the virus is not brought under control. If people start staying home and avoiding contact with other people, Mr. Zandi could wind up being prescient.

.......................................

it killed 50 million people worldwide

hopefully our skill and knowledge are so much greater now so something like this cannot happen again - but who knows?

Kansas hospital in 1918:



temporary hospital set up in Mass. in 1918:





https://www.washingtonpost.com/histo...navirus-trump/

Skill and knowledge goes a long way of course, but running water and access to soap will probably do even more.

But it's a brutal reminder that the repeated cycle of defunding health organs who specialize in these things is a bad idea. That is not a dig at Trump. It's a dig at the short-term memory that often plague our politics. Give us a period of fewer problems and few bats an eye when such agencies are defunded.

As a more general observation, perhaps many of these Corono-threads could be joined into one. I suspect a lot of people will make the same points.

Someone watched the outsider last night on hbo....

Former CDC Director: Kids May Be "Secret Carriers" of Coronavirus

https://nypost.com/2020/03/02/ex-cdc...irus-carriers/

More worrisome news … If children can carry this virus and show no symptoms, Dr. Friedan may well be right: It will be nearly impossible to contain. I suppose the real question now is just how widespread this becomes. We haven't had a reported case (yet) in my state, but I think there was a reported case in Tennessee - literally right next door. (I'll know it's real when I see people walking around wearing face masks.)