Call Me Stormy

Virus Admissions Escalating

Update on the CoronaVirus sweeping China. Sarah Westall of Business Game Changers says 32,000 flu patients were admitted to Chinese hospitals in the Wuhan vicinity on Monday. She derived that figure from her Chinese sources and from Chinese State media. This coronavirus outbreak is a very serious issue and should be taken seriously.

Styxhexenhammer666 urges listeners to engage in a little basic prepping. No, you don’t need to have a full-year’s worth of food in a storm cellar bunker. But it wouldn’t hurt to have a month’s worth of beans, rice, peanut butter, purified water. In other words, the basics to handle any emergency. Otherwise,he discusses some of the latest coronavirus cases of note — the illness that befell a Japanese bus driver and a German businessman. This does look like a disease that could linger quite some time.

The Communist goons who run China are cracking down on citizens who openly discuss the coronavirus. Alternate new sources or people who make videos or Tweets can spend up to seven years in jail for upsetting the communists. The reality is even worse: Many who land in jail will never again see the light of day. They will be beaten, tortured and abused, some even killed, their organs harvested by the brutal Communists. More from Lisa Haven.

CNBC’s “Power Lunch” team discusses the possible economic impact of the coronavirus with Alexis Crow of Price Waterhouse Coopers. The Chinese government has announced it is closing both the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges. The markets are expected to reopen next week, likely on Monday, although that could change if conditions grow worse.

In addition to the stock markets, Google announced it is closing all of its offices in China for the time being.

Given the continued spread of the Wuhan coronavirus, Peak Prosperity urgently reached out to John Barry, author of the award-winning New York Times best-seller The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History.

Two years ago, we interviewed John about the expected implications should a pandemic of similar scale break out in today’s world. Little did we realize at the time how quickly his insights would prove relevant.

John was the only non-scientist to serve on the US government’s Infectious Disease Board of Experts and has served on advisory boards for MIT’s Center for Engineering System Fundamentals and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He has consulted on influenza preparedness and response to national security entities, the George W. Bush and Obama White Houses, state governments, and the private sector.

John remains quite concerned at how the world’s readiness for a pandemic is woefully lacking, exacerbated by the hyper-connectedness of our modern society (i.e., the ease and speed with with people can travel).