Coronavirus -- What is going on?
Coronavirus? What's that got to do
with real estate?
Real estate depends on money, or lack of it. People on
lock-down aren't working, so they aren't getting paid. It
doesn't take a genius to work out that mortgage payments are
going to take a hit. And what mortgage company is going to
offer new mortgages while this nonsense is carrying on?
The property market is going to stall.
Okay, what is going on?
I have no doubt that coronavirus is not nice, and it kills
people, but can we try and cut through the hysteria and get
some sense into all this.
I am writing this towards the end of March 2020, and I have a
set of figures in front of me. I assume they are at least
roughly correct.
Apparently the number of confirmed cases worldwide is a
smidgeon over 277,000. Deaths are just under 11,500. Let me
also give you the US figures (the US is the most statistically
efficient country on the planet). Confirmed cases: 20,227;
deaths 279.
Now look at the figures for normal flu (the figures are for
2018). Number of deaths 6,515.
I do not remember any outburst of hysteria in 2018 over those
deaths, so can someone explain the current bout of hysteria?
Disease and death are ever present. We don't like it when
loved ones die. In my own case my partner of 37 years died
nearly two years ago. I was a nervous wreck for some time, but
you can't live like that. We all cope one way or another. So
let's ask a question.
At what stage, either as a country, or as a planet, do we
panic?
In 2013 there were 1.25 million road traffic deaths globally.
I dont recall any panic due to suggestions that we stop using
cars to prevent the waste of life.
Politicians have a duty to safeguard the population that has
entrusted them with their care. That duty includes an
important one: not to induce panic or hysteria. How then can
we interpret the response of president Macron, and even the
very strange statement of Angela Merkel that more than 80% of
Germans will contract Covid19?
Surely the responses of both persons were highly
irresponsible. In fact Macron's could even be regarded in part
as funny. He wants to restrict people entering France from
England because the English are not reacting hysterically.
France has nearly 13,000 people confirmed infected whereas the
UK has just under 4,000. It would seem that matters should be
reversed. The UK should be restricting access to the French
who are obviously not getting their response right.
So, a question needs to be answered.
After the appalling set of figures in 2013 for road deaths,
why was there not a world-wide attack on the car?
After the appalling set of figures in 2018 for flu deaths, why
was there not a world-wide lock-down on commerce and movement?
I could get even more near the knuckle. These figures are for
2017 (US). Over two million cases of sexually transmitted
diseases. Just think what that is doing to the hospital
system. At what stage do the state police put cameras in the
bedroom, and behind the shrubbery?
But more importantly, why is there a planet-wide lock-down
when deaths from Covid19 are a mere bagatelle compared to
those previous examples?
How about another question? At what stage do you put the
planet on lock-down, causing massive havoc, putting businesses
at risk, and putting whole swathes of the population out of
work?
Please give me an answer. Is it when one person dies? Ten
people? A hundred? Or, as in the case of the UK, 177?
You tell me.
I'm not a great lover of conspiracy theories but tell me with
a straight face that something funny isn't going on.
Who's going to pay for all the wreckage, and how?
Oh yes, and just as important: Why?