All commerce is shutting down bit by bit, as edicts come down daily from those in authority. We have to ask the question, since it relates strongly to the future of markets, at what point is the risk of shutting down economic commerce greater to the demise of humanity than the virus we hear about? At this point, in the U.S., 340 people have died from the coronavirus out of a population of 331.6 million. That works out to roughly one out of every one million people. There are 13,050 deaths globally from the coronavirus out of a population of $7.8 billion. That is about 1.5 out of every million people. These are the exact same odds as getting struck by lightning. Does this require the complete shutdown of all world economies?

To put this in perspective, there were 12,000 deaths (some estimates are as high as 30,000) in the U.S. last year from the flu. There were roughly 4,500 deaths in the U.S. last year from the common cold (rhinovirus). Was the entire global economy shut down from those diseases? No. Something is different in present situation. But what? The stress put upon humans from the complete shutdown of commerce can weaken immune systems to the point where they are far more susceptible to a myriad of death causing diseases than before. People are recovering who get the Coronavirus. Globally, right now, recoveries outnumbered deaths by a margin of 7.3 to 1. So, what gives?