Coronavirus epidemic reveals a world in political crisis
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From the United States to Italy, Iran to South Korea, the coronavirus epidemic is getting worse. The virus spread to its sixth continent this week and continued to send markets whipsawing, with the Dow set for its worst single week since the financial crash of 2008. Governments have issued new rounds of travel bans: Saudi Arabia said Thursday it would temporarily suspend travel to the holiest sites in Islam, months ahead of the annual hajj pilgrimage. The number of cases in South Korea rose to 2,022 on Friday, the highest figure for a single country outside China. Japan announced the closures of all of its schools until early April. And Coca-Cola, along with other multinational companies, said outbreak-linked supply chain disruptions could lead to shortages.
“There is every indication that the world will soon enter a pandemic phase,” Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, whose country has confirmed at least 23 cases of coronavirus, told reporters in Canberra. The emergence of a new sort of coronavirus case in the United States, unrelated to foreign travel or contact with someone already known to be infected, suggested the virus had defied efforts to contain it. President Trump attempted to play down the scale of the threat, even as U.S. officials warned Americans to prepare for a crisis.
Europe is feeling the jitters, too. So far, the largest cluster of cases on the continent has been in northern Italy. “If the virus spreads, and it will spread, I think any local or national politician would have to take very drastic action, and that will virtually halt the economy,” Roberto Perotti, an economist at Milan’s Bocconi University, told my colleagues. “For how long, we don’t know. Can you imagine a [car] factory if there is one case in the factory? Can you imagine it not shutting down? I doubt it.”
Exploiting the political opportunity, a slate of far-right European politicians urged the enforcement of border controls even within the Schengen zone. The open-border area that encompasses much of the continent has long been the target of nativist grievances. In the past, nationalists have inveighed against rules that permit some asylum seekers to land in Greece or Italy and make their way inland over numerous national frontiers.
(TWP)
