In my opinion Coronavirus itself will be a non-event in the end. Here is my thesis about it:
1. Global policies are much more immediate and proactive after similar incidents since the 2000s and SARS. Within a few weeks many governments, airlines and corporate offices have closed/taken measures to stop the spread. Yes this has short term impacts, but it is a much more aggressive response in general, which is for the greater good (although in my opinion a bit extreme in some cases, eg banning all Chinese travellers to OZ). 2. The research community is also more prepared, the virus genome was sequenced and shared in an unprecendented time with research groups throughout the world. Smart people in biomedicne are working hard on containment and prevention, so it looks like our arsenal will build up much faster than previous incidents. 3. Perspective. As usual, these epidemics (SARS, swine flu, bird flu) sound scary, but are they really? By all measurable means these epidemics are nothing compared to let's say the common influenza, but you don't see the market crashing every time during the flu season. We live on a planet full of life, so these virus mutations are not only common/inevitable, but indeed good for keeping up our population's gene pool on the edge evolutionary speaking. 4. China, for economic and geopolitical reasons, looks and should be more determined to be successful in their response vs let's say the SARS epidemic back in the early 2000s. Of course nobody is invlunerable, but if I had to bet, I'd say they will pour as many resources as needed to avoid a major slump in their economy in the medium and long term.
In many ways these outbreaks are like terrorist attacks: lots of noise in the media, lots of social media posts, but too limited to affect the big picture.
That is not to say that the national/global economy won't see any effects, especially in the short term.
Unfortunately, sentiment is a big driver of economic indices and not everyone has the mental capacity and/or time to do research. So in this era that large parts of the populaton get their news from social media, panic should be expected.
Fortunately, the people who tend to overreact and panic, are the same people who forget a few months later until the next big media story comes up.
