The Lifestyler on Coronavirus Panic

I happened to visit 3 supermarkets 5 times in the last two days and was amazed to see the empty selves that have been so widely publicised.  Gone was any hint of toilet paper, tissues and hand sanitiser but also no pasta no rice no Panadol etc.  Luckily the LifeStyler did not go in search of toilet paper but you are in big trouble if you are down to your last role. 

The silly thing is you should not be as we manufacturer toilet paper here in Australia and the selves will be restocked every night.  Some people who stocked up will not need to buy any for a year but I am sure they will be back for milk next week.

The lady LifeStyler shared with me a post from Mental Health NZ which leads on from last week’s story about 5 people dying every day in Australia from Skin Cancer.  Some perspective first Australia’s population around 25 million versus China at around 1.4 billion.  Thus there are 56 times more people in China.

On February 10^th China saw one of its worst days for Coronavirus deaths at 108 people (this would be equivalent to less than 2 in a day for Australia).  But on that same day in China 26,283 people died of cancer, 26,641 people died of heart disease, 4,300 people died of Diabetes, indeed 28 times as many people who died from Coronavirus decided to take their own life. Looking at it another way every day in China 700 people set off in a motor vehicle and tragically lost their life.

Now the LifeStyler does not want to pretend that Coronavirus is not an issue and we will see some impact similar to what we have seen from drought and bushfires.  As the boys from the Motely Fool financial advice podcast have talked about why does a hopefully short term issue mean that the long-term prospect of a company’s share price get so effected.

What we will see is less social interaction and more people working from home.  The LifeStyler has some experience here as he has spent a quarter of his working life doing his job for large corporates from his home office.  There are fantastic tools to allow you to work from home and maybe Uncle Trevor can give us some advice on this. Now for some, this is good and for some this is bad.  Some will end up working longer and harder and some will do the washing and watch Netflix.  My word of advice if you want the economy to go south then take it easy and bludge. You might even be rewarded with losing your job.  On the other hand work hard keep spending money and we will all be OK.

One last thing wash your hands and cover your mouth if you sneeze.  As you wash your hands with soap sing happy birthday twice at normal speed (that will kill the germs).  Sneeze into a tissue or your armpit.

In case you were wondering the LifeStyler has plenty of beer and will not need to Panic buy. Cheers!