Apple yesterday issued a wider-than-usual sales forecast to reflect what CEO Tim Cook termed “uncertainty” caused by a virus outbreak. Apple is working to mitigate the impact of China coronavirus which is negatively impacting retail traffic, shutting stores, and prompting Apple to limit employees to all but essential travel in China.
Mark Gurman and Ian King for Bloomberg News:
The company is also taking steps to make up for production shortages, particularly in Wuhan, the central Chinese city where the coronavirus originated and home to some of the company’s suppliers, Cook said on a conference call discussing recent results.
“We do have some suppliers in the Wuhan area. All of the suppliers there are alternate sources and we’re obviously working on mitigation plans to make up any expected production loss,” Cook said. “We factored our best thinking in the guidance that we provided you. With respect to supply sources that are outside the Wuhan area, the impact is less clear at this time.”
After an extended Chinese Lunar New Year Holiday, Cook said factories are reopening on Feb. 10, rather than at the end of January. Apple has tried to account for this “delayed start up” through its wider sales forecast, the CEO said. On Wednesday, main iPhone assembler Foxconn Technology Group confirmed all of its facilities will resume full-scale production starting Feb. 10.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple is taking all the right steps to try to lessen the impact of the 2019-nCoV coronavirus outbreak in China which has topped 6,000 cases in China, exceeding the SARS epidemic. The death toll in China from the coronavirus has climbed to 132. Hopefully, the health situation improves ASAP!
weather.com reported this morning that over 15 million Americans have been infected with the flu, with over 8,000 deaths. Makes the coronavirus seem like small potatoes by comparison.
8,000 deaths is a large number — I’m not dismissing that. But 8,000 dead out 15,000,000 infected is a mortality rate of 0.05%. The novel coronavirus currently has a mortality rate of approximately 2.2%; it may end up being a higher percentage as time progresses.
For matters of context, SARS 2003 had a mortality rate of about 10% to 15%. The 1918 Spanish Flu had a mortality rate of 10% to 20% (reporting in those days was not done as accurately as it is now). The Ebola virus has a mortality rate of 60%, though it can be as high as 90% if immediate medical care is not provided.
Thanks for that – I hadn’t considered mortality rate. If a similar 2.2% rate applied to this American flu, it would equate to 330,000 deaths!!
And I here I had thought the Borg were always superb at math!
/s
Once the species is assimilated, mortality is irrelevant
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😉