DataPoints: Early Warning
As far as I can tell, Megan McArdle is the first to point out that the developing flu story is of serious economic concern, as well.
At first glance, though, this one seems to have gotten pretty good at passing from human to human. A few days after we first hear of it, it's in New Zealand, Hong Kong, Spain, the US. To be sure, we don't have large troop movements from the area of infection, thoughtfully bringing it home with them. Nonetheless, with modern travel, if it is transmissable, it will be nearly impossible to stop. Hong Kong is implementing strong quarrantine measures--but Hong Kong is a small island.
The bright side is that mortality here seems to be a lot lower--nonexistant so far. People living in poorer countries tend to have weaker immune systems for the obvious reasons. And the strain that's arrived here may just not be as deadly as the one still in Mexico.
Still, this seems more worrying than SARS was, and SARS was pretty worrying. And if it gets much bigger, it will deal a heavy blow to an already struggling world economy, because this will have deep impacts on global trade flows.
Didn't take long for the trade impact to materialize, either: The WSJ reports:
Russia banned meat imports from Mexico and several U.S. states, although World Health Organization officials said there is no sign the flu spreads by contact with meat.
