Essay Sample on Viral Outbreak in China: Wuhan Lockdown & Global Impact

Recently there was a viral outbreak that was strewing so fast in China that it was distracting travel and business there. It was such a serious happening to the extent that major cities in the country with a populace of almost 40 million people were locked down in an attempt to mitigate it. Wuhan, which was mostly affected by the outbreak, is centrally located in the country and is known to be a vital hub for global corporations. It is tiered the 13th among the 2000 Chinese cities due to the several factories and close to 500 amenities in the supply chain database of Bloomberg. Not only is it popular for that, but also statistics show that both European and American based companies have 40 and 44 facilities respectively in Wuhan. The coronavirus is likened to pneumonia which continues to increase the death toll even in other neighboring states such as Singapore. Below is my say about the severity of the economic impact of the outbreak.

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The famous fast food Chicago-based company, McDonald's momentarily had to close its outlets across 5 cities China. Wuhan is one of them. It is of significant note that the corporation has about 3000 joints all over the country. The company took crucial measures to ensure that they suffer very little losses. These preventive measures included issuing its employees with hand sanitizers and taking their body temperatures on arrival at work. Starbucks, without revealing a lot of information to the public, also closed down some of its cafes in the country. Starbucks which is based in Seattle has about 4000 joints in China.

It is of significant importance to note that Walt Disney Company was not an exception in this occurrence. The company was forced to make refunds to its clients who had bought tickets to get into the park and those guests who had already reserved rooms in their hotels. They had to shut down temporarily as they examined the situation in association with the local government. Groupe PSA, popularly known to manufacture Peugeot automobiles were also forced to vacate its 38 emigre employees and their families who lived with Wuhan. That was not the only company in China at the time that was vacating its workers, Honda Motors Company had to send away 30 of its staff and their families. Arrangements were even facilitated by the Japanese government upon request by the owner of the company to use the charter jet for the evacuation.

There a couple of companies, however, that claim not to have felt the effect of the virus. They include Avnet Inc. which is distributed semi-conductors as well as computer products. It is worth noting that it is based in Phoenix but operates in China. The CEO of the company said that the region in which the electronics manufacturing company operated was a meaningful one. But he then added that if the situation was to worsen, it would severely affect the company's shipments out of the country. Additionally, the CEO of American Airlines Group Inc. shared the same opinion. He mentioned though that his company was on top of things in terms of crisis management in such scenarios as they have learned from the past. As much as the viral outbreak had spread even in regions outside the country such as Singapore, Keppel Corporation also claimed to have been unaffected by it. Keppel Corporation is a Singapore-based company, the biggest builder of oil-rig in China. They too claimed to be taking the necessary preventive measures to deal with the situation.

Reference

https://www.bloomberg.com