This is a rapidly evolving challenge which we are all following in the media.
Rather than us adding a huge number of words, I will just point to a couple of things that struck me this morning that are worth knowing:
1. Britain last night ordered ALL people – without exception – aged 70+ to self isolate for 12 weeks. (The virus there is doubling the number infected every five days).
2. France ordered a nationwide quarantine. People can only leave home to shop for food, medicine and to exercise.
3. The US Centres for Medicare & Medicaid Services states that “aged care facilities should restrict visitation of all visitors and non-essential health care personnel, except for certain compassionate care situations, such as an end-of-life situation.” Here in Australia Minister Colbeck has discussed doing this but hasn’t yet.
4. Paul Kelly (pictured below), Australia’s Deputy Chief Medical Officer said last night that the best case scenario is a 20% infection rate or 5 million people which, with a 1% death rate, translates to 50,000 people dying. A moderate scenario is 10 million infections and 100,000 dead; the worst case scenario is 15 million people infected and 150,000 Australians dying.
5. Wall Street plunged 13pc yesterday alone. The S&P 500 is down 27% from its mid-February high.
6. Yesterday was the worst day for losses in the history of the Australian Stock Exchange.The benchmark S&P/ASX200 finished down 9.7%. This eclipsed the 8.3% of 10 October 2008, in the GFC. The index is back to April 2016 levels. All up the ASX200 is down 30.5% since 20 February.
7. Here is the impact on the listed stocks in the retirement and aged care sectors:
LASA has a dedicated coronavirus information resource website - for village operators as well as aged care
This is a great resource. We recommend it to retirement village operators and managers for fact sheets, suggested signage and more.
You can check it out HERE.
