Every few decades, the people of Earth encounter and collectively suffer from small, yet impactful disease epidemics. During the Roman empire, a devastating disease called The Bubonic Plague, also known as Black Death, was spread by fleas and killed an estimated 25-50 million infected. Recurrences of the disease in mid-1300’s to 1400’s killed a 1/3 of the European population, and again resurfaced in the mid-19th century and killed 80,000 in China alone. Moving to more recent events, the Ebola Virus was a recent disease scare, that sourced from the Dominican Republic of the Congo, and killed 2,200 of the 3,300 infected. The West African outbreak claimed 11,300 lives out of the 29,000 infected in 2014-2015.

Fast forward to 2019-2020, the Coronavirus in China has seen over 40,000 infection cases and claimed the lives of over 1,000 people. The fight against infectious diseases has been an ongoing struggle for our planet and population as a whole. Technological and scientific advancements in the medical industry have helped a great deal to ease the chaos and reduce mass-spread of diseases like these. However, even with all these advancements aiding in the fight of these epidemics, there are many causal effects to the smaller outbreaks like the recent Coronavirus.

Companies like Apple and Amazon have been drastically affected by this disease outbreak in China, directly inhibiting their manufacturing and distribution progress. But Apple, perhaps, stands to lose more than others; Apple relies heavily on manufacturing in China and on Chinese consumers as a key revenue driver. Although many analysts think it's too early to tell just how hard Apple might be hit by the disease, any major or extended disruption could hammer its production and sales in one blow. Apple had been looking forward to a turnaround in China. Last year, slumping demand hit sales numbers, and trade tensions caused uncertainty for its supply chain. But in the three months ending in December, sales in the region returned to growth, thanks in large part to the popularity of the iPhone 11. Other mobility manufacturers like Ericsson and Sony are withdrawing from this year's Mobile World Congress because of the risk that attendees could catch the coronavirus that originated in the Chinese city of Wuhan. CEO Tim Cook said on a call with Wall Street analysts that Apple has closed one retail store and shortened hours at some of the others that remain open. He added that the company is regularly deep cleaning stores that remain open, and is conducting temperature checks on employees to avoid the spread of the virus. But unlike some other retailers, Apple has more to worry about than just its consumer sales. The company's manufacturing — particularly the production of the iPhone — is centered in China. Apple has some suppliers in Wuhan, which is known as a manufacturing hub, and Cook said Chinese officials have delayed the opening of factories in that area from the end of January to February 9th.

And speaking of manufacturing, Elon Musk's Tesla factory in China just got up and running. Now its vehicle production there will be delayed because of the deadly Wuhan virus outbreak. Beijing has taken extraordinary measures to try and contain the outbreak, including placing major cities on lockdown and extending the Lunar New Year holiday. Officials in Shanghai, where Tesla's China factory is located, extended the holiday period from January 30 to February 9.

All of this to say, the struggles against tech giants have been made very apparent and efforts to eradicate this disease have been set as a top priority for China and other affected nations.