Hi, I'm Tom Field senior vice president editorial with information security media group having a corona virus update discussion here My pleasure to be speaking again with Regina Phelps the founder of emergency management and safety solutions Regina Thanks so much for speaking to me again on such short notice It's such a question to talk to you anytime Regina It's been I think two weeks since the last time we spoke and since then my understanding is corona virus infections have jumped to over 75,000 now we've had over 2,000 deaths attributed to it. What did the numbers say to you? You know that is such a great question and it sounds so simple and yet It's so complicated and let me explain so the case state fatality rates still remains low So if you do the traditional math and did you take the depth and you divide it by the number of known cases? It's around 2.3% and so you would look at it and say well Gosh, you know the case fatality rate is certainly much higher than influenza But much lower than SARS which was 8 to 10% and certainly much lower than MERS Which is about 35% but yeah, there's a lot it's unknown And so if you look at the scientific literature right now and you look at medical researchers There's a lot of angst and primarily because we really don't know first of all if the case count is accurate We don't really know if the death count is actually accurate And so if you were to ask a scientific researcher who's an epidemiologist They would throw up their hands saying it's way too early to tell and I guess the short answer of that Tom Is that we won't really know in so many weeks or another month or so has gone by and we can really begin to see significant trending The big issue I would say is that we will know if we really have a problem If you start seeing sustained human-human transmission in areas other than China So we're seeing that in Singapore right now Oh, we've seen it in Thailand, but not so far in other countries If you start seeing sustained human-human transmission in other locations around the world, then that will be the big indicator that we have a big problem Regina again since we spoke last Apple has come out as the most public example of an enterprise that is impacted by its supply chain What other signs do you see economically of impact from coronavirus?
So there's actually quite a few and if you peel it back is probably four areas that you can look at first of all In general the Chinese for the most part has stopped buying things and the thing about them stopping buying things in particular luxury goods are being hit really hard And you're already seeing we've a ton blueberry and other big high-end vendors saying, you know We're gonna probably end up we forecasting our numbers for the quarter because they're seeing a dramatic drop in purchasing The second is in banking in China. So there's already been one bank that is actually defaulted That's the first bank in China over 20 years and this is reported in Bloomberg There are many other banks in this article that talked about the fact that there could be more a default and that would be weakening of the Chinese economic system in general The third thing is really in supply chain disruptions And so there's lots of issues in many markets so clients of ours that are in many many many different retail retail in particular That are very concerned about their ability to receive product from China anything from retail and hardware to things such as retail and clothing And then lastly is that retailers are already right now today working on Christmas I know it's hard for us to believe because it's February and Christmas seems a long way off But they're already doing all of their designing they're already trying to find out who's gonna be the beggars that are gonna be making these products Well, many of those vendors still close or just barely opening and they're still really operating in a very low capacity So what's gonna happen to retailers all over the world and buy from China for a holiday season? Which right now is what they're gonna be doing Regina already globally. We've seen the mobile world Congress cancel over this year We've seen minor attrition from the upcoming RSA conference and there have been other events that have postponed or canceled Do you believe that that organizers are overreacting to what they're saying?
I think it's really hard to say and let me explain what I'm really getting at First of all, of course, we're not seeing any human human transmission in the United States So we I just had our case count by the way And the United States increased the 29 today and that's finally because of the people from the cruise ship So they've actually moved back home But the thing is that if you're going to RSA or you're going to any other conference that has a large international component to it Then you have to save yourself. Okay, great. I'm going to this conference. I'm gonna be surrounded by people I have no idea where they've been or where they came from and who they sat next to when a plane And so that's the first thing that people might really pause a little bit about it is a large number of international attendees Then an employer might say, okay, great.
How many people do I have in my information security group for example at RSA and when they come back Should they just come back back to work? Should we make it to stay home for a few days if you have the feeling and so in a small Organization that possibly has a small number of individuals who are in their information security group The question the company might say is it worth the risk even though there is to be really small for us to send folks out to a conference And I guess the best example I would give you is this There was the British guy who actually started his travel They went to Singapore to a conference that conference is attended by about a hundred people one of them happened to be from Who non-China he left that conference and as you might know the story goes he went to the French Alps He stayed in a chalet with nine other people. He infected all of them in that location He then and that's one of several of those people to first other countries where they ended up accepting other people such as Germany and Spain Then he went back home to the UK. He wasn't seeming very well But before he was the doctor he fought by a pub a few beers and infected several people in the pub before he actually went to have His test done and then he was determined to be coronavirus positive He actually was probably what we would call a super spreader right?
He was able to accept a large number of people just by being in contact with him So he went to one conference with a hundred people and so you'd have to get yourself if I'm going to risk it We're going to a conference and I don't know if they're overreacting or not But I think that's a real personal decision that every company would need to make in any person attending any conference with a large International component to it. Well, and that's exactly you've just described RSA conference We'll have 40 something thousand people there from around the world. So relevant to attend to the event What questions did he need to be asking this week before they travel? So first of all, I think they need to be first of all thinking about you know What kind of events am I gonna go to what kind of proximity I'm I gonna be to be people I've been to RSA It's you know there's tons of people there your close proximity.
So the question is just think about your strategy when you go So let's say you're gonna get the plane. You're gonna go great I've been flying around a lot since the coronavirus picked up. How can you be smart on the plane? So let's just talk first of all about the airport for a moment These are based on some recent studies that were just released And if you're a germaphobe your ship might be plug your ears because this is gonna make you crazy So when you go to the airport actually the most dangerous thing you're gonna touch is actually the touch screen at any self check-in They have a tremendous number of what are called cubic square inch germs on a device They're about 12 times dirtier than your kitchen sink The next thing you should be thinking about is that when you get on the plane What's the next dirty thing you could run into and it actually is the bathroom and there's a couple things you want to think about We go to the bathroom.
You want to drink a lot of water on the plane, so you're well hydrated So it's like a bathroom is a good thing, but be smart So for example the door knob that you touch that goes to the bathroom Mmm, really dirty the other really dirty thing is a flush button in the laboratory So think about you go to the bathroom you push the button you want to wash your hands really really really really Well, and then you want to use a new clean towel to open the door to the bathroom and to close the door to the bathroom And you want to get rid of that towel immediately so from that point there You're actually in better shape But there's also been studies even about the actual waiting rooms inside your port so the arms are never cleaned on shares You might be sitting in the terminal So you want to be thinking about that as well as even the button that you push to get water out of the fountain And then lastly there's a tray table that also is a pretty journey spot of a plane as well So why you're on the plane why you're in the airport be smart wash your hands a lot very hand sanitizer If you're going to be in a plane and you are around anybody is coughing because of course you don't know that in advance You should be carrying it probably a one or two surgical now if anybody is coughing within two rows of you There's been several studies that have documented that is a high likelihood that you could be infected with whatever that person is That's a blue season. So it probably is a flu, but maybe it's not but I actually put on a map twice in the last month in Your plane simply because people were coughing and hacking around me and now So primarily good for to protect yourself and those kind of situations with close proximity or to go on somebody who's sick So they have a tendency to then decrease the transmission to others and then lots of I'd be carrying hand sanitizer in my pocket So I could keep my hand as clean as possible Virginia I've heard people talk about at events that they're going to refrain from hand shaking for instance Should we have different RSA or any upcoming event? So I mean your hands are like a dirty thing in the universe, right? I know we look at our hands like wow they look great I frankly would be very inclined to say I'm not gonna shake your hand just because of you know There's a lot of bugs going around and not make a big deal out of it I've tried to really not shake anybody's hands and be honest with you in the last month So a couple things if you're engaged with the conversation with people it's not saying you should not be social You should not be talking to people I frankly would probably just resist shaking anybody's hand and just say hey You know there's a lot of germs going around just gonna not shake anybody's hands Blue seasons and bad this year.
Secondly, I would say as I would hear a hand sanitizer in my pocket If I was at RSA and I would just be in every once in every 15 minutes or something I have a walk in the one booth to the next booth or I'm talking to another person I just put some on my hand every time you walk by that and stop and we'll wash your hands But in the last thing I'd like to share with your guests which is super important in this area is stop touching your face Which by the way Tom is really hard Most people touch their face on an average of 18 to 20 times an hour And every time you touch your face you need to think about what's on your hands Because those viruses those germs that are on your hands can easily crawl to a couple of different places Your nose and you breathe it in your lungs so you can remember things of your eyes or your mouth Again, you inhale it or you get it into your eyes and just again a great conduit to your blood system Don't not do things but I would just ask your listeners to be smart Bridget as we head toward march what metrics do we need to be watching? I know it's easy to go to CNN or somewhere else and see how many infections today. How many deaths What are the metrics that really matter? So I would say there's a couple things so for example the holland america ship that was just stopped in Cambodia They let everybody off of that ship.
They went all over up now 10. They went all over the country. There's some some people still there There are many people that went home that was thought to be an okay saying at the time because there was nobody that was known to be infected But now there's been several passengers that actually tested positive for the coronavirus aeration and addict they were on that ship So you can kind of see go back to my example of the British guide and infected a bunch of people The idea is that we could have a situation that starts in Cambodia that could actually skyrocket because those people have gone all over the world So I would be really interested to watch that the second place I think we need to be very attentive to is Africa Africa has a very large population of Chinese that are moving back and forth between mainland China and Africa primarily because of all the infrastructure projects that China's financing in almost every country in the continent of Africa So that's huge migration of Chinese back and forth and with that could be the disease in some fashion The downside about that is that for the most part Africa has a you know a really limited infrastructure and a very challenged health care system And many individuals have limited access or no access at all to health care in Africa So it's one of the places that the World Bank and folks like the Gates Foundation are scared to death that that takes off there because there could be a large number of deaths in cases Simply because their system is not really designed to support it And then to that final point would be again To stay in human human transmission in other places other than mainland China and we start to see that things could really kick off I have seen estimates of you know a million people I've seen estimates of hundreds of millions of people and again It depends on which model you're looking at and I'm not professing one is better than the other I just think that there's a lot of different variances about how people are looking at this and we just have to be as smart as possible So in saying that to your listeners, I would say first of all, don't panic don't stop doing things in your life But just be smart if you're gonna go to RSA have a great time think about how you can do it in a healthy and A way that will minimize your chance of getting an infection But frankly, I would say that as you go about your daily life wherever you live anywhere in the world Well said Regina is always I appreciate your time your insight. I suspect we'll be talking again soon Thanks a lot.
Thanks. Great. Talk to you always we've been talking about the coronavirus I'm speaking with Regina Phelps founder of emergency management and safety solutions for information security media group. I'm tom field.
Thank you very much