Our rat race economy has pushed people to the breaking point and now Coronavirus is exposing these vulnerabilities. Health is more important than money.

Given the news, I now think we are very likely to be headed into a major recession. The virus emergency is a shock to the economy. One big worry is when will this situation end? Social distancing can slow the spread, but until a vaccine is available, one wonders if spread of the virus may just keep picking up as soon as we let our "social distancing" guard down.

There may be better science about curbing the spread of epidemics than my speculation here, but this could be a long term problem. Let's hope warmer weather can help slow the disease season; so to speak.

Health is a real important thing. Without a cure or vaccine we are reliant on our immune systems. This brings up deep questions about our economy, politics and culture. The high stress world has made us more susceptible.

I think our economy has pushed humans to the breaking point. Not only do we have things like global warming stressing the environment, but we, humans are also at the breaking point. Have folks been getting enough sleep or is working more than one job and facing long commutes getting in the way?

Income inequality, along with the constant push for increased prosperity, is taking it's toll. Do people have sick leave, for instance?

Is our economy structured in such a way so we can slow down, at least temporarily, to ride things like this out? I think not. The bills are mounting. This may force us to do some major rethinking of the economy and even our culture. There may be some long term lessons here.

Maintaining one's health is a virtue that has been a bit of a low priority in the past. Maintaining health was not as easy to do while the bills were mounting.

I wonder if life has gotten back to normal, or near normal in places like Singapore that took drastic steps to stop the spread early on? How about China and can we trust information out of China?

The health of our immune systems are (I would think) an important factor in controlling the epidemic. When a vaccine is found, that is basically a boost to our immune systems. Meanwhile we depend on healthy living and things like hand washing. If life does go back to somewhat normal, even without a vaccine, that is encouraging. Otherwise the economy is in for a long slump. A vaccine would cause the stock market to rally, but remember, they still don't have a vaccine for AIDS. This may be different.

This epidemic may push us more toward a cyber, "work from home" economy. Such an economy was predicted during the internet euphoria of the 1990's.