Since my last post, things have been busy at the Pittsburgh Business Times and, well, throughout the world. The coronavirus is putting a curveball on all of our plans even though at the time I write this there have been no confirmed cases in the Pittsburgh region.
Our health care reporter Paul J. Gough has been been on top of covering it long before most others even realized it was going on. He first mentioned it to me as a concern back in January when stories were starting to trickle out of China about a deadly virus that was spreading from a market there.
But in the last two weeks, with the first deaths reported in the United States and the virus spreading throughout Europe, the impacts our region has seen from the outbreak has grown rapidly, and its clear that this is likely the biggest news event for us this year and the biggest one at least since the Great Recession. It’s also clear that the deadly virus, which has wreaked havoc on many parts of the world, is having a significant impact on local businesses. Events are already being cancelled, business travel at many companies has been halted or scaled back, and all the uncertainty has pushed stocks down and introduced fears of a recession.
I realize now how quiet the last decade was in terms of global events that impacted our region. It does not appear that the 2020s will be so quiet.
The biggest challenge for all of us as journalists is how to cover this and show the impacts without instilling more fear and panic and keeping it all in perspective. At the Business Times, we’ve been looking to cover the story online as we see impacts in the business community, and I’ve added a weekly page in print called “Combating coronavirus: what businesses need to know” that summarizes what we’ve seen. Everything is a moving target right now, so we’ll adjust coverage as it makes sense.
Here are links to just some of the coverage we’ve done in recent weeks – you may notice some of it is more mainstream than what we would normally cover, but this topic is likely to have such a big impact on business here. This is not all of our coverage, but it is interesting to see how it has ramped up from basically one story in January to now several a day and even a couple on the weekends.
Pittsburgh International Airport hasn’t seen any COVID-19 disruptions – yet (March 8)
2 more COVID-19 cases in eastern Pennsylvania (March 7)
SXSW is canceled because of coronavirus (March 6)
Which local stocks were hit worst by COVID-19 scare (March 6)
Highmark and UPMC say they’ll cover the cost of coronavirus testing (March 6)
Governor: Two presumed cases of coronavirus in Pennsylvania (March 6)
American Eagle Outfitters: No near-term supply disruptions due to COVID-19 (March 5)
COVID-19 testing, which had been limited, could expand with more sites coming online (March 4)
Long-term care facilities on alert for coronavirus (March 3)
Pennsylvania now has the ability to test for coronavirus (March 3)
What’s causing a spike in Duolingo’s English test (March 2)
How businesses should prepare for the coronavirus impact (March 2)
Airport steps up cleaning to reduce chance of coronavirus (March 2)
Coronavirus ‘scrambled’ U.S., global economic outlooks, PNC says (Feb. 28)
Pittsburgh companies implement travel restrictions in response to coronavirus threats (Feb. 27)
Mylan: Too early to tell COVID-19 impact (Feb. 27)
PPG announces support for coronavirus relief efforts (Feb. 24)
Pittsburgh lab on front lines of race to find coronavirus vaccine (Feb. 24)
Pitt experts sort out facts from falsehoods with coronavirus outbreak (Feb. 13)
Pitt receives CDC approval to bring coronavirus to Pittsburgh to help develop a vaccine (Feb. 12)
Pittsburgh companies shuffle to keep employees safe in China (Jan. 28)
We’ll continue to cover this as long as it’s having an impact on local businesses. I imagine I’ll have more posts about it here, but I also want to acknowledge that other stories continue. The virus hasn’t hit here, so life for the most part rolls along like normal. That unfortunately may change, but hopefully my next post will be about Women of Influence and not coronavirus.