Foxconn says coronavirus will not impact manufacturing, Apple has alternatives ready
Apple manufacturing partner Foxconn on Tuesday said provisions have been made to meet production obligations in China as the region faces a deadly coronavirus outbreak, a situation the iPhone maker is closely monitoring.

The contract manufacturer, responsible for assembling a significant portion of Apple's product line including iPhone, iPad and Mac, in a statement issued today noted its facilities are prepared to fulfill all global orders, Reuters reports.
"We do not comment on our specific production practices, but we can confirm that we have measures in place to ensure that we can continue to meet all global manufacturing obligations," Foxconn said.
According to a live tally from The New York Times, there are nearly 6,000 confirmed cases of a new form of coronavirus that originated in Wuhan, China, as of this writing. The disease has killed 132 people in the region.
In efforts to halt the spread of the virus, China this week extended the Lunar New Year holiday to reduce mass gatherings. Officials hope to stem the tide as millions of people congregate at airports, train stations and other communal areas for necessary travel back to work.
Foxconn, which operates a plant in Wuhan, said its facilities in China are following holiday schedules until all Chinese businesses return to standard operating hours, the report said.
On Tuesday, Apple CEO Tim Cook discussed the potential impact the coronavirus might have on the company during an earnings conference call for the first fiscal quarter of 2020. Fallout from the outbreak has so far been minimal, with one Apple retail store closed and employee travel limited.
The tech giant is bracing for adverse effects, however, as evidenced by an unusually wide revenue guidance range between $63 billion and $67 billion for the second quarter. The $4 billion buffer is directly related to uncertainty surrounding the coronavirus.
"The situation is emerging, and we're still gathering lots of data points and monitoring it very closely," Cook told Reuters.
Apple relies on a number of suppliers located in Wuhan, but has contingency plans in place. Whether Foxconn's plant in the city churns out Apple products is unknown.
"We have alternate sourcing and contingency plans," Cook said during today's conference call. "Factories outside Wuhan are less clear. We are trying to factor in factory re-opening delays into our guidance."

The contract manufacturer, responsible for assembling a significant portion of Apple's product line including iPhone, iPad and Mac, in a statement issued today noted its facilities are prepared to fulfill all global orders, Reuters reports.
"We do not comment on our specific production practices, but we can confirm that we have measures in place to ensure that we can continue to meet all global manufacturing obligations," Foxconn said.
According to a live tally from The New York Times, there are nearly 6,000 confirmed cases of a new form of coronavirus that originated in Wuhan, China, as of this writing. The disease has killed 132 people in the region.
In efforts to halt the spread of the virus, China this week extended the Lunar New Year holiday to reduce mass gatherings. Officials hope to stem the tide as millions of people congregate at airports, train stations and other communal areas for necessary travel back to work.
Foxconn, which operates a plant in Wuhan, said its facilities in China are following holiday schedules until all Chinese businesses return to standard operating hours, the report said.
On Tuesday, Apple CEO Tim Cook discussed the potential impact the coronavirus might have on the company during an earnings conference call for the first fiscal quarter of 2020. Fallout from the outbreak has so far been minimal, with one Apple retail store closed and employee travel limited.
The tech giant is bracing for adverse effects, however, as evidenced by an unusually wide revenue guidance range between $63 billion and $67 billion for the second quarter. The $4 billion buffer is directly related to uncertainty surrounding the coronavirus.
"The situation is emerging, and we're still gathering lots of data points and monitoring it very closely," Cook told Reuters.
Apple relies on a number of suppliers located in Wuhan, but has contingency plans in place. Whether Foxconn's plant in the city churns out Apple products is unknown.
"We have alternate sourcing and contingency plans," Cook said during today's conference call. "Factories outside Wuhan are less clear. We are trying to factor in factory re-opening delays into our guidance."
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https://abcnews.go.com/Health/1300-people-died-flu-year/story?id=67754182
"So far, 8,200 people have died and 140,000 people have been hospitalized during the 2019-2020 flu season, according to preliminary estimates from the CDC."
DBAD...
Earlier reports from Chinese health authorities and the World Health Organization had said the first patient had onset of symptoms on 8 December 2019—and those reports simply said “most” cases had links to the seafood market, which was closed on 1 January.
Lucey says if the new data are accurate, the first human infections must have occurred in November 2019—if not earlier—because there is an incubation time between infection and symptoms surfacing. If so, the virus possibly spread silently between people in Wuhan—and perhaps elsewhere—before the cluster of cases from the city’s now-infamous Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market was discovered in late December. “The virus came into that marketplace before it came out of that marketplace,” Lucey asserts.
"Kristian Andersen, an evolutionary biologist at the Scripps Research Institute who has analyzed sequences of 2019-nCoV to try to clarify its origin, says the 1 December timing of the first confirmed case was “an interesting tidbit” in The Lancet paper. “The scenario of somebody being infected outside the market and then later bringing it to the market is one of the three scenarios we have considered that is still consistent with the data,” he says. “It’s entirely plausible given our current data and knowledge.” The other two scenarios are that the origin was a group of infected animals or a single animal that came into that marketplace."
"Shutting People’s Mouths
Everyone must understand, first of all, that this epidemic was allowed to spread for a period of more than forty days before any of the abovementioned cities were closed off, or any decisive action taken. In fact, if we look at the main efforts undertaken by the leadership, and by provincial and city governments in particular, these were focused mostly not on the containment of the epidemic itself, but on the containment and suppression of information about the disease.
The early suppression of news about the epidemic is now fairly common knowledge among Chinese, and many people view this failure to grapple openly with the outbreak as the chief reason why it was later seen as necessary to take the “dramatic action” of closing down my city and many others."
I realize that you are only responding to increase your Social Score, but that facts are not on your side.