Monday appeared to be the precursor of what is to come from the Covid-19 global outbreak as the number of global cases reached 80,000.

Officials in northern Italy confirmed 240 new cases of the coronavirus as the government struggled with containment. Milan’s Fashion Week had many events canceled and Venice shutdown its annual Carnavale celebrations over fears of larger outbreaks.

As I wrote yesterday, there is a very good chance that the Tokyo Summer Olympic games will be cancelled as this virus, which the World Heath Organization refuses to label a pandemic, rages across the globe.

According to Italian estimates Milan has the highest number of Chinese immigrants in Italy at 320,000 because of the high-end apparel and luxury goods industries being centered there. The US consulate in Milan has temporarily halted issuing visas.

I was in Venice three years ago for Carnavale and recall eating lunch on the Grand Canal when a Chinese travel group came over a bridge. You could not see the size of the group before hand but there must have been 500 tourists marching behind the leader and it was quite starting to my family at the time.

Also on Monday global equity markets finally awoke to the idea that Covid-19 will have much bigger global economic ramifications including recession as South Korean and  Chinese shipping ceases. US stock indices sold off hard with 3.5% loses on the larger exchanges. US exchanges a seeing a dead-cat bounce in the futures market on Tuesday.

South Korean officials say they expect to lock down the fourth largest city in the country with 2.5 million citizens quarantined.