The World Health Organization (WHO) has designated the outbreak of the 2019 Novel Coronavirus, dubbed Covid-19 on Tuesday, an international public health emergency. The outbreak is not confined by national borders and increasingly looks like a pandemic, with more than 1,100 people dead and 45,000 infected across 27 countries. Hundreds of Americans have been evacuated from China, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has issued a Level 3 travel warning, advising that all nonessential travel to China be avoided due to the ongoing outbreak.

As a hub for international travel and tourism, South Florida businesses are hardly immune from the economic consequences of this epidemic. Around the world, travel and events have been postponed or canceled and supply chains have been disrupted. For example, 10 percent of the worldwide supply of flat panels for televisions and other electronic devices are manufactured in Wuhan, China (the virus's epicenter), suggesting an imminent impact on electronics manufacturing.