As the director of an industrial parts supplier in Toronto, Mr Richter does a lot of business in China. This month, he was scheduled to visit several Chinese cities to conduct quality-control assessments and meet with local partners.
Almost all of the 24 respondents voted for"cancel" or"postpone." A few days later, Air Canada made the debate moot, cancelling flights to China, including the one Mr Richter had booked. But he had already decided that the trip was not worth the hassle. On Friday , Delta Air Lines, United Airlines and American Airlines cancelled all their flights to China, and the Trump administration said it would place restrictions on travellers, giving companies no choice but to postpone business trips.
For the last couple of days, Mr Bernard has been debating whether to go. On one hand, he does not want to be the person responsible for introducing a deadly virus in Nigeria. On the other, he needs to make business contacts in China, where fabric is"cheaper and cheaper and cheaper and cheaper," he said."I don't want to be contaminated," Mr Bernard said. But"with the face masks and the nose masks and a lot of warnings, I'm going to be protected.
"The much larger role of China in the global economy versus 2003 implies much greater global spillover risks," economists at JPMorgan wrote in a research note Friday. "If you're working on a fairly significant deal, you need to be in the room, looking the guys in the eyes," Mr Payne said."It's just going to put more time into it, and time is money."