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A comment on Ask HN: Why is there a chip shortage?. Parent comment

Re:Ask HN: Why is there a chip shortage? by capableweb on Monday January 03, 2022 @10:23AM (#29781607)
There has been 5,443,453 deaths from COVID-19 so far, with no end in sight. Just counting the deaths, that's a pretty large impact from something that just appeared two years ago. Not to mention the psychological impact the pandemic has on humans, which is even more than just counting the deaths. This is why productivity is falling off a cliff. Everything changed underneath our feet and people are starting to feel the long-term effects of having a virus lurking around every corner.
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Re:Ask HN: Why is there a chip shortage? by martin_a on Monday January 03, 2022 @10:30AM (#29781685)
To add to this: Even if you're not killed by Covid, infections will usually result in you being quarantined for two weeks (speaking of 2020 numbers) which created HUGE problems with DHL for example. There were simply no drivers for all their trucks to get stuff moving around (in Germany e.g.). This had a huge impact on logistics, for example.
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Re:Ask HN: Why is there a chip shortage? by akimball on Monday January 03, 2022 @04:43PM (#29787371)
Accounted deaths are a fraction of actual. The Economist used a pretty good model to estimate 15.3mm excess deaths globally back around November
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Re:Ask HN: Why is there a chip shortage? by rubidium on Monday January 03, 2022 @10:45AM (#29781862)
Perhaps… but has nothing to do with the chip shortage.
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Re:Ask HN: Why is there a chip shortage? by vineyardmike on Monday January 03, 2022 @03:33PM (#29786419)
I'm sure no one in the chip industry died (or got sick). And no one in an industry that supplies chips. And no one in an industry that buys chips. And no one in a service industry that services the employees of the above industries.

/s.

Its global. Its everywhere. Every industry will have impact simply due to huge disruptions to everyone. Tons of people got died, and many more got sick, and subject to lockdowns, and saw their purchase patterns change (eg. toilet paper). Directly, the IC industry changed when people had to purchase laptops and monitors and webcams for their at-home employees. That is a huge surge in demand that was a 1-time thing, but all those office supply orders are still depressed, so anyone making things has to re-tool their factory.

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Re:Ask HN: Why is there a chip shortage? by capableweb on Monday January 03, 2022 @10:46AM (#29781883)
How can you be so sure about that? COVID, either by first-order effects or by second-order effects, is affecting almost everything in the world right now, why not the chip shortage too?
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