In the case of the 1974 crash, the British stock market did not recover to similar levels until 1987, while the United States took 20 years to make back the ground. Indeed, some social media users have pointed out that the drop in share prices in Britain “since January was the biggest three month drop since the South Sea bubble burst in 1720”. On Thursday, US markets had their worst day since 1987.

“I personally think we're in a global recession right now and the [coronavirus] shock was the tipping point. But going into 2020, the global economy had already slowed significantly,” said Stephen Roach, a professor of economics at Yale University and veteran China watcher.

The market rout continued ominously on Friday the 13th, as Asian shares again reacted badly to US President Donald Trump’s bungled address to the nation on Thursday, in which he shut America’s borders to most European travellers, providing further a blow to global trade and consumption.

Even on top of the real economic slump, the cancellation of sporting events and news that celebrities and sports personalities such as American actor Tom Hanks and Arsenal football coach Mikel Arteta have tested positive will serve to make the virus “more real” to people in parts of the world just waking up to the shock, said Nick Marro, global trade lead at the Economist Intelligence Unit.

Trump stopped short of directly banning European cargo from US shores – although in his televised address he initially said that trade would be affected, leaving aides to frantically issue clarifications – but there will nonetheless be a hit to the flow of goods between the US, the world’s largest economy, and the European Union, the world’s largest trading bloc.

“The US is the largest importer from the European Union but also the largest investor, so restrictions on people-to-people movement between the European Union and US are very important for the European Union economy. The European Union is also the largest investor in the US so it is a bidirectional effect. It is also terrible for the US economy,” said Alicia Garcia Herrero, chief Asia-Pacific economist at Natixis. “Basically we are all heading towards recession.”

“It is absolutely going to have a negative effect on the global economy,” said Phil Levy, chief economist at freight forwarder Flexport and former senior trade adviser to former US president George W. Bush. “When you do these sorts of passenger travel bans, you’re severely cutting air freight capacity, roughly 50 per cent of which is travelling in the bellies of passenger planes.”

“Where do you turn if you’re in an emergency, or to quickly restock if you need to? This is going to hurt that avenue,” Levy added.

The US proceeding into a form of economic lockdown could scupper what many had hoped would be a strong recovery in the second half of 2020, as even though China’s factories are grinding back up to speed, the demand in Western markets is likely to be lagging.

“Containment measures were implemented with a lag, so instead of seeing a V-shaped recovery in the second quarter, we may have to wait until the situation in Europe and the US – the largest sources of demand from Asia – show signs of stabilisation,” said Carlos Casanova, Asia-Pacific economist at Coface.

On a day-to-day basis, however, seasoned economists, traders and logistics operators are struggling to get their heads around the “unprecedented” challenges.

“I don’t know what to say,” read a text message from one Asian-based trader. “I’m hearing funds lost billions in a few days. Commodities look so ugly. I talked to buddies in London and New York, we all are lost.”

Louis Kuijs, head of Asia at Oxford Economics, now issues two global forecasts per month amid the ongoing uncertainty.

“We used to pride ourselves on putting out new forecasts every month for the global economy,” said Kuijs. “But at the moment the development of news is so fast that even a 10-day old forecast is out of date.”

He added that while his latest baseline projection was for global growth, “unfortunately the risks for full-blown recession have increased quite sharply over the last week”.

In New York, Claudio De Ascentiis, a manager at freight company JAS Forwarding Worldwide, said the European travel ban issued by the US was “pretty unprecedented” and that more uncertainty lay ahead.

“The situation will be critical for the next four to five weeks since there is a travel ban and probably more countries will get put into quarantine, the US included,” he said.