After the pandemic, and the chip crisis, and the war in Ukraine, “disrupted” seems to be the default state of global supply chains. But the pandemic isn’t over yet, and a COVID outbreak in China is only making supply constraints worse.
According to shipping analytics firm Windward, 20% of the world’s roughly 9,000 active container ships are currently sitting in traffic jams outside congested ports. Close to 30% of that backlog alone is in China—double the domestic congestion rate in February—where a virulent Omicron wave is snarling supply lines.