Warren Buffett says pandemic's impact still hard to predict

Investor Warren Buffett said the economic impact of the pandemic remains hard to predict but most big companies have fared OK throughout it as long as they weren't tied to travel

OMAHA, Neb. -- Billionaire Warren Buffett says the one constant throughout the coronavirus pandemic has been that it has been difficult to predict how it would affect the economy, but clearly it has devastated many small businesses and individuals while most big companies have fared OK. “The economic impact has been this extremely uneven thing where I don’t know how many but many hundreds of thousands or millions of small businesses have been hurt in a terrible way, but most of the big, big companies have overwhelmingly have done fine, unless they happen to be in cruise lines or, you know, or hotels or something,” Buffett said in an interview that aired on CNBC Tuesday night. Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway Vice Chairman Charlie Munger touched on a variety of topics during the interview. Munger said China had the right approach to the pandemic by essentially shutting down the country for six weeks. “That turned out to be exactly the right thing to do,” Munger said. “And they didn’t allow any contact. You picked up your groceries in a box in the apartment and that’s all the contact you had with anybody for six weeks. And, when it was all over, they kind of went back to work. It happened they did it exactly right.”