(Bloomberg Opinion) -- First it was the Olympics, and now this!

Apple Inc. might delay the release of its upcoming 5G iPhone by several months because of the Covid-19 pandemic, Nikkei reported early Thursday. To be frank, I don’t think such a decision has yet been made and we still have another month or two before Apple has to finalize a schedule. Apple itself declined to comment, Nikkei reported.

Yet, the current supply chain woes are real and could persist beyond a return to relative normalcy in China, as Mark Gurman and Debby Wu of Bloomberg News outlined last week.

At stake is more than $260 billion in annual procurement(1) by Apple alone, with satellite companies such as makers of accessories, cases, and software also likely to be affected. While the world will be sad about putting so much of regular life on hold including the quadrennial Olympic display of citius, altius, fortius, pushing back the annual iPhone cycle could have an impact that goes far deeper than Apple investors and the devotees who line up at dawn to buy a handset.

In the first few years after its 2007 release, Apple’s iconic smartphone came out in June before a switch to the late September schedule. That regularity gives consumers something to look forward to, and also kindly helps fanboys, tech journalists and analysts plan their vacations.

More importantly, for more than a decade hundreds of thousands of people have relied on the tick-tock rhythm of iPhone releases to make a living. The bulk of them are part of the hardware supply chain in Taiwan, China, Japan and South Korea.

Companies that sell parts for the iPhone are seeing signs that mass production could be pushed out by up to three months, Nikkei reported.

The company has urged suppliers to get back up to speed in China after the Covid-19 outbreak started to dissipate: Foxconn Technology Group, the largest assembler of the devices, expects a return to full capacity by the end of this month.

With a new device, however, the complication isn’t merely in getting rows of workers to stand at a production line.

Humans need to shuttle back and forth — between Cupertino, where Apple is based, and Shenzhen and Zhengzhou, the two major iPhone assembly hubs — to confer on development and manufacturing. The company sends teams around the world whose sole job is to check in with providers of the minutiae: screws, glue, glass, wiring, solder, circuit boards, paint. There are some jobs that simply can’t be done over Zoom.

Not only are thousands of Apple staff in California under shelter-in-place conditions, many who arrive in China would be placed in mandatory 14-day quarantine. Similar restrictions apply for those who travel to other supplier locations, assuming they could get a flight or are even allowed in.