5 ms·
The market seems to be reacting to this. Hard to tell how serious it really is relative to the flu, but would not be surprised if China was underplaying the num
by tempsy 7y ago
The market seems to be reacting to this. Hard to tell how serious it really is relative to the flu, but would not be surprised if China was underplaying the numbers, both infected and deaths.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- iscrewyou 7y agoI’ve been seeing containment numbers rising in the millions on the front page of NYTimes. In the morning it was 20 million. Then hours later it was mid 20s. It increased after that again. And now I’m reading 35 million. So, there’s a good possibility that China might be underplaying the infected and death numbers.
- netsharc 7y agoThe numbers in the millions are the population affected by city-wide quarantines, where trains/long distance buses have been stopped from coming or leaving...
- catalogia 7y agoIf the quarantine is indeed growing rapidly, that might suggest that Chinese officials are receiving updated information about the scope of the disease that prompts them to expand the quarantine. A growing quarantine seems to suggest they believe the disease is not yet contained.
- nikofeyn 7y agoif you have even a modicum of knowledge of china, you will understand why certain cities were shutdown. saturday is new year's day in china, and thus, thursday and friday are the two busiest travel days of the year. it's like thanksgiving and the related travel in the u.s. but on a whole other level. since wuhan, where the outbreak originated, has a population of around 10 million, the city and two surrounding cities were closed down to prevent the, then upcoming, exodus and intake of millions of people, a percentage of which would be infected or would potentially become infected and then would return to their origin city, further spreading the virus.
- handedness 7y agoI would not be surprised by that at all. Every Asia-focused analyst will tell you that the only aspect of China's state-reported numbers you can assume with a high degree of confidence is that they're heavily massaged for PR purposes.
- sterlind 7y agoOfficial numbers yes, but sometimes behavior leaks. What are wealthy/well-connected Chinese businesspeople and officials doing? Maybe there's some insider trading or money moving that could shed light on the real situation?
- bobthepanda 7y agoIIRC people used to look at things like electricity and energy use to determine real Chinese GDP growth, but I would imagine this has become less useful as the Chinese economy transitions away from heavy polluting industry and towards higher energy efficiency.
- handedness 7y agoThat transition is still a ways off.
- seanmcdirmid 7y agoThat is actually called the Li Keqiang index. Unfortunately, Li Keqiang has been mostly sidelined by Xi Jinping.
- yorwba 7y agoSometimes it's also possible to draw inferences by observing how the numbers were massaged. For example if you look at the red graph of confirmed cases at [1], there's a very noticeable jump from 1-17 to 1-18. Coincidentally, the third session of the 13th Hubei Provincial People's Congress concluded on January 17. [2] [1] https://3g.dxy.cn/newh5/view/pneumonia https://3g.dxy.cn/newh5/view/pneumonia [2] http://en.hubei.gov.cn/news/newslist/202001/t20200119_2006424.shtml http://en.hubei.gov.cn/news/newslist/202001/t20200119_200642...
- 14 7y agoEven if the numbers are skewed it is already really bad imo. From my quick search at this point the virus seems to have a 4% mortality rate. The number of infections are low at this point and the spread is slow. But if my city of 35,000 people had this blast through the city and it got out of hand and only 1000 people caught it that is still 40 people statistically could die. 40 people suddenly dying in my small town would be a huge tragedy. The grief and loss would be immeasurable. I really hope this can be stopped quickly because I too question if the numbers are being downplayed and that would make the numbers even scarier.