A new coronavirus, which first surfaced in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, has already\u00a0killed and infected across the world, defying global financial markets and politics.<\/p>\n
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Scientists have identified a new kind of\u00a0coronavirus<\/a>\u00a0that\u00a0first surfaced in the central Chinese city of Wuhan. Until January 22nd, it had spread far beyond China’s borders into Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and the United States, with about\u00a0300 identified cases.<\/p>\n What’s worse is that the new coronavirus, which can be transmitted from one person to another, is slamming China in the midst of the Chinese New Year, a significant travel period for the Chinese. And while many unidentified cases, fake news, false, untrue alarms are still plenty, and some sort of containment seems far off, many across the globe are starting to fear a repeat of the 2003 outbreak of SARS, which originated in China, killed nearly 800 people in several countries, and caused a large uncertainty in financial markets.<\/p>\n Behind this paranoia and dubious times, there is a clear political problem surrounding the China controversy with the current outbreak: Containing public health threats depends on the fast, efficient flow of accurate information within countries and across borders, and that can mean a problem for the world’s authoritarian countries, China included, a GZERO article reports<\/a>.<\/p>\n China’s local authorities\u00a0have an incentive to promote good news and hide bad news, as no free press is there to hold them accountable for the lies, however, the incentives for local-level secrecy and a lack of public accountability remain, as large number of\u00a0anecdotal evidence<\/a>\u00a0that the numbers of patients infected in the current outbreak are being undercounted is alarming and mounting, naturally turning China’s people and foreign governments into a mistrust and an unsettlement of the political handling of a problem that could yet trigger a much wider pandemic, even when\u00a0state officials have openly admitted that mistakes were made<\/a> during the 2003 SARS outbreak and pledged to be much more transparent in the future<\/p>\n However, according Myra P. Saefong from MarketWatch<\/a>, if the 2002-2003 severe acute respiratory syndrome epidemic, known as SARS, may serve as a guide, the overall impact of the virus outbreak may be modest and short lived on the global economy, as well as on the commodities sector.\u00a0For now, the spread of the coronavirus across Asia into the U.S. is \u201cclearly a major public health concern but it is expected that its economic effects will be modest,\u201d said Jennifer McKeown, head of the Global Economics Service at Capital Economics,<\/p>\n \u201cBased on the information we have, we do not expect the coronavirus to have more than a temporary effect on global GDP, which is likely to be made up once the disease is brought under control,\u201d (…) \u201cAnd while there have already been some effects on financial markets…we suspect that these too will be short-lived,\u201d\u00a0McKeown added.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n This is what happens when you get these things come together:<\/p>\n 1. An equity rally that's arguably overextended ST — David Ingles (@DavidInglesTV) January 21, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\nEconomic blows from the new coronavirus<\/h1>\n
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2. Mystery virus that spreads between people
3. An estimated 3 billion trips coming up
4. A long holiday ahead pic.twitter.com\/SO64iJMPca<\/a><\/p>\n