Certain news early this weeks was easily passed over. 107 covid19 in Beijing and the city of 20 million+ in almost lockdown.
However the epidemic looks to be creeping all over China. There are, it seems, many asymptomatic super spreaders in a country of 1.33 billion people. The potential for this infection to get out of hand is very real. Sure it's easy for the CCP to bring in draconian health confinement measures but we all know that once this virus is out it's out.
There have been at least 3 major centres of infection so we can expect more bad news.
The other obvious response, should there be further mass outbreaks is to shut the Chinese economy down and put the population into lockdown. We all know the feeling but in this case the ramifications are very serious.
China produces at least 30% of the world's manufactured goods so imagine the effects of an output stoppage. Supply chains all over the world would be broken causing massive flowon problems.
Other issues would be political implications of deliberate mass unemployment in China which could create political instability. Broken supply chains could cause massive global unemployment and the economic impacts could unravel Central Banks and governments' stimulus attempts.
It's quite a complicated issue but China has entangled itself with the global economy. The intent was to dominate, manipulate and control for political gain but their virus could create a shrinking Chinese economy and with it all the detrimental spinoffs that no one wants.
That's the trouble with black swans, you just cannot predict where they'll come from and what they will do because these events are the forced course changes that humanity imposes on itself.
