Agreed, the economic impact is immense, massive supply chain disruption to the rest of the world, this will cause companies to diversify manufacturing out of china : twitter.com/i/status/1220814002894360579
The impact on the chinese economy over the longterm will force the current ~3% GDP growth negative this year.
With all the rational information at hand and until there is human to human transmission proven (outside of china), I can only assume that this virus was vented from the Umbrella corporation (The biggest bio hazard lab in china working on the deadliest diseases, funnily is only in Wuhan) into the atmosphere around mid December and was blown around the Hubei Provence.
For something that has an apparent R rating of 1.4>>3.8 it spread way too fast for h2h transmission, more like an accidental release. And I don't believe anything the chinese are say at all, I'd say the majority of Wuhan has it but are showing minor symptoms and are very unlikely to die.
