The fight for containment is on and so is the effort at damage control.
Chinese markets are set to open again tomorrow having been closed for days. As has become common practice in our new normal any sign of trouble and central banks stop in to support markets.
Hence no surprise that now the CBOC is signaling sizable liquidity injections for Monday:
Sven Henrich✔@NorthmanTrader
Central bank to the rescue: $174B in artificial liquidity on Monday https://twitter.com/onlyyoontv/status/1223896359595413509 …
Eunice Yoon✔@onlyyoontv
Replying to @onlyyoontvPeople’s Bank of #China will supply RMB1.2trln ($174bln) to money markets Mon, Feb 3, bank says. Move to ensure liquidity “reasonably ample” during #virus, will use reverse repos. Adds overall liquidity in system RMB900bln more than last year (i.e., investors need not panic!
)
Global Times✔@globaltimesnews
Good news! 37 #coronavirus patients were discharged from #Wuhan‘s Jinyintan on Sunday, the highest daily discharge since the pneumonia outbreak began: media reports
Whether these efforts of containment in markets will be enough remains to be seen.
Fact is the virus continues to spread and appears far from contained at this stage:
And the death count is increasing:
The infection count has now reached 14,628 at the time of this writing and this count is assured to continue to increase. The infection count chart looks precariously like it may accelerate further:
So yes, real good news of containment is needed and urgently so as the economic damage will deepen with each passing week.
It’s been said that life imitates art and currently the concern is that infections will keep spreading throughout the world. The challenges of containing a viral outbreak communicated by air have been well imagined in a 2015 film:
Now that the first coronavirus death outside of China has been reported the ante for containment has once again been raised.
