IN the good old days—even before the “Taal Eruption of 2020” —the virus was simply known as “2019-nCoV.” Fortunately, the World Health Organization was right on top of the situation.
On January 5, 2020, World Health Organization released a “Disease outbreak news” bulletin with the title Pneumonia of unknown cause—China. “On December 31, 2019, the WHO China Country Office was informed of cases of pneumonia of unknown cause detected in Wuhan City, China. As of January 3, 2020, a total of 44 patients have been reported to WHO by the national authorities in China.” There was obviously nothing to worry about.
“The causal agent has not yet been identified or confirmed. Based on the preliminary information from the Chinese investigation team, there is no evidence of significant human-to-human transmission.” There were only “44 cases reported” and the Chinese government said, “one hundred and twenty-one close contacts have been identified and are under medical observation.”
Of course that is exactly the time when governments should have known better and immediately acted, according to all the 2020 graduates of the “Social Media University of Epidemiology.” Actually, governments did react.
Bloomberg News reported on January 4: “A mysterious pneumonia outbreak that’s sickened dozens of people in China has prompted airports in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan to introduce fever screening.” CNN Philippines, January 7: “The Department of Health has instructed the Bureau of Quarantine to intensify surveillance amid a mysterious virus that has infected dozens of people in China.”
However, more should have been done. But as ABS-CBN.com reported on January 11: “The virus in question does not transmit readily between people,” WHO noted. For this reason, the Philippine Department of Health is not that worried. “There is no cause for immediate concern at this time. From the information that we’re receiving, it’s not something that can be easily transmitted from one person to another.”
Lesson learned. Do not listen to WHO if their source of information is the Chinese government. Lesson not learned from the 2002-2003 SARS epidemic: do not trust Chinese authorities to be truthful in situations of disease outbreaks.
By February 2, the “first confirmed nCoV death outside China is in the Philippines.” By the end of that week, the Philippines and Spain had two cases each and Italy and the UK had three each. On February 11, WHO announced “Covid-19” as the name of this new disease. Three weeks later, Italy had over 1,000 cases. As we move into August—the Ghost Month—and 16 million cases and 650,000 deaths later, the global economy is a smoldering dung heap.
According to some, China will lead the global economic recovery. Maybe so. Last month the Chinese invested more in real estate—condos and apartments—than in any other month on record. Good thing there has never been a real estate bubble before—except for 2011 when prices fell 40 percent from the high.
In spite of US spending more than $6 trillion on the coronavirus crisis, another 1.4 million Americans filed new claims for unemployment benefits last week with 52 million claims for unemployment benefits over the past 18 weeks. Currently, 24 percent of small businesses in the US are still closed, worse than June with 19 percent.
The European Union just borrowed one trillion dollars. Where is the economic recovery going to come from?
E-mail me at mangun@gmail.com. Visit my web site at www.mangunonmarkets.com. Follow me on Twitter @mangunonmarkets. PSE stock-market information and technical analysis tools provided by the COL Financial Group Inc.
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