Jim Rickards Warns : Coronavirus Slams Chinese Economy -- Economic Collapse 2020

How bad is the coronavirus pandemic in China? It’s worse than the Chinese government knows and worse than the world believes. Here are the official statistics on the coronavirus (technically COVID-19) as of today: There are 75,685 confirmed infections worldwide, with 98% of that total in China alone. Of those cases, 82.5% are in the single province of Hubei, mostly centered in the city of Wuhan, with 11 million residents. Of the over 75,000 worldwide cases, there have been 2,236 deaths; that’s a mortality rate of roughly 2.5%. If a 2.5% mortality rate sounds low, it’s not. That’s roughly comparable to the Spanish flu pandemic of 1919–20 that killed 50 million people by some estimates Coronavirus has reached pandemic proportions in China. Over 60 million people are locked down, which means they cannot leave their homes except once every three days to buy groceries. Streets are empty, stores are closed, trains and planes are not operating. The Chinese economy is slowly grinding to a halt. While the disease has been predominately centered in China, and Wuhan in particular, there have been significant outbreaks in Singapore (58 cases), Hong Kong (56 cases), Thailand (33 cases) and Japan (29 cases including one fatality). Approximately 218 cases have been identified among those trapped on cruise ships where all passengers are under quarantine. Fifteen cases have been identified in the United States. These statistics barely scratch the surface of what is happening with coronavirus in China. There is good reason to believe that the actual incidence of the virus may be five–10 times the official numbers. Tencent (a popular internet search and social media platform in China) reported on Feb. 1, 2020, that actual infections were 154,000 and deaths from the disease were 24,589. (A screenshot of the Tencent release is shown below; source: Taiwan News).