In my Tuesday podcast, I expressed extreme skepticism about the smooth trend in the reported coronavirus (nCoV) numbers.

Everyone on the ground–and I mean everyone–agrees that infections and deaths in Wuhan were vastly under-reported through most of January. Hardly any test kits were available and sick people were routinely just told to go home and stay isolated there.

If reporting has since improved, we should have expected some kink in the line as all the newly uncovered cases were revealed. But we haven’t seen anything like that. The line has been perversely smooth–a bit like China’s GDP numbers. The signs of managed data are everywhere.

Well, earlier today in China, we finally got our kink in the line.

New total cases per day, after slowing to under 3,000, jumped by 15,407. New total deaths per day, after showing a linear trend of about 100, jumped by 253. [Data as of 1 pm EST, 2/13/20]

Why the jumps? Unclear. The NYT suggests it is due to a shift in the criteria used in Hubei province for diagnosing patients as positive for nCoV.

Until yesterday, officials were using tests that directly detect the virus’s genetic signature. These tests are complex and time consuming (requiring centrifuges to be run for a couple of hours, etc.); they often generate false negatives, requiring retesting; and the test kits themselves are limited in number.

Yesterday, apparently, officials have started using simpler diagnostic criteria such as chest scans: If you have the characteristic shadow pattern on a chest scan, you’re positive. Clearly, the sure but slow method makes no sense for cities overflowing with tens of thousands of badly symptomatic patients.

Why did officials wait until now to change the procedure? Possibly due to Xi Jinping’s appointment yesterday of Ying Yong as the new Communist Party Secretary of Hubei province. Ying, a protégé of Xi, used to be mayor of Shanghai where he gained some renown as administrator of health measures to control the spread of pneumonia in that city.

This is a striking move for Xi. No political reshuffling at this level ever happened during the SARS epidemic. Presumably, Ying has a lot more freedom to reveal all the bad news upfront and take whatever measures are necessary.

Still, many questions remained unanswered.

La suite sur

https://app.hedgeye.com/insights/81268-the-coronavirus-outlook-worse-than-expected?type=macro