Coronavirus (COVID-19)

One more piece of anecdotal evidence. There's been a case of Covid-19 in my yard. (For perspective: The "yard" is a gated community with almost 100 apartment buildings, so it is more populous than many English villages. Most urban people in China live in complexes like this.) Initially, the management company of the complex informed all residents that several people in the same family had tested positive. Later, one of the guards at the gate told us that in fact everyone in the family of 7 had been confirmed positive. That building is under lockdown, but residents of other buildings remain free to come and go, subject to temperature checks of course.

Curiously, the government's published statistics only mention one case in this complex. When asked about it, the guard admitted that the official figures only count one case per family, no matter how many people are actually infected.

Note that this may only be a local practice. I have no way of knowing if this kind of falsification is widespread.

In recent weeks, I've sold all of my equity investments. I also have a couple of small short positions (in Intel and Hilton Hotels) and might add more, depending on how things develop. I might be overreacting, but well, we'll see soon.