Can we really believe China has curbed the Virus? – What are the real death tolls?

1. Virus Update

In the March 1 Kelly Letter, I wrote that Bill Bishop at Sinocism suggested we need to see three unmistakable signs in order to believe that China’s Communist Party thinks victory really is at hand:

1. Xi visits Wuhan.
2. A date is announced for the “two sessions.”
3. Kids return to school.

The first one appeared yesterday: President Xi Jinping visited Wuhan, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak. Here is the current status of Bishop’s three signs:

1. Yes
2. No
3. No

+ Reuters: Xi arrived on the same day that Wuhan shut the last of 14 temporary hospitals that had been opened to manage a surge in coronavirus patients … China said it had just 19 new coronavirus infections on Monday, down from 40 a day earlier. That also marked the third straight day of no new domestically transmitted cases in mainland China outside of Hubei province, where Wuhan is located.

+ MarketWatch: “The spread of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has been basically curbed in Hubei province and its capital city Wuhan,” Xi said.

+ Bill Bishop at Sinocism: Things are starting to look up for Xi, China, and the Chinese economy after an awful start to the Year of the Rat.

We are not out of the woods, but we see light through the branches.

2. Demographics Don’t Lie

According to China’s National Bureau of Statistics, China had per day on average in 2019:

40,137 live births
27,342 deaths

Since the virus became widely covered on January 20 (51 days through yesterday), these are China’s death figures:

3,158 coronavirus deaths
1,394,442 total deaths

Only 0.23% of deaths were due to the virus.