My sources say that PCR-confirmed positive covid cases in the city of shijiazhuang has surged from 1 case to 40 cases to 180 cases over the past 3 days.

The city is under a soft lockdown, until 11million PCR tests (the entire city) are completed for the next 3 days.
Expect to see reports from official channels in 2-3 days.

It appears that every Chinese province has a covid PCR testing capacity of 4 million tests per day (6-8hr turnaround time)

US has a capacity 2.2 million tests per day (24-48 hr turnaround) for the entire country.
Chinese New Year travel is probably going to be canceled for the 2nd year in China.
Chinese schools are not yet in Winter break until early Feb.

Thus, the risk of rapid spreading is pretty high.

They probably should have planned a two-month winter break, compensated by a shortened one-month summer break, for 2021.

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More from @Barton_options

3 Jan
China ramped up its COVID19 restriction today

Private gathering limited to 10 people and fewer.
Intracity travel now discouraged

Quarantine for international arrivals has been increased to 14 days (in dedicated hotels) + 14 days (at home)
The restrictions are likely to last until early March.

They have started mass inoculation, but interestingly they prioritize high-risk working population for now. No news yet on when 65+yo would start to receive their vaccine.
Vaccine hesitance is pretty high at the moment in China, because of a couple of high-profile counterfeit vaccine scandals in the past two years (nothing to do with the covid vaccine makers though)
Read 4 tweets
2 Jan
1/7 Probably an unpopular take:

The current fight between Jack Ma and Chinese regulators is somewhat similar to a Dick-Fuld-vs-Tim-Geithner fight in 2008.

no endearing character on either side.
2/7 Ant Financial (Alipay) fueled a $2Tn CNY sub-prime credit bubble in China in the past 3 years.

much of the $2Tn was used for weddings, cars, cell phones, video games, very few of which is productive assets.
3/7 Exhibit A of Chinese consumer credit boom

live-streaming influencers who are raking in millions a day.

The top influencer of 2020, 薇娅, had a one-day sales of 1.1Bn RMB on Nov 11. Yes, that's a billion, not a typo.
Read 7 tweets
1 Jan
Dec 2020 saw some major shifts in the plate tectonics of global trade: RCEP and China-EU CIA

RCEP = first ever free-trade agreement among China, Japan and South Korea.

China-EU CIA = boosting foreign direct investment between the two from 2% of their total trade by several fold
Context: China has grown to the biggest trading partner of EU in 2020, at a size 5x of that of Japan and 9x of that of India.

While the US (Trump) imposed more tariff on EU yesterday, and Biden indicated no FTA discussion for 2 years.
Here is a good take on China-EU CIA

china-briefing.com/news/eu-china-…
Read 6 tweets
17 Dec 20
1/ Trump, vaccine export ban, $DXY and stonks

COVID-dynamics for the next 4 months

IMO, there is a 70% chance that Trump will issue an America-first executive order on $PFE and $MRNA vaccines soon after FDA EUA on $MRNA vaccine.
2/ should that happen, PFE and MRNA would not be able to export COVID vaccine to other countries. until the need in the US is met.

This means most countries in the world, except for UK, Canada, Germany and China, would be denied access to COVID vaccines until March 2021.
3/ UK and Canada gambled by approving PFE vaccine faster than US FDA, to rush ahead of Trump export ban. This probably is the right decision, given the political dynamics.

Germany and China have their own productive capacity, but are unlikely to supply RoW by March 2021.
Read 5 tweets
1 Dec 20
A teaser on my post-COVID fatigue syndrome article #LongCovid

esp. on the cognitive difficulty (brain fog)

IMO, very little to do with your brain, a lot to do with your liver.
1. critical supply of 5-htp from liver to brain gets cut off, as tryptophan is depleted by IDO and TDO by continued hyperinflammation.

The brain gets very short on serotonin as a result.
2. a secondary possibility for some is the disruption of Ach anti-inflammation pathway.
Read 5 tweets
12 Nov 20
1/ Seeing some serious concerns on Ant Financials' business model being raised in China this week.

Reportedly, post-IPO, Ant planned to operate like a commercial bank (as in underwriting consumer loans) with a CET1 capital <1% of its balance sheet.
2/ Ant's size will approach GSIB-level, most GSIBs have CET1 capital requirement >11%.
federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pre…

Also, reportedly Ant wanted to issue consumer-debt backed ABS in China, which made regulators even more nervous.
3/ It seems that the regulators believed that Ant has the ambition to be a commercial bank, an investment bank, and maybe a shadow central bank in CNY.

and thus we had the drama we saw last week.
Read 4 tweets

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