Into That Marketplace.
1. As confirmed cases of a novel virus surge around the world with worrisome speed, all eyes have so far focused on a seafood market in Wuhan, China, as the origin of the outbreak. But a description of the first clinical cases published in The Lancet on Friday challenges that hypothesis. The paper, written by a large group of Chinese researchers from several institutions, offers details about the first 41 hospitalized patients who had confirmed infections with what has been dubbed 2019-novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV). The earliest case became ill on 1 December and had no reported link to the seafood market, the authors report. If the new data are accurate, the first human infections must have occurred in November—if not earlier—because there is an incubation time between infection and symptoms surfacing. If so, the virus possibly spread silently between people in Wuhan and perhaps elsewhere before the cluster of cases from the city’s now infamous Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market was discovered in late December. “The virus came into that marketplace before it came out of that marketplace,” Lucey asserts. (via The Lancet, Sciencemag.org)
2. As part of their contingency planning for the next recession, Federal Reserve officials are looking at a stimulus scheme the U.S. last used during and after World War II. From 1942 until 1951, the Fed capped yields on Treasury securities—first on short-term bills and later on longer-term bonds—to help finance war spending and the recovery. More recently, the Bank of Japan employed something known as yield-curve control, holding rates on 10-year government bonds at zero by committing to buy those securities at whatever price is needed. Bond yields and prices move inversely. (via The Wall Street Journal)
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Quick Links: The New York Times photographs from a China in the grip of the coronavirus outbreak. Caixin Global coverage here. South China Morning Post coverage here. Fidelity International CEO Ann Richards talks to the FT. The head of Fidelity’s $2.8 trillion asset management division is retiring. Good news for Sanders in Iowa, New Hampshire and nationally. An egg has overtaken Kylie Jenner as most-liked Instagram post ever.