By
Bhushan Akolkar
April 17th, 2024
Dow Futures tanked in as the health officials from China’s Hubei city have arrived with a new “clinical diagnosis” methodology which has suddenly shot the tally of a total number of infected cases above 60,000.
On Wednesday, February 12, China reported an additional 14,840 cases of coronavirus in its Hubei province. As the Hubei health officials tweaked their methods of diagnosing the virus, the total number of registered coronavirus cases shot above 60,000. This has sent its ripples across the financial markets as Dow Futures also tanked in response.
Dow Futures Fall
The markets have been volatile over the last month since the epidemic broke out in China’s Wuhan city. However, the markets started giving out a positive signal after the recent reports of slowing effects of the virus spread.
But the Wednesday’s report Hubei health officials have got the Dow Futures to plunge. On late Wednesday, February 12, the Dow Futures dropped 100 points to 29,400. Just a day before, the Dow Futures jumped after Democratic Party’s Bernie Sanders won from New Hampshire.
While the broader markets plunged, the price of gold saw a surge against the U.S. Dollar. Moreover, although the total deaths reported are above 1000, there have been speculations that China has been under-reporting the coronavirus cases following orders from Beijing.
After Hubei tweaked its diagnosis methodology, the world was eagerly waiting for it to come with the affected people numbers. However, some delay in reporting was already a signal for a shaky market ride.
New Clinical Diagnosis for Coronavirus
The Chinese health officials stated that they have introduced a “new clinical” diagnosis in their methodology to detect the coronavirus. The announcement reads:
“Hubei Province has recently conducted investigations on suspected cases and revised the diagnosis results, and newly diagnosed patients were diagnosed according to the new diagnosis classification. In order to be consistent with the classification of case diagnosis issued by other provinces across the country, starting today, Hubei Province will include the number of clinically diagnosed cases into the number of confirmed cases for publication”.
With the new clinical diagnosis, below is the news stats.
Coronavirus update:
– 60,016 cases worldwide
– New criteria includes clinically diagnosed cases
– 16,067 suspected cases
– 1,355 fatalities
– 8,070 in serious/critical condition
– 5,611 recovered
– Most cases in China
– 25 countries reporting cases— BNO News (@BNOFeed) February 12, 2020
On the other hand, the U.S. health officials have also raised concerns about the Coronavirus establishing its base in the country. Speaking to CNBC, Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said:
“At some point, we are likely to see community spread in the U.S. or in other countries. This will trigger a change in our response strategy.”
Besides, the Fed Chairman Jerome Powell also stated that the coronavirus can certainly have some impact on the stock market. However, he added that it is difficult to predict the degree of impact at this stage. If the panic spreads further the market reaction won’t be great though.