Wuhan virus spreads; Xi in Yunnan; Local governments under revenue pressure

So much for a slow glide into the Lunar New Year holiday. The official count (CGTN) of confirmed cases of the Wuhan virus is now over 300, with 6 deaths.

There is of course a lot of suspicion that the true numbers are much higher, and that the Wuhan government and maybe the Hubei provincial government have been trying to cover things up. The odds they were are not low, and at some point expect a political cost to be imposed upon at least the municipal leadership if not Jiang Chaoliang, the provincial party secretary.

Now that Xi has issued his directive to “put people's safety and health as the top priority and take effective measures to curb the spread of the virus”, I think it is going to be much harder for the authorities to cover things up. I know, some of you may think I am being naive, but they did learn lessons from SARS, information is much harder to control now, the political risks of a cover-up, and of failure to contain the virus, are extremely high for the Party and for Xi…