China's Covid situation is dire as 2020 supply chain shocks may return in 2023. The Baltic Dry index (shipping) is down 20% since China changed from lockdowns to all out virus infections. Chinese exports are also heading south as Chinese workers are becoming sick, crimping factory output.

(Chart 1)

The biggest COVID-19 outbreak the world has ever seen is in China, as discussed in these posts re: China and its COVID policy.    China's shutdown of all reporting and fudging its death rate to suit a mild virus narrative, the astounding U term from seeing the virus as a real threat to no threat at all, has more to do with  economic reasoning rather than any medical rational.   Lockdowns have been necessary as a blunt instrument to tackle COVID-19 before the vaccines could be implemented and/or infection rates gave dropped.  China's lockdowns seemed ad hoc and frenetic despite their development of their own vaccine which uses an unsophisticated viral science of inactive COVID viral strains, that is simply not as affective as the West's mRNA vaccines.  To which China has indicated as far back as 2021 that it doesn't trust Western mRNA vaccines, falling squarely into an antivaccination rhetoric, so it s no wonder that the country is losing absolute control of COVID.

Most country's that are seen as Chinese tourist spots have issued travel restrictions on China including negative tests on arrivals, as China has closed off any clear indictors of their outbreak, apart from leaked memos from Chinese hospitals, doctors and evidence that emergency wards and crematoriums are now filling up.

The other way to see how dramatic this outbreak will be on the world, will be the return of supply chain shocks ala the 2020 COVID outbreak which affected ports and shipping.   Please refer to Chart 1 above, which shows the the Baltic Dry Index (BDI), as noted in 2020 with the 'call out' tags, the BDI collapsed 70%, since China's messy handling of its lockdowns and complete reopening, the index has fallen to 21%.  To see how much weight China has on the BDI index will be tested over the coming months of early 2023.   The other indictor is Chinese exports, as noted with the overlay yellow line, which has stayed depressed since 2021 reflation when Chinese factories opened up and the West's demand came back on line, yet spluttered out when China slammed on lockdowns throughout 2022 and threw the floodgates open for the virus at the end of 2022, which has created a nation sick and dying.  Hence the collapse in factory output = sick workers.