How well is China recovering from the COVID-19 outbreak? - An useful piece of data

After 2 months of panic and lockdown, life is starting to return to normal in China. We are starting to see news of China restarting certain activities. For instance, Apple had reopen its stores and Disneyland is also reopening.

So how much has China's economy recovered? I think the most underrated data to check on this is the traffic information in the major cities. Consider this, if the traffic activities return to pre-outbreak levels, it suggests that logistics are moving, supply chains are working and people are heading back to work/school. Hence, traffic data is probably the best piece of info that we can use since most people remain skeptical of mainstream news from mainland China itself.

I look to this site called TomTom Traffic Index to dig out some interesting data. Here goes...

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Traffic information in major Chinese cities

Beijing

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Shanghai

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Shenzhen

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Chengdu

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What can we learn from these data?

I wrote this post on a Monday morning, slightly after the typical rush hour. As you can see, the congestion level is rather high for these major cities. In Shenzhen and Chengdu, they are even above 60% congested.

If you look closer at the last 7 days traffic info, you might be able to observe a trend. Weekday traffic has kind of returned to 2019 average level but weekend traffic considerably lower compared to 2019 average level. My hypothesis is that the mainland Chinese people are getting to work and economy is starting to restart. However, people are still limiting social gatherings over the weekend.

In addition, the morning rush hour traffic is closer to average but the evening rush hour is generally lower. My guess is that people are staggering their work shifts or so that they can leave earlier or later than usual to avoid the traffic. This also helps to reduce human contact.

China started locking down its first city on 23 January and too drastic measures to limit human interactions. It then took 2 months for us to see some economic activities. Till date, the epicenter of this outbreak, Wuhan, remains locked down. Hence traffic activities there are still low.

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Conclusion

We see that with the right measures and mindset, the outbreak can be contained and life can eventually get back to normal. The problem I see now in many western countries is that most people did not take this virus seriously at first but now start to panic. The panic is fueled by mainstream media. The mainstream media not feeding the masses with the right info from the start and since a few weeks back started to flood the media outlets with excessive information.

Remember that mainstream media just want to get your attention and it is all about viewership to them. As the virus outbreak is the hottest topic now, they will just keep feeding everyone with these information. Fear then continues to feed on more fear. As I mentioned in my previous article, we should all stay calm and practice individual hygiene and responsibilities. When we do that, I am sure humanity will prevail.

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