The Coronavirus is triggering panic in Italy, Iran and on Wall Street too. In Italy at least a dozen towns are quarantined and 7 people are already confirmed dead. The best guess is that nearly 1000 people have been infected but the truth is nobody actually knows and the bigger mystery is how the 38 year old man that started this outbreak got infected in the first place- he has never been to China. He has no friends that have any connection to Wuhan or the region.

So, where did it come from?

Nobody can answer that question right now and if you can’t determine where the virus came from then you have to ask how many people were infected before anyone knew it? That is an answer emerging with each passing hour.

Meanwhile in China the death toll continues to climb and it is becoming even more clear the Chinese tried to minimize the scope of the outbreak in the eyes of the world. They tried to make it seem insignificant. Simply put, they lied. In an effort to keep it under wraps the Chinese government gave inaccurate numbers on how many people are infected and how many dead. China didn’t want to the world to know how bad it really was.

It’s like China had done something wrong and was trying to hide it.

We will likely never know for sure the number of people who died from Novel Coronavirus, Covid-19 behind the Chinese Red Curtain. I have been telling you this for a long time. I told you that it was quite significant that 60 million people were locked down on quarantine and that it didn’t feel like we were getting the whole story.

We now know for certain- we weren’t getting the truth.

How many Americans are infected right now is also a complete mystery because only about 500 of us have actually been tested so far. In a nation of nearly 330 million, virtually no one has been tested. So, in a city like New York there could easily be a major outbreak any day.

The same is true for every major metropolitan area in America.

With so little testing and an incubation period that can run at least 14 days and now some are saying even longer, a whole city could be hit before they even knew what happened. I mean nearly 6-million people ride the subway in New York City every day. What could one or two sick people do? Nothing more than trigger the potential infection of millions.

Let’s be clear, we just don’t know a hell of a lot about the Coronavirus and we are a long way from understanding its true impact. It may be something that passes without much more devastation and it could just be getting started.

I will tell you this, the Chinese have lied about it and we don’t seem terribly prepared for such an outbreak, no matter what The President and others are saying. There are too many unknowns right now and that leaves people a bit nervous.

With new warnings from the CDC of a coming crisis and a flat footed response from The Department of Homeland Security so far, I am not filled with confidence right now.

That is exactly why the bears were out on Wall Street again today. The market hates uncertainty and the new outbreaks in Italy, Iran and possibly elsewhere at any moment have traders on edge.

I am not here to try panic you but I want you to have a realistic understanding of what we know and what we don’t.

And right now, let’s be clear, we seem to know a lot less than we did yesterday.