Investors’ worries and fleeing investments because of the recent announcement of the coronavirus outbreak that has killed around six people in the Chinese province of Wuhan have forced U.S. debt prices to drop on Tuesday sharply.
The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, which moves inversely to price, was lower at around 1.7917% at 2:15 a.m. ET, while the yield on the 30-year Treasury bond, was also down at 2.2464%. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Monday revised down its economic growth projections for 2020 from 3.4% to 3.3%. The U.S. growth outlook was revised down to 2.0% from 2.1% in the IMF’s October forecast.
The World Health Organization (WHO) fears that the mysterious pneumonia outbreak that has infected more than 50 individuals from the central Chinese city of Wuhan could possibly be brought by the virus that was responsible for the SARS and MERS virus, officials earlier said.
Coronavirus is a family of highly infectious viruses that causes infection ranging from simple common colds to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). Some of the virus types cause less severe disease, while some — like the one that causes Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) — are far more severe.
“The initial information about the cases of pneumonia in Wuhan … pointed to a coronavirus as a possible pathogen causing this cluster,” the WHO said in a statement.
Late Monday, Chinese authorities have formally that the strain of the coronavirus that has already infected more than 200 individuals is contagious and compared it to the havoc wreaked by the SARS virus in 2003.
