There's no doubt that the epidemic will hurt growth. Airlines are halting flights to and from mainland China, and forceful measures by the Chinese government to contain the outbreak, such as the grounding of transportation systems in hot zones and the Chinese New Year holiday extensions in major economic centres like Shanghai and Suzhou, will take a toll.

And usually vibrant consumption activities around the annual holiday have ground to a near halt. China's movie box office on the first day of the holiday, for instance, collapsed to just 1.8 million yuan (S$355,000) compared with 1.5 billion yuan the previous year. All this points to a significant negative economic shock in the near term.