As China's economic output remains literally frozen, a new report suggests that many Chinese companies - which never factored for this type of calamity - don't have enough capital to cover wages, or have delayed or stopped paying workers, suggesting that the Covid-19 outbreak has left businesses on the brink of disaster. 

While Beijing has been scrambling to give the impression that its economy is back up and running (miraculously without any electricity or pollution), China's lack of workers - most of whom are holed up in their houses until the pandemic passes - has made factory restarts impossible. Worse, workers can't freely move around the country, and many are subjected to travel restrictions and quarantines, said Shanghai's American Chamber of Commerce on Monday. 

The second problem, now outlined by Bloomberg, is that companies which do restart production don't have enough money to cover labor expenses, to wit: "across china, companies are telling workers that there's no money for them -- or that they shouldn't have to pay full salaries to quarantined employees who don't come to work."