Time’s Ian Bremmer warned that the coronavirus epidemic could upend the global economy by triggering a recession.

“We’re moving closer to the day when it is China’s increasingly hefty economy, not America’s, that’s most to blame for a global recession,” Bremmer recently wrote in Time.

“What happens in China matters more than ever for the rest of us. Its share of the global economy has surged from 8% in 2002 to 19% today, and it’s now the world’s second largest economy,” wrote Bremmer, a foreign affairs columnist and editor-at-large at Time.

Bremmer's warning came just before people across China trickled back work on Monday after an extended Lunar New Year holiday as the government eased restrictions imposed to counter the coronavirus, but the World Health Organization (WHO) said the number of cases outside China could be just "the tip of the iceberg."

The death toll from the epidemic rose to 908, all but two in mainland China, on Sunday as 97 more fatalities were recorded - the largest number in a single day since the virus was detected in the city of Wuhan in December, Reuters reported.

Bremmer cited a handful of effects the virus is having on the global economy, among them:

• Companies in other countries dependent on Chinese supply chains are already facing a slowdown;
• Oil prices have fallen 20% over the past month on expectations of lower demand from China and reduced sales of jet fuel as flights are grounded;
• Harm to the “Phase 1” trade deal the U.S. and China concluded last month. China was already unlikely to purchase the additional $200 billion of U.S. goods over two years that it committed to buying. The slowdown will make that figure hard to achieve.

“But the greatest cost will come to China’s reputation as a reliable trade partner. In developed countries, healthcare systems are quick to identify public-health risks and better able to respond to them. China’s top-down authoritarian political system makes things worse," Bremmer said.

Across mainland China, 3,062 new infections were confirmed on Sunday, bringing the total number to 40,171, according to the National Health Commission (NHC). An advance team of international WHO experts was en route to Beijing to investigate the outbreak.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said there had been "concerning instances" of transmission from people who had not been to China. "The detection of a small number of cases may indicate more widespread transmission in other countries; in short, we may only be seeing the tip of the iceberg," he said in Geneva.

The virus has spread to at least 27 countries and territories, according to a Reuters count based on official reports, infecting more than 330 people. The two deaths outside mainland China were in Hong Kong and the Philippines.

The death toll from the outbreak has now surpassed that of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which killed hundreds worldwide in 2002/2003.

China's central bank has taken a raft of steps to support the economy, including reducing interest rates and flushing the market with liquidity. From Monday, it will provide special funds for banks to re-lend to businesses.

One senior economist has said growth may slow to 5% or less in the first quarter.

Meanwhile, strategists at Citigroup have cautioned against a sense of euphoria and “substantive” complacency in financial markets. JPMorgan is telling clients to rein in risk, trimming its overweight call on equities to 5% relative to a benchmark allocation, from 7%, Bloomberg explained.

“Economic spillovers from China to the rest of the world in the event of more adverse scenarios are likely to be significant,” according to JPMorgan Chase & Co. strategists.

What makes all this is so striking: Investors are shrugging off virus-related concerns while also betting on an uptick in growth, according to Nomura Securities. The telltale sign is the ramp-up in European stocks to all-time highs.

“As the coronavirus issue passes the panic stage, scenarios for renewed economic growth seem to be gaining new life,” wrote Naka Matsuzawa, the firm’s strategist in Tokyo wrote in a note.