The biggest risk to the global economy no one is talking about

Nearly 400,000 million people across 45 cities in China are under full or partial lockdown as part of China's strict zero-Covid policy. Together they represent 40%, or $7.2 trillion, of annual gross domestic product for the world's second-largest economy.

Analysts are ringing warning bells, but say investors aren't properly assessing how serious the global economic fallout might be from these prolonged isolation orders.

"Global markets may still underestimate the impact, because much attention remains focused on the Russian-Ukraine conflict and US Federal Reserve rate hikes," Lu Ting, Nomura's chief China economist and colleagues wrote in a note last week.