Coronavirus Pandemic

Jim,

I have seen suggestions that the virus has spread in Europe because of the numbers of people still migrants Europe in an uncontrolled fashion across borders, and then living in fairly squalid conditions in countries such as Italy and Spain. Europe is now considered a hotspot for the virus - hence the President's travel ban. The President has also greatly reduced the flow of people across your southern border, and I think that should also help.

I have always felt that nobody - not even potential migrants - are helped by these mass migrations. They must be a breeding ground for disease. It is important to remember that people are leaving their homes to join these migrations, and may be putting themselves at risk by doing so.

Giving aid to people where they live is one thing, but encouraging mass movements of people is quite something else. I suspect that it is no coincidence that flu pandemic in aftre WWI also started in a time of mass movement of people.

David
 
Jim,

I have seen suggestions that the virus has spread in Europe because of the numbers of people still migrants Europe in an uncontrolled fashion across borders, and then living in fairly squalid conditions in countries such as Italy and Spain. Europe is now considered a hotspot for the virus - hence the President's travel ban. The President has also greatly reduced the flow of people across your southern border, and I think that should also help.

I have always felt that nobody - not even potential migrants - are helped by these mass migrations. They must be a breeding ground for disease. It is important to remember that people are leaving their homes to join these migrations, and may be putting themselves at risk by doing so.

Giving aid to people where they live is one thing, but encouraging mass movements of people is quite something else. I suspect that it is no coincidence that flu pandemic in aftre WWI also started in a time of mass movement of people.

David

Open immigration policies exist because they are supported by the parties that expect immigrants to vote for them. Those politicians are not concerned with migrants, they are concerned with personal and political power and wealth. They don't want to end poverty because they benefit from it. The last thing they want is for poor people to get rich and start paying a lot of taxes and then start voting for the opposition party that wants to lower taxes and reduce the size of government.

Poverty exists because of bad government - lack of economic freedom and lack of rule of law. People who sincerely want to help the poor work to spread economic freedom and rule of law throughout the globe. By economic freedom I mean free markets not crony capitalism. By rule of law I mean the same laws are applied to rich and powerful as are applied to the poor and unconnected.
 
I hope you're all well-stocked! Regardless of the pandemic of the virus there's the economic and government pandemics to contend with. Yes, the are multiple layers of things going on. Things are going to change fast. I predict Italy (and now Spain) quarantine in more and more areas of the USA.

National Guard is deployed to 6 states and counting.
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/...onavirus-spread-in-six-states-more-to-follow/

Regarding my original post, Denmark has already passed new emergency health measures...which "As well as enforcing quarantine measures, the law also allows the authorities to force people to be vaccinated, even though there is currently no vaccination for the virus."
https://www.thelocal.dk/20200313/denmark-passes-far-reaching-emergency-coronavirus-law

Even though the news is still crazy, my prediction it is a bit of a breather over the weekend before the market reopens on Monday and more panic ensues.

Good luck!
 
In a previous post I noted there were 36 million cases of flu this year.

If there were 36 million covid-19 cases and .2% were fatal, that would be 36,000,000 * .002 = 72,000 deaths.

So, looking at the chart below, one can see that even for younger people who are at less risk than the elderly, 10 - 19 year olds, 20 - 29 year olds and 30 - 39 year olds with .2% death rate, 36 million cases in the US would mean many thousands of deaths in each age group (the exact number would depend on the % of population in each age group and the number of people contracting the disease in each age group).

I think this is why the government is taking such drastic action to prevent spread of the disease. Simply isolating the elderly is not going to prevent a large number of deaths, hospitals overrun with patients, economic disruption, etc.

https://community.oilprice.com/topic/9796-charts-of-covid-19-fatality-rate-by-age-and-sex/

by age.JPG
 
I am following this with interest:
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/mar/15/britain-plans-tougher-virus-response-as-toll-rises/

Britain has been taking a different approach from other countries across Europe and around the world by declining to heavily restrict everyday activities or introduce “social distancing” measures. The U.K. strategy is based on the presumption that most people will eventually get the COVID-19 virus and severe measures to contain it are unlikely to work.​
I have read an article (which I am looking for but can't find at the moment) which discussed some of the science behind this strategy but I am also seeing articles saying it is controversial among experts.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...experts-fear-epidemic-will-let-rip-through-uk
Coronavirus: health experts fear epidemic will ‘let rip’ through UK​
Doctors and scientists urge government to stop ignoring strategies from countries that have brought cases down​
 
I am following this with interest:
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/mar/15/britain-plans-tougher-virus-response-as-toll-rises/

Britain has been taking a different approach from other countries across Europe and around the world by declining to heavily restrict everyday activities or introduce “social distancing” measures. The U.K. strategy is based on the presumption that most people will eventually get the COVID-19 virus and severe measures to contain it are unlikely to work.​
I have read an article (which I am looking for but can't find at the moment) which discussed some of the science behind this strategy but I am also seeing articles saying it is controversial among experts.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...experts-fear-epidemic-will-let-rip-through-uk
Coronavirus: health experts fear epidemic will ‘let rip’ through UK​
Doctors and scientists urge government to stop ignoring strategies from countries that have brought cases down​

I think that the strategies are based on an assessment of a health system's capacity to handle demand. The consensus seems to be that the virus will permeate the population and maybe stabilise, but the novel element indicates that uncontrolled spread will tax health systems because the extent of infection means that demand on supports will be very high.

So you can let an infection 'rip' through a population after you have done the number cruch and worked out the political implications. There is a logic in 'wearing' the death rate at a health services management level that will seem ugly at a political one. The quiet logic will not be made public - unless it is leaked. There are times systems are on a hiding to nothing, and there is nothing to be done. No blame.

But the US is different precisely because Trump made the stock market and economic impact down to him. He had been claiming [falsely] that the buoyant US economy was down to him [it wasn't] - so the significant downturn should have the same cause. The US demonstrates why you can't politicise economic performance and expect to get away with it all the time.

There seems to be no divided opinion that the versus will flood all communities. Managing the spread is about protecting response capacity to limit deaths.
 
I am getting suspicious that the coronavirus panic may well not be justified. Consider this:

1) Does the COVID-19 test throw up false positives - who knows, it is brand new and there is no way to cross-check?

2) Has the virus been around for much longer than claimed – occasionally causing pneumonia in people who might be expected to get pneumonia anyway?

3) Are people admitted to hospital with pneumonia tested for COVID-19? If they are, I imagine that if they die, the death is attributed to COVID-19, even if they had enough wrong with them to explain their death anyway, and of course even if their test gave a false positive!

Suggestions 2 and 3 would both operate to inflate the perceived risk of dying from this disease, which is typically fairly mild.

My hunch is that the current panic is analogous to the panic in the 1980’s about AIDS (remember the tombstone Ads) and the mad cow disease (sorry Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy). Whatever anyone thinks about the science relatged to these two events, the fact is that neither created the mayhem that would be expected!

David
 
Note the amazingly few tests we've even conducted in the USA. Apparently Russia just did more in a single day than we've done period.

Jon Rappoport is calling into question whether there is a virus at all. That the testing being done has never been verified for accuracy. That all the cases may be run of the mill flu, pneumonia, pollution, 5G, or a variety of other causes. I'm not saying I necessarily agree with that but it sure is interesting.

Also plausible is that there is a virus but the numbers are being made worse on purpose. There has to be false positives just because no technology is perfect. But what may be worse is not even testing people and just assuming they have the new virus.

What came to me this morning is that this event is shaping up to be (9/11 + 2008)X. That X is the exponential. I originally thought squared but recognized that the impact could be bigger even than that.

The virus is only one layer of this thing. Again, I'm more worried that the virus is the cover story for the crazier stuff going on. CV 911 2008 X.JPG
 
In a previous post I noted there were 36 million cases of flu this year.

If there were 36 million covid-19 cases and .2% were fatal, that would be 36,000,000 * .002 = 72,000 deaths.

So, looking at the chart below, one can see that even for younger people who are at less risk than the elderly, 10 - 19 year olds, 20 - 29 year olds and 30 - 39 year olds with .2% death rate, 36 million cases in the US would mean many thousands of deaths in each age group (the exact number would depend on the % of population in each age group and the number of people contracting the disease in each age group).

I think this is why the government is taking such drastic action to prevent spread of the disease. Simply isolating the elderly is not going to prevent a large number of deaths, hospitals overrun with patients, economic disruption, etc.

https://community.oilprice.com/topic/9796-charts-of-covid-19-fatality-rate-by-age-and-sex/

View attachment 1550

In a bad flu year, the USA experiences around 80,000 flu related deaths. What we are seeing now isn't even in any way close a bad flu year. It is a panic driven by the media and the underlying anxieties of sectors of the populace. The govt reacts to the media and the panic because they don't want to be perceived as fiddling while Rome burns. The govt reaction then serves as "evidence" for the media and the hysterics that the thing really is serious. It's a self licking ice cream cone.

The cruise ships should have served to de-escalate the whole thing. Cruise ships and the typical patrons of them are the perfect environment for a virus to wreak devastation. Yet three cruise ships had to be quarantined and the end result was like 6 people dead out of 9,000 total. IMO, there are lots of people out there with the virus that don't even experience symptoms. Thus the morbidity and mortality rate is far lower than reported. How many per 1,000 who have been on a cruise die within three weeks of the cruise? I'll bet the figure is 2 or 3. That's just ordinary circumstances, ordinary flues and other bugs + heart attacks, strokes, etc.

Again, this is a flu and it will infect and kill at the same rate as the flu. It will be old news in a couple of months.
 
In a bad flu year, the USA experiences around 80,000 flu related deaths. What we are seeing now isn't even in any way close a bad flu year. It is a panic driven by the media and the underlying anxieties of sectors of the populace. The govt reacts to the media and the panic because they don't want to be perceived as fiddling while Rome burns. The govt reaction then serves as "evidence" for the media and the hysterics that the thing really is serious. It's a self licking ice cream cone.

The cruise ships should have served to de-escalate the whole thing. Cruise ships and the typical patrons of them are the perfect environment for a virus to wreak devastation. Yet three cruise ships had to be quarantined and the end result was like 6 people dead out of 9,000 total. IMO, there are lots of people out there with the virus that don't even experience symptoms. Thus the morbidity and mortality rate is far lower than reported. How many per 1,000 who have been on a cruise die within three weeks of the cruise? I'll bet the figure is 2 or 3. That's just ordinary circumstances, ordinary flues and other bugs + heart attacks, strokes, etc.

Again, this is a flu and it will infect and kill at the same rate as the flu. It will be old news in a couple of months.
With the flu we allow some pruning of the population in order to maintain healthy world economies. It is hard to see what is so different with this virus that we should reverse that position.
 
In a bad flu year, the USA experiences around 80,000 flu related deaths. What we are seeing now isn't even in any way close a bad flu year. It is a panic driven by the media and the underlying anxieties of sectors of the populace. The govt reacts to the media and the panic because they don't want to be perceived as fiddling while Rome burns. The govt reaction then serves as "evidence" for the media and the hysterics that the thing really is serious. It's a self licking ice cream cone.

The cruise ships should have served to de-escalate the whole thing. Cruise ships and the typical patrons of them are the perfect environment for a virus to wreak devastation. Yet three cruise ships had to be quarantined and the end result was like 6 people dead out of 9,000 total. IMO, there are lots of people out there with the virus that don't even experience symptoms. Thus the morbidity and mortality rate is far lower than reported. How many per 1,000 who have been on a cruise die within three weeks of the cruise? I'll bet the figure is 2 or 3. That's just ordinary circumstances, ordinary flues and other bugs + heart attacks, strokes, etc.

Again, this is a flu and it will infect and kill at the same rate as the flu. It will be old news in a couple of months.

Hi Eric,

I don't know if covid-19 is as dangerous as the CDC says it is or not

And I agree the media is fueling the panic. But the flip-side to panic is denial. Both are caused by fear.

Spreading panic is not helpful, but it is also not helpful to draw the wrong conclusion that an unusually deadly virus is like ordinary flu based on evidence that really shows extraordinary measures taken to contain it worked.

And I agree the government can be forced to respond to the panic caused by the media. That is one reason I am looking at the data. To try to understand whether the government is justified in taking the actions they are.

You are right situation with covid-19 in the US right now is not as bad as the flu - but why is that? Because it just arrived? Because of extraordinary measures taken to contain it? Or because it is not as dangerous as the CDC says? I don't know.

China is the only place where for a period of time they ignored covid-19, everywhere else they are taking drastic measures to contain it. So if it's just an ordinary flu, why did China eventually begin to take drastic measures to contain it: restricting travel, locking down cities, disrupting their economy, and building new hospitals? The press in China is not like the press in the US, I don't believe they are responsible for the panic in China. (Maybe there was a fluke panic in Wuhan and it spread and the government had to take action? Because of international pressure? I suppose it's possible.)

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/31/pic...-hospitals-in-days-to-combat-coronavirus.html
China is building two hospitals in less than two weeks to combat coronavirus​

https://medium.com/@kasprdata/track...side-china-with-alternative-data-c0c9b8e592d4
On 10 Jan 2020, the first death from Coronavirus 2019 (Covid-19), was reported in Wuhan, Hubei province, China. Within two weeks, millions of people were locked down in the second largest Economy in the world.​
In China, the epicentre of the outbreak, the government’s efforts to contain the virus has led to massive disruptions in China’s manufacturing sector, with reports that most companies ‘ground to a halt’ as the travel bans began to bite.​
Most companies in the manufacturing sector were cut-off from supply chains and unable to find workers. Even those “that have been granted permission to resume operations face critical shortages of staff, with huge swathes of China still under lockdown and some local workers afraid to leave their homes.”​

https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus-changes-pollution-over-china.html

The Chinese government has closed business and restricted travel between cities. Wuhan, the city where the outbreak began, has been the subject of especially harsh measures. The impact of those measures is reflected in local pollution levels; a map of the city shows an astonishing drop in NO2 levels between Jan. 1 and Feb. 25.​

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I’m not sure the level of death justifies the collapse of world economies. This will cause more death and despair (to younger fitter people) than the virus.
What level of death are you talking about Malf? Current death totals don't justify any of this, its what happens next that has the medical community concerned.

Can someone debunk the cited concern of mass spread of this virus leading to an overwhelmed medical system which would result in significant loss of life? I'm talking a real scientific perspective here that calls into question the actions being taken to slow the spread of COVID-19.

All I seem to see from those asserting this to be a panic or farce is a reference to current death rates. (Red herring)
 
The expected death rate of about 1%. We’re crashing everything to look after (largely) elderly smokers, and other groups who haven’t necessarily looked after themselves.

maybe we need to consult philosophers, not virologists.
 
The expected death rate of about 1%. We’re crashing everything to look after (largely) elderly smokers, and other groups who haven’t necessarily looked after themselves.
That's one, rather myopic and shockingly naive, way to evaluate things.

You've seen the charts that show unabated infection rates. You've likely also seen the limited number of intensive care and respiratory assistance equipment in the developed world. Its obviously way worse in the developing/undeveloped nations. Let's allow your 1% fatality rate is accurate. A few questions emerge:

COVID-19 appears to be highly contagious. The medical research community estimates anywhere from 20 to 60 percent of the world's adult population could contract the virus. That's anywhere from 15-45m deaths using the 1% fatality rate.

However, the actual toll on human life would be much more severe. If just 20% contracted the virus that's 1.5b people worldwide. Our global medical care system would fold under the weight of the severe cases (estimated to be somewhere around 15%). Younger, healthy adults in need of medical care for accidents or other non-COVID illnesses would be unable to seek care.

Finally, the economic impact in a runaway-infection scenario would dwarf what we are likely to see under a more managed glidepath of infection.

In closing, I'm no expert here but I have yet to hear an intelligent, researched contra-opinion on this thing. I just hear ignorant appeals to either conspiracies or (worse IMO) a "let the old and sick die off" notion such as what you've intimated. I'll await something with some substance; if it is indeed forthcoming.
 
That's one, rather myopic and shockingly naive, way to evaluate things.

You've seen the charts that show unabated infection rates. You've likely also seen the limited number of intensive care and respiratory assistance equipment in the developed world. Its obviously way worse in the developing/undeveloped nations. Let's allow your 1% fatality rate is accurate. A few questions emerge:

COVID-19 appears to be highly contagious. The medical research community estimates anywhere from 20 to 60 percent of the world's adult population could contract the virus. That's anywhere from 15-45m deaths using the 1% fatality rate.

However, the actual toll on human life would be much more severe. If just 20% contracted the virus that's 1.5b people worldwide. Our global medical care system would fold under the weight of the severe cases (estimated to be somewhere around 15%). Younger, healthy adults in need of medical care for accidents or other non-COVID illnesses would be unable to seek care.

Finally, the economic impact in a runaway-infection scenario would dwarf what we are likely to see under a more managed glidepath of infection.

In closing, I'm no expert here but I have yet to hear an intelligent, researched contra-opinion on this thing. I just hear ignorant appeals to either conspiracies or (worse IMO) a "let the old and sick die off" notion such as what you've intimated. I'll await something with some substance; if it is indeed forthcoming.
Wrecking the global economy isn’t a zero sum game. The developing world will bear the brunt of that too.
 
Wrecking the global economy isn’t a zero sum game. The developing world will bear the brunt of that too.
Right. Exposing the world to the numbers I outlined in my post would be a far worse and much longer lasting blow to the global economy. Isn't that rather easy to see?

What are you proposing we should do?
 
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