Dow down 1900 in two days; Corona virus prediction?

[Craig Lamson]

Usually, I start with Spiegel (they are surprisingly quick with reporting events in the whole world) and if I see an interesting article, instead of quoting it in German, I quickly look up that very topic on Google, and whatever comes first, I use for the quote. If you look at my previous posts, you'll see there all kinds of references (however, I avoid Al Jazeera, Chinadaily and Pravda). Sometimes, if I don't find equivalent article in the English press, I might attempt my own translation for the benefit of LuLa readers.

Here is the Spiegel article, which got my interest:
https://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/covid-19-in-den-usa-ansteckungsgefahr-fuer-wahlkampf-von-donald-trump-a-176144f1-d625-44a3-9e29-df498ef8f067

So it still leaves you in a very bad place regardless of your original source as I outlined in my first post to you.

[John Camp]

I had hoped to keep the focus here on the market and the virus, and not Trump, because I felt Trump had been exhausted as a topic in other threads. Sadly, that turned out not to be the case.

As to the market, the futures say it's gong to open down some 300 points Monday morning, but that, of course, could quickly be reversed. I'm very interested in what happens Monday in New York. I'm not very interested in Trump.

[armand]

[link deleted]

For those who can't keep the politics out

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Usually, I start with Spiegel...

Yes, Les, Spiegel is very objective when it comes to Trump:

[Jeremy Roussak]

[link deleted]

For those who can't keep the politics out

Armand, I have reminded people numerous times that links to external sites, even youtube, must be accompanied by an indication of what is there and why it may be useful.

Jeremy

[LesPalenik]

Yes, Les, Spiegel is very objective when it comes to Trump:

Slobodan, you are right, Trump might be their most popular subject. He and his pictures on the cover must be effective in selling more copies.

Spiegel is slightly left leaning and more critical of Trump now than when he started his presidential term. It seems to me that this reflects the overall German sentiment. OTOH, the Swiss Neue Zuercher Zeitung (nzz.ch) is leaning the other way and not quite so obsessed with USA and EU affairs, so I recommend reading both of them to get a more balanced picture of the world.
 

[armand]

Armand, I have reminded people numerous times that links to external sites, even youtube, must be accompanied by an indication of what is there and why it may be useful.

Jeremy

There was a hint in my description but I'll be more specific.
It's the SNL sketch on the coronavirus management here in US. And worry not, it hits both sides of the political spectrum.

https://youtu.be/H4qvO0StKto

[Alan Goldhammer]

there is a lot that we do not know about the COVID-19 infection.  The early epidemology data from the Wuhan area is interesting in that on 2% of those <20 years of age have been identified as being infected.  This is based on testing of those who showed clear symptoms.  The young people may have had very mild symptoms that did not warrant testing.  More data is needed and testing needs to be expanded to many more individuals so that we have good background numbers on what the true morbidity and mortality of this virus is.  It is possible that it turns out to be less than what is expected based on the early numbers and the small number of cases in Washington state where the virus appears to have been first seen some weeks ago might point to this.

It’s going to be interesting to see how quickly a vaccine candidate can be identified, tested and scaled up.  I hope that things don’t get over-promised.  From what I’ve read, safety testing won’t even start until April and there are some interesting new approaches.  Moderna Therapeutics in Cambridge has a mRNA based vaccine but I don’t think something like this has ever been licensed or even scaled up.  Some big vaccine makers are working on this as well (I’ve seen reports that Sanofi, J&J, and GSK are doing so) and all have scaled up vaccine manufacturing technology.  We’ll see how this all plays out but if one does come out of trials we won’t have enough vaccine for at least a year and we are potentially looking at vaccinating the entire world; a far different prospect than the seasonal flu vaccine.  I hope this effort is successful and not a repeat of the quest for an HIV vaccine.

Gilead have sent remdesivir out for trials on the drug front.  Since this was already looked at as an Ebola treatment, it has passed Phase 1 trials.  It appears to be active in vitro against COVID-19.  We’ll see how this happens.

What is needed is a Manhattan Project approach against this group of viruses but NIH and others dropped the ball several years ago.  This cannot happen again.

Just my random thoughts as someone who spent 30 years working in the biopharma industry.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Someone sent me this, apparently from an old textbook. I do not know if true or not:

[Alan Goldhammer]

Someone sent me this, apparently from an old textbook. I do not know if true or not:

Not true.

[armand]

Not true.

I don't think you meant that.
Common cold is caused by multiple families of viruses, the most common being rhinovirus, coronavirus, RSV and parainfluenza.

There are however several types of coronaviruses that became pathologic for humans and to which we don't have much immunity and can be more serious, such as the current epidemic.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/general-information.html

[Alan Goldhammer]

I don't think you meant that.
Common cold is caused by multiple families of viruses, the most common being rhinovirus, coronavirus, RSV and parainfluenza.

There are however several types of coronaviruses that became pathologic for humans and to which we don't have much immunity and can be more serious, such as the current epidemic.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/general-information.html

I did mean that.  Corona virus is an umbrella definition that needs a lot of refining.  Morbidity and mortality are vastly different.  As I noted in my previous post, there is a lot that we still don't know and until we have a good background infection number, everything is conjecture.

[armand]

What you say has value but doesn't negate that textbook or what I wrote.

Coronavirus family commonly cause common cold. Some coronaviruses behave differently, such as COVID-19. That we need more data points for COVID-19 doesn't change the fact that it's a coronavirus and that coronaviruses family usually cause common cold.

The focus would be on knowing people this is the black sheep of the family.

[Alan Klein]

I heard this morning that's coronavirus morbidity rate is not 2% but rather .2%. If true, just how much of a threat is just a lot of hype because it's election season?

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

I heard this morning that's coronavirus morbidity rate is not 2% but rather .2%. If true, just how much of a threat is just a lot of hype because it's election season?

There are different estimates, even about Influenza (and they differ by year). It also matters if the mortality rate is expressed as a percentage of all-cause deaths globally, or of deaths from lower respiratory tract infections directly caused by influenza.

Nothing to do with conspiracy theories.

[Alan Goldhammer]

I heard this morning that's coronavirus morbidity rate is not 2% but rather .2%. If true, just how much of a threat is just a lot of hype because it's election season?

You are confusing morbidity with mortality.  Morbidity is illness, mortality is death.  Try explaining to Italy, Japan, South Korea, China, etc. that they should not be concerned because this is all hype related to the US elections.  Try to use some common sense of your own and look at the reactions beyond the US borders.  If you want to focus on the US, look at Seattle.

The bottom line as I already noted is we need much more testing to establish a reliable background rate of infection.  Until we have that information everything is just conjecture.

[Alan Goldhammer]

What you say has value but doesn't negate that textbook or what I wrote.

Coronavirus family commonly cause common cold. Some coronaviruses behave differently, such as COVID-19. That we need more data points for COVID-19 doesn't change the fact that it's a coronavirus and that coronaviruses family usually cause common cold.

The focus would be on knowing people this is the black sheep of the family.

Virological classifications were done based on the shape of the virus as gathered and as I noted imprecise.  This is really not a debate worth having unless you are a virologist.

[Alan Klein]

You are confusing morbidity with mortality.  Morbidity is illness, mortality is death.  Try explaining to Italy, Japan, South Korea, China, etc. that they should not be concerned because this is all hype related to the US elections.  Try to use some common sense of your own and look at the reactions beyond the US borders.  If you want to focus on the US, look at Seattle.

The bottom line as I already noted is we need much more testing to establish a reliable background rate of infection.  Until we have that information everything is just conjecture.

I never said the illness was not real.  What I'm saying is that it's being overblown here in the States because it's election season.  The anti-Trumpers are trying to make Trump responsible for the disease and deaths.  They're trying to scare everyone to help the markets sink hurting Trump's economic success record, his key argument for a second term.  Anyone who's paying attention, or isn;t anti-Trump themselves,  sees that right away. 

[Alan Klein]

DOW up 1294 points.

[Alan Klein]

Sorry Democrats.  It didn't work.