Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Dr. Strangelove]

Market could open 700 or 800 points down on all the bad news about the coronavirus spreading that came out over the weekend.

South Korea's cases have ballooned from a few dozen to over 750. Italy announces an outbreak out of nowhere (over 130 mostly around Milan). China's total keeps going up. Not mentioned in the article is that no one really trusts what Iran is saying -- they could be hiding how many cases they have. Iraq just reported its first known case -- a student from Iran.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/24/us-futures-coronavirus-outbreak.html

[Jeff Buchanan]

The DJIAF are down 2.8% this morning - that's close to a 1000 point drop. The drop is being attributed to new cases of COVID-19. As usual, the press is breathlessly reporting the catastrophe. WHO is more reserved. The map below shows world wide confirmed cases by country. I think it is important to recognize on a per-capita basis how small the numbers of confirmed cases are. The latest release from WHO doesn't change it's position. There is heavy emphasis in it on protecting health care workers and getting the word out on how to do that. I suspect the reason for that is that both SARS and MERS were believed to have been spread primarily via hospital transmission. Transmission remains via droplets and fomites (your fingers) and no other means of transmission has been definitively ID'ed. Advice to avoid catching the virus remains unchanged. Wash your hands frequently, avoid touching your eyes, avoid crowded venues, stay 1m away from observably ill persons who are coughing or sneezing, masks can be worn by sick individuals, they are ineffective as preventative measures for well individuals. I've linked to the latest WHO release but the map is the best part of it. Sorry about the size, it won't resize. Go to the link, open it in Power Point:

COVID-19 2-20-20.PNG

https://www.epi-win.com/updates

[iam416]

A worldwide coronavirus recession may be the only thing that can save the Ds from their own preposterous stupidity. Bluntly speaking.

[Dr. Strangelove]

The DJIAF are down 2.8% this morning - that's close to a 1000 point drop. The drop is being attributed to new cases of COVID-19. As usual, the press is breathlessly reporting the catastrophe. WHO is more reserved. The map below shows world wide confirmed cases by country. I think it is important to recognize on a per-capita basis how small the numbers of confirmed cases are. The latest release from WHO doesn't change it's position. There is heavy emphasis in it on protecting health care workers and getting the word out on how to do that. I suspect the reason for that is that both SARS and MERS were believed to have been spread primarily via hospital transmission. Transmission remains via droplets and fomites (your fingers) and no other means of transmission has been definitively ID'ed. Advice to avoid catching the virus remains unchanged. Wash your hands frequently, avoid touching your eyes, avoid crowded venues, stay 1m away from observably ill persons who are coughing or sneezing, masks can be worn by sick individuals, they are ineffective as preventative measures for well individuals. I've linked to the latest WHO release but the map is the best part of it. Sorry about the size, it won't resize. Go to the link, open it in Power Point:

COVID-19 2-20-20.PNG

https://www.epi-win.com/updates

I get the "don't panic" message but in just the three days since your last WHO update, South Korea's # of cases have gone from ~ 200 to over 750. And Italy has gone from 3 to over 100. Suggesting the containment may not be working as well as people thought and secondly, how much do you trust Iran and China to accurately report their numbers and how competently they are stopping the spread?

I saw something yesterday (and this is gross) that suggested that gas expelled when sick people have diarrhea has a much bigger radius of contamination than sneezing. I did not see why. Like maybe a higher concentration of the virus?

[AlabamAlum]

A courtesy flush saves lives!

[Ghengis Jon]

Trump fails to resign this morning. Market plunges 800 points.

[iam416]

So, Bernie is full throttle with his fracking ban. That should do wonders for him in Pennsylvania. And, of course, he's able find the good in Castro, earning him sharp rebukes from Florida DEMOCRATS. That should do wonders for him in Florida.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Heh, damn. At opening bell volume was so high that the websites for both Schwab and Fidelity temporarily crashed.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/24/fidelity-says-some-clients-experiencing-technical-issues-amid-800-point-dow-plunge.html

[lineygoblue]

So, Bernie is full throttle with his fracking ban. That should do wonders for him in Pennsylvania. And, of course, he's able find the good in Castro, earning him sharp rebukes from Florida DEMOCRATS. That should do wonders for him in Florida.

Its almost as though he's using the Hillary approach to the election. He's trying to piss off the key votes that he needs to win to put him over the top. Although Hillary's approach was more succinct. She just called everyone that opposed her 'deplorable' and took care of it in one fell swoop. Bern is doing it bit by bit.

[Dr. Strangelove]

All the hand-wringing over Hillary being "insulting" might have been taken more seriously if Trump weren't a 4th-rate Don Rickles impersonator.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Yeah, I don't want to seem like I'm ignoring the contagion. There's supposed to be a factor called Rho Naught or R0 that measures the infectiousness of COVID-19. I've been looking; haven't seen it published. Takes a while to develop it but it has been almost a full 90d. That will tell a lot objectively.

On the diarrhea issue: in the case of Norovirus, which is transmitted via shit and vomit particles, both airborne and on surfaces for up to 72h, its the dispersal again of droplets - toilets flushing, vomitus being expelled. I don't think it's "gas." But I don't know for sure.

COVID-19, unlike Norovirus which is a GI bug, is a respiratory virus. Theoretically it could get into your gut via swallowed sputum and then make it's way through your GI system and into poop but, then again, it would be droplet transmission, not gas per se. This info would be consistent with the Chinese alleging that it could be transmitted via sewer systems - droplets again and I haven't seen anything definitive of how long the virus survives out of the body. It does survive becasue your fingers can transmit it but I don't know for how long and that's important.

[Jeff Buchanan]

WHO Press Conference in Geneva this morning. I listened to the whole thing. It's 31 minutes of not much ........ key points:

Not a Pandemic .... yet ..... could become one.

Containment in China has been effective. Huge decrease in new case is encouraging and speaks to the value of China's context driven containment approach.

New cases in Italy, Iran and Korea concerning. The spread of disease, the dynamics of it, in these countries is not going to be like China or anywhere else. Emphasized context, specific region dynamics ..... cant be extrapolated. Large increases in one place do not mean there will be large increases elsewhere and vice-versa.

The natural transmission dynamics of COVID-19 is context driven - very different in each of these countries and throughout the world. Don't extrapolate the experience in one country to others. This kept getting repeated. Obviously important.

Still, time to do everything public health organizations within individual countries can do to prevent a pandemic. Risk assessments and appropriate measure are country and context dependent. WHO is deploying teams to help.

Protect health care workers a priority.

Protect the most vulnerable persons (elderly and those with underlying medical conditions) and countries (those that lack the means to take effective public health measures).

EU nations pouring money into WHO effort ..... read between the lines, US and GB conspicuously absent.

There will be another WHO press conference tomorrow that will list important steps for individual countries to take to contribute to risk reduction ..... this is a global effort. Together we win, individually we lose.

Bottom line: stick to the facts not fear mongering ginned up by the uninformed.

[Dr. Strangelove]

I saw some Middle Eastern countries shut down all flights with Iran today or over the weekend. Turkey, Oman, Bahrain, maybe some others

[Jeff Buchanan]

Saw that. Seems a good deal of this travel ban stuff makes sense and is part of the country dependent containment efforts. Step one is to keep it out of your country. It's pretty clear that infected persons can spread the disease without first having symptoms. Surveillance of travelers is in place world wide but if they don't look sick or have temps, makes it tough to just limit travel to that group. Better off to limit everyone's travel. Selectively by country and by air is pretty easy to do.

[Hannibal]