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This morning, I'm seeing disparity in reported cases by the various media outlets and the CDC. In official reports that included reported cases in the US up to 4pm Friday, the number of confirmed or preemptively+ COVID-19 cases was 164. Repatriated COVID-19+ US citizens - all from the Princess cruise ship - total 46. The largest number of reported cases is in the state of Washington with CA and NY after that. You have the link to the CDC which is providing updates on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. It's also below. I've seen numbers of reported cases much higher than this in news articles.
I will admit an element of motivational bias is present in my posts. Still, I try to base what I write here on facts. I find mainstream press releases on most aspects of COVID-19 to be inaccurate or misleading either by headline or content. For example, NY's governor Cuomo declared a public health state of emergency this afternoon. Sounds scary, right? NY, at the most, has 20 reported cases per the CDC out of a state population in the many millions. Declaring a public health state of emergency authorizes the governor to allocate resources to deal with it beyond the powers he has innately. The governor of the state of Washington has also done that, so too has CA...... expressly for the purpose of granting these governors greater power to act. You'd think these states had just suffered a nuclear attack.
As of Saturday morning 48 states have private or public health labs testing for COVID-19. It is up to local health authorities to decide who gets tested. Test kits are available. It is accurate that the US was slow to begin wide-spread testing and that has an impact on the quality of the reported data. Like everywhere else in the world, the number of reported cases in the US is probably low and by numbers of magnitude low. As I stated previously, and I'll repeat it, this circumstance has no direct effect on your absolute risk of falling ill. Indirectly, it does have an effect. Data collection is used to assess infectiousness (Rho Naught), and morbidity of the virus decide where scarce resources may be most needed and guide health care system's readiness to deal with the ill who need hospitalization. Severity and mortality rates are going to end up being lower than currently reported - probably much lower.
While it's way early to speculate, but I will anyway, the trends in China predict a virus similar in infectiousness, mortality and morbidity to SARS and MERS - also corona viruses. It will likely peak within three to four weeks from around the date of the first confirmed+ COVID-19 case and the threat of epidemic spread regionally will be gone in six to eight weeks. Needless to say, isolated spikes will be reported and these will unfortunately be wrongly reported as reinfections. Coronaviruses are generally known entities. COVID-19, while novel, is still a coronavirus whose characteristics are known.
The 2nd Princess cruise ship thing: Yes, it is not being allowed to dock in SF and disembark passengers. There are 21 confirmed COVID-19+ passengers or crew out of 3500 onboard. It is a rational containment measure. The ship's staff is doing the same thing it did on the first Princess Cruise - passenger's movement aboard ship are being restricted. Another reasonable containment measure that is inconvenient. People will complain about it. Trump's words he chose to address this were poorly chosen. What's new? Anything he said about the situation was going to be used against him. All we need to have at hand to think rationally about this are the facts.
On Esper's comments which are being portrayed as the Trump administration's effort to control messaging. Well, duh. Another rational thing to do. You can disagree with that one but controlling messaging to reduce fear in the face of what I believe to be misleading and potentially fear provoking news reporting makes sense to me. YMMV.
I didn't find anything new today worth bringing up on global markets and the impact of COVID-19 on the global economy. It's not good ...... most of this is yet to be felt as supply chains get interrupted, lay-offs at affected companies occur because parts aren't available to assemble product and businesses go under because they don't have the cash or cash flow to pay the bills. The transportation sector - namely airlines - are going to take a hit. It's going to happen and the news of it will be dreadfully and unnecessarily bleak.
Unfortunately, that will affect markets and our investments more than is necessary. Volatility will continue unabated and large market swings will be common until we start to see solid evidence the COVID-19 epidemic or pandemic is abating. News that governments are taking BOTH monetary and fiscal policy initiatives in the coming weeks may help to stabilize the markets. Until then, sit and watch.
You may have heard reports that some cruise ships sailing itineraries in the Caribbean have been denied port access in Jamaica, Grand Truk and the Caymen's. Cruise lines are not happy about this given that not a single case of COVID-19 has been confirmed aboard any of the ships so denied. Moreover, cruise lines have taken unprecedented steps to prevent at risk passengers from boarding. Cruise lines have registered their complaints with the governing authorities that deal with this sort of thing...... and yes, I'm on a cruise ship. We are currently docked in Aruba. There is absolutely nothing going on on this ship out of the ordinary. This particular cruise line, Celebrity, which we have sailed on extensively, has never had a widespread onboard disease outbreak that I am aware of. That is because the line is meticulous about food safety and public area disinfecting. On one cruise out of some 37 over nearly 20 years we have taken on this line, we experienced a heightened level of sanitation requirements in public areas that involved passengers not being allowed to touch food serving utensils or areas - we were served by staff. We were also aware that some guests had been quarantined for norovirus symptoms. To my knowledge few passengers got ill because the line took reasonable containment measures quickly and at the appropriate time.
Be well.
I will admit an element of motivational bias is present in my posts. Still, I try to base what I write here on facts. I find mainstream press releases on most aspects of COVID-19 to be inaccurate or misleading either by headline or content. For example, NY's governor Cuomo declared a public health state of emergency this afternoon. Sounds scary, right? NY, at the most, has 20 reported cases per the CDC out of a state population in the many millions. Declaring a public health state of emergency authorizes the governor to allocate resources to deal with it beyond the powers he has innately. The governor of the state of Washington has also done that, so too has CA...... expressly for the purpose of granting these governors greater power to act. You'd think these states had just suffered a nuclear attack.
As of Saturday morning 48 states have private or public health labs testing for COVID-19. It is up to local health authorities to decide who gets tested. Test kits are available. It is accurate that the US was slow to begin wide-spread testing and that has an impact on the quality of the reported data. Like everywhere else in the world, the number of reported cases in the US is probably low and by numbers of magnitude low. As I stated previously, and I'll repeat it, this circumstance has no direct effect on your absolute risk of falling ill. Indirectly, it does have an effect. Data collection is used to assess infectiousness (Rho Naught), and morbidity of the virus decide where scarce resources may be most needed and guide health care system's readiness to deal with the ill who need hospitalization. Severity and mortality rates are going to end up being lower than currently reported - probably much lower.
While it's way early to speculate, but I will anyway, the trends in China predict a virus similar in infectiousness, mortality and morbidity to SARS and MERS - also corona viruses. It will likely peak within three to four weeks from around the date of the first confirmed+ COVID-19 case and the threat of epidemic spread regionally will be gone in six to eight weeks. Needless to say, isolated spikes will be reported and these will unfortunately be wrongly reported as reinfections. Coronaviruses are generally known entities. COVID-19, while novel, is still a coronavirus whose characteristics are known.
The 2nd Princess cruise ship thing: Yes, it is not being allowed to dock in SF and disembark passengers. There are 21 confirmed COVID-19+ passengers or crew out of 3500 onboard. It is a rational containment measure. The ship's staff is doing the same thing it did on the first Princess Cruise - passenger's movement aboard ship are being restricted. Another reasonable containment measure that is inconvenient. People will complain about it. Trump's words he chose to address this were poorly chosen. What's new? Anything he said about the situation was going to be used against him. All we need to have at hand to think rationally about this are the facts.
On Esper's comments which are being portrayed as the Trump administration's effort to control messaging. Well, duh. Another rational thing to do. You can disagree with that one but controlling messaging to reduce fear in the face of what I believe to be misleading and potentially fear provoking news reporting makes sense to me. YMMV.
I didn't find anything new today worth bringing up on global markets and the impact of COVID-19 on the global economy. It's not good ...... most of this is yet to be felt as supply chains get interrupted, lay-offs at affected companies occur because parts aren't available to assemble product and businesses go under because they don't have the cash or cash flow to pay the bills. The transportation sector - namely airlines - are going to take a hit. It's going to happen and the news of it will be dreadfully and unnecessarily bleak.
Unfortunately, that will affect markets and our investments more than is necessary. Volatility will continue unabated and large market swings will be common until we start to see solid evidence the COVID-19 epidemic or pandemic is abating. News that governments are taking BOTH monetary and fiscal policy initiatives in the coming weeks may help to stabilize the markets. Until then, sit and watch.
You may have heard reports that some cruise ships sailing itineraries in the Caribbean have been denied port access in Jamaica, Grand Truk and the Caymen's. Cruise lines are not happy about this given that not a single case of COVID-19 has been confirmed aboard any of the ships so denied. Moreover, cruise lines have taken unprecedented steps to prevent at risk passengers from boarding. Cruise lines have registered their complaints with the governing authorities that deal with this sort of thing...... and yes, I'm on a cruise ship. We are currently docked in Aruba. There is absolutely nothing going on on this ship out of the ordinary. This particular cruise line, Celebrity, which we have sailed on extensively, has never had a widespread onboard disease outbreak that I am aware of. That is because the line is meticulous about food safety and public area disinfecting. On one cruise out of some 37 over nearly 20 years we have taken on this line, we experienced a heightened level of sanitation requirements in public areas that involved passengers not being allowed to touch food serving utensils or areas - we were served by staff. We were also aware that some guests had been quarantined for norovirus symptoms. To my knowledge few passengers got ill because the line took reasonable containment measures quickly and at the appropriate time.
Be well.
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