Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Jeff Buchanan]

And make no mistake -- the economic consequences here are fucking catastrophic. CATASTROPHIC. Pension funds are going to be annihilated.

This apocalyptic market scenario assumes R0, CFR and GF continue to increase in a time frame that takes us much past early April. At the first sign that these numbers are declining and heading towards zero, and they will by any of the models we've been studying here, markets will stabilize. Until then, I expect you'll see more whipsawing with the huge moves both upward and downward as opportunistic investors buy and sell. I'd like to say a 30-40% bottom with a very slow cto moderate limb back up is the play but I'm not at all confident about that even though about 400 years of history through all kinds of bad shit shows that is likely to be the case.

Besides medical improvement, what's missing right now in US markets is assurances that fiscal stimulus will materialize in the form of hard cash for folks to pay the rent, spend a little bit and buy groceries while they are out of work and guarantees that key industries are kept idling - not shut down - with cash and short term, low to zero interest loans. If the Commies can do it in China we sure as hell better be able to do that or we might as well elect Bernie.

BTW, shutting down the stock exchaages is not an option for a lot of reasons and I'm all for strings attached government money for businesses. Those string must prevent the stock buy-back shenanigans with said money but Congress can't dither over this because this or that company did this or that in the past and don't deserve it. Fuck that shit. Print the money to stop the bleeding and worry about the details over the next 30d.

There's an economic price for printing a shit ton of money; we're about to find out if democracies and capitalism are in a better position to fight bad shit like this than the Commies. My money's on the good guys in white hats.

[CGVT]

My wife is putting 13 hours days, in at 5 AM out at 6 PM. She had to man the front door of the COVID unit, she thinks by tomorrow it will be full and they will have to create another unit. The hospital is able to do their own tests and they have a drive through testing unit at the hospitals in her system. The ability to turn around the tests in 4 hours has been a big improvement. They haven't had bad patients as far as she can tell, some of them are being discharged to self isolate at home.

The shortage of masks is a continual problem right now. They are keeping staff on hand even if they don't have a lot to do. I was at the biggest hospital in their system to take my daughter in and it was a ghost town. Since they cancelled all elective procedures and limited visitors the halls had more checkpoints than people. So I think if they get swamped they will be about as ready as they can be. Hopefully it does not get to that.

Damn, Loops. I know what it is like to work long hours in a crisis. Your wife and her colleagues are heroes. Thank her for me.

[froot loops]

Will do CGVT, meanwhile you have to get a very important vote in, only 17 hours left.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Nobody's up yet I guess so here's the round-up:

• Italy is in deep shit - combo of old population, poor HC infrastructure is causing the death totals to sore. The rate is accelerating too. It looks bad. People there are scared esp. older folks becasue older folks at highest risk know that if they get sick they probably can't access to the level of care they need and will die but the peak may be near. The reality of statistics dictate it. But let there be no doubt Italy's economy, not fully recovered from their own debt crisis a few years back, is going to take a huge hit......
• ...... brings us to the second important news, the EU's central banks ares doing pretty much what the US Fed, among other federal banks are doing, promising the moon. Markets continue to decline as the reality of the entire global economy being brought to its knees sets in.
• China didn't see any new cases yesterday. Takes 14d of that to claim they beat it. Next challenge is to get production wound back up ...... but there wont be any significant demand until the rest of the world gets back on its feet. For now, most of nations with the wealth to generate demand by buying stuff are all at home and inside. Going to be a long spring/summer.
• New cases in the US are accelerating. Part of that is due to expanded testing. First drive through facility in S. FL opened today. You have to call to get an appointment to drive through and get tested. Triage for that is as expected. Have to have defined CDC risk factors. It's a good step forward for our community. I still question the pretty strict requirements to get tested.Youre going to miss asymptomatics and by extension lose out on the value of tracing/tracking them. SK tested a shit-ton of folks using fa rless restrictive requirements to get tested then used cell phone technology to track citizens that tested positive.
• Experts think that's how they flattened the curve without the disruptions the US, EU are experiencing and will continue to experience with all the attendant damage to their economies using the stricter mitigation and containment measures. I have a hunch that as testing capacity improves in the US, public health offials will transition to this method ..... Jon, get ready for big brother to be watching your every step!

[AlabamAlum]

https://www.covidtrial.io/

[AlabamAlum]

And another similar (but different) trial:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/18/japanese-flu-drug-clearly-effective-in-treating-coronavirus-says-china

[AlabamAlum]

And let it be known that both of these had their genesis with a Scottish scientist.

It looks like Scots may save the world. Again.

[AlabamAlum]

[Ghengis Jon]

I'm more worried about the latest Q-Anon theory. Nancy Pelosi had her minions in Commie Land release the virus so that it eventually reach the US and infect the Orange Menace and his Wooden Ventriloquist Dummy. Using her installed Cabinet dopplegangers, she invokes the 25th Amendment, seizes the Oval Office, imposes medical martial law, takes everyone's guns and sends all the Trumpanzees to the Bernard Sanders Commemorative Re-education Gulag.

And I was worried about the panic induced lack of fig newtons at the grocery store.

[Jeff Buchanan]

I hate USA Today but, damn if they didn't come through with an excellent summary of WHO and Johns Hopkins charts - ones I'm following - some of them as of yesterday. We all know the terms here. Skip the drivel and just scroll through to have a look at the charts. These tell the story ..... the globe continues to see exponential increases in new cases and deaths. The exceptions are China, SK and Japan. Context is important here. the US cannot expect to have the same results for better or worse than any of these countries.... and no, I don't think we are like Italy at all. I might explain that later. But the importance of testing and contact tracing comes through loud and clear! I'm waiting for the supply of tests to skyrocket in the US, for the CDC to relax testing requirements and for some tech guru to come up wioth an app that allows public health officials by state to track positive cases ...... for now, the naysayers of this kind of invasion of privacy can STFU.

https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/world/2020/03/19/coronavirus-curve-us-may-its-most-dangerous-point/2863553001/

[Dr. Strangelove]

Unemployment claims jump 70,000 over the previous week. But that's only for the week ending March 14 -- the spike will likely happen when the current week's numbers get published next Thursday. Would expect them to be very bad as the current week is when the ball really got rolling on closing restaurants.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/unemployment-jobless-claims-rise-coronavirus-2020-03-19/

[Jeff Buchanan]

On AA's pharma link ...... I had heard about hydroxychloroquine (Plaquenil - used for Malria, RA, etc.) as a drug that has been around for a long time and being newly pushed as a treatment for the common cold - that would be coronavirus. Azithromycin (your friendly Z-Pack) has, for years been believed to be effective against atypical pneumonia associated with mycoplasma. I probably over-prescribed this for what amounted to any viral cold that produced a productive cough and fever. My patient's loved me when they got better in 2-3d - of course I gave them an injection of prednisone (kenalog) in the office and then gave them a scrip for 60mg/d of prednisolone (that's a heavy duty dose of your typical pred-pac for 5d. I've not been aware of their use as combo therapy but it makes sense.

Shit, package a billion tabs - it's widely available - and ship them to Italy. Fuck the trials. You've got a perfect cohort to test this stuff on. This got my attention:

A recent well controlled clinical study conducted by Didier Raoult? M.D/Ph.D, et. al in France has shown that 100% of patients that received a combination of HCQ and Azithromycin tested negative and were virologically cured within 6 days of treatment.

EDIT: the other AA link to this antiviral targeted at Influenza, favipiravir, appears to work pretty well in less complicated COVID-19 cases, less so in more complex ones in the elderly. OK, fine, get testing up to speed and throw this shit at anyone with mild symptos and stop those fuckers from being vectors for the virus ...... I should be king of Public Health! I could save the world ..... and, yeah, I'm a Scot.

[AlabamAlum]

Yes, it makes a lot of sense, and the numbers are promising.

Thank a Scot. We are the heroes you have been waiting for and our kilts can easily be capes if we go bottomless.

[iam416]

Yep. If efficacy is the only open issue, then use that shit off label to the motherfucking hilt and hope for the best.

[iam416]

Also, god-willing, Caruna will visit some small measure of vengeful justice on that bat-eating ChiCom Liren. It'd be an especially hard glove to the face with Fabio playing black.