KCLarkin

It's not shocking now (since the US is now the epicentre). But it was shocking in early March when there were fewer than 1000 reported cases in the U.S. and we were importing cases from states with no known cases.

He was roundly criticized because it didn't work. It didn't save thousands of American lives. It cost many thousands of lives because it added to His complacency. I know you live in a fact-free zone, but here is some context. Ontario borders New York state. Our less-than-stellar public health department has done an okay job tracking travel-related cases. Here are the top 10 travel related sources in Ontario: United States, 184 United Kingdom, 64 Cruise, 49 Germany, 27 Spain, 26 Mexico, 23 Austria, 19 Iran, 17 France, 15 Philippines,15 The China ban is just the pablum Fox feeds the cabbage-heads to keep them happy. Ontario only identified 4 cases related to travel to China (tied for 23rd with Costa Rica). But I guess if you call it the China Virus, you don't need to understand how pandemics work.

Liberty, that doesn’t read like a proper study.

1. US is ~3 to 4 higher per capita in cases and deaths 2. A very large portion of Canadian cases were imported from the US and Europe, not China. In Ontario, we were confirming patients returning from Las Vegas before there were even confirmed positives in Nevada.

From what I've read, 74 is probably the worst other than the great depression. A brutal, prolonged downturn plus inflation. But even then, I don't think it actually hit 50%. Ignoring the pandemic and unemployment, this is a pretty good bear market. Get the pain over with quickly...

50% drawdowns in the US are extremely rare though. How many since 1900? Great depression, DotCom, GFC. Any others?

This is why market timing is not recommended. Getting out is easy. But getting back in is the hard part.

Yes, your opinion is that, let's say, 6 million were infected as of March 9th. If the infection rate doubles every 3 days, there should be 200 million infected. And by Friday, every single person in the US will be infected. The problem is that no evidence supports this opinion.

Entire economies are being locked down due to supply of $.30 masks and swabs. Incredible. Even with our limited manufacturing abilities, we could easily scale up production if their was any urgency and leadership from our federal governments. It's fine to say there is a shortage, so we will only supply PPE to frontline workers. And ration tests. But you need to put all the resources of the government, military, and industry to overcome those shortages.

Just remember that the March 2009 bottom was very brief. The "buyable" bottom was -45%. If you were a couple weeks early or a couple weeks late, you'd be buying at 40-45% discount. Everybody counts the rally from March 9, but almost nobody bought then. I was buying in April 2009 at much higher prices. This seems most like 1929, but remember the FDIC, employment insurance, monetary policy, stimulus make this scenario unlikely.

This is such a useless stat. What percentage of the population has no pre-existing conditions? 40% of Americans ages 20-39 are obese according to a quick Google search. In the US, 33% of adults have high blood pressure.

Ulta

If you are doing a DCF, 2020 GDP is irrelevant. Whether it is a 30% drawdown or a 50% drawdown is unrelated to fundamentals. Nobody can time the bottom.

Interactive Brokers an option?

Absolutely. However, there is some question about who will benefit. The creditors or the shareholders? In most cases, it will be shareholders but there will be a shakeout.

No source. Or rather I have a source but don’t recall where it is. Believe it was Belgian medical guidelines. Basically, standard of care across most countries was to give these meds to critical patients or high risk patients. The adverse events are concerning enough to avoid using in mild cases and should only be given when patient is hospitalized. Also, concern that these are immune suppressants so will actually make things worse. Remdesivir is most promising but not approved and very limited supply. I think the evidence is that these drugs work, but since they are already being used I wouldn’t expect any dramatic improvement in treatment effectiveness in North America. Edit: Here is the source. See Annex 2. Of course, just because these are the clinical guidelines doesn't mean they are being followed. https://epidemio.wiv-isp.be/ID/Documents/Covid19/COVID-19_InterimGuidelines_Treatment_ENG.pdf

Seems they are already widely using these drugs in Italy and elsewhere, so unlikely to be a game changer.

It is possible. AND the situation in Italy shows that a strong response is required. With more widespread testing and better controls, these lockdowns would not be necessary.

Exactly. The virus is really getting going and there is a lag of, say 6 weeks, until you see the deaths. There is widespread, undetected, uncontained community spread in the US. Canada is seeing that when we test people coming from the US. Major parts of the US will look like Italy shortly. Canada is probably a week or two behind the US.

I was referring to mandatory quarantines of known positives. This is impossible where testing is being rationed.

South Korea's approach was very similar to Wuhan's from what I heard. Lots and lots and lots of testing and temperature taking everywhere, separating family members who are infected rather than at-home quarantine, etc. It wasnt just extensive testing, there was a lot of shutting down of things and shutdowns too, Real quarantine is essential. Self-isolation means you will just infect family and close contacts.

This is not hard. Come back in three weeks. If you are still an overconfident SOB, then you were right. And it isn’t about the death rate, it is about the limited medical capacity to deal with epidemics.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/12/new-york-gov-cuomo-bans-gatherings-of-500-or-more-amid-coronavirus-outbreak.html Why is this not 100 people or 50 people? Local leadership needs to be much more aggressive in these hot spots.

This is really two different conversations. Orthopa is saying this virus has been circulating for months and has already infected millions of people. If this is the case, then Corona is really just like the flu. It might be a bad "flu" because there is no community immunity, but it is unlikely to tax our healthcare system. The argument I am having with Orhtopa is purely on R0 and CFR. This is unknowable in US because there is essentially no testing. -- In terms of response, I think the response is much worse than Italy. It is hard to imagine how you could approach a pandemic worse. The "for profit" medical system makes it hard to contain the virus. It can cost several thousand dollars to get screened for the virus! The lack of adequate sick leave and other social security, means that sick poor people need to go to work and use public transit. The pandemic SWAT team was disbanded. The CDC messed up the test kits and didn't respond aggressively. The administration doesn't trust experts. The president is treating this like a PR crisis. The local governments and businesses have stepped in to help slow the spread, but the public health and leadership missed the opportunity to contain this. -- In terms of financial impact and investing impact, I am pretty optimistic. Only 10% of the valuation of a company is based on the next three years of earnings so I don't think this outbreak is material to most companies. So the immediate impact is pretty limited. The problem is that we are starting from very high valuations. The crisis in 2008 was bigger, but started with reasonable valuations. Given recent trends in financial markets, credit is likely to tighten and this could spread from a modest recession to a financial panic.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/dont-panic-says-us-woman-recovered-coronavirus-055155667.html Was I a bit early maybe? This was about a week ago. We will see. Ill be sure to check back and quote this when we get a similar narrative above in the media. 8) For an uneducated opinion, this is reasonable. But how do you reconcile with what is happening in Italy? And given how quickly things went out of control in Italy, why don't you think the same thing will happen in the US?