Read the Footnotes

And then in the very next paragraph: I think he is partially right and partially wrong. How can he say fundamentals are merely metrics used to sell stock, when he asks the same question to private investors. Asking "how soon can I get my money back?" and ignoring earnings or sales ratios is kind of silly. BTW, have you or anyone read the book he recommended, "The Number by Alex Berenson"? Probably I should post in the correct forum. I think the key to understanding the points he is making without seeing them as contradictory is to so see them in historical context. If this is from 2004, it's just a couple of years after Sarbanes-Oxley (2002) and the scandals that prompted the reforms. Earnings are more easily manipulated than cash (especially then), and earnings based multiples are more easily manipulated that cash based multiples. The Number by Alex Berenson is a further hint that this was his meaning. The Number was about earmings manipulation and the scandles at Enron, Worldcom, Halliburton, Tyco and others. The manipulation was driven by the desire to meet earnings expectations or manage earnings. These manipulated earnings were then fed in to the Wall Street system for analysts selling the stock and its results which then impacted the supply and demand factors driving the price higher and of course making the executive stock options more valuable. To bring this up to date, in the current environment, it would make more sense if Cuban was today saying that we shouldn't pay attention to the price to non-GAAP adjusted bullshit EBITDA numbers (P/BS-EBITDA ;)). Instead should be focused on the verification of FCF and then the use of P/FCF. The best updating of all would be to urge caution regarding the use of price to tangible addressable market market (P/TAM), which if you haven't heard of it yet, P/TAM is a real honest to god new form of lunacy that is roughly the equivalent of what price to potential eyeballs would have been in 1999.

This poll is hilarious. The poll was started at the beginning of December, and still available for people to vote. Currently 21% of respondents chose that they expect to have been inoculated in December 2020. I guess that means that 21% of CoB&F respondents expect to be in the top <1% of Americans, or the top <0.3% in Canada, or more likely there are lots of Israeli board members and they are part of the top 10% or so that were vaccinated in Israel in December (current number is around 14%). https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/covid-vaccine-tracker-global-distribution/ Now I'm starting to doubt that everyone put in a Beardstown-Ladies-worthy 5,000% return in 2020. Thanks for allowing me to have a little fun. I really do enjoy Corner of Berkshire and Lake Wobegon. :) Note: edited for typos.

I would like to note that there is a remarkable shift in the tone of this thread after the first five or so posts. If you're looking for a more fulsome discussion of either bad luck or mistakes made in the investment industry from someone either in the industry or formerly in the industry good luck finding it anywhere other than in Picasso's recent posts. And if you do know of an example to recommend, I'd probably be interested in reading it. I still have never discussed any of this with Picasso, and if I had discussed anything with him I probably would keep my mouth shut on this forum, but since I haven't I'd like to make a few high level comment regarding this thread. Even if I didn't know Picasso the combination of two personal experiences would have led me to believe that taking the complaints at face value was very unlikely to give a complete picture. Here are two examples I'd like to explain in case they are helpful to any readers. First, I have had a lot of exposure to the CFA ethics, through exams, organizations, and other experiences. Having that framework seems to have resulted in me having a more nuanced and complicated model of what issues might be at play, I noticed Gregmal had a similarly nuance to his comments, which he seemed to attribute to time in the industy. The CFA Code and Standards is a higher standard than the law in general, but if you're lost in this thread and can't figure out how to think about these issues, you can easily get a copy of the code and standards. Some people find it an effective treatment for insomnia while still being easier than trying to understand the actual regulatory framework for different regions. https://cfainstitute.org/-/media/documents/code/code-ethics-standards/standards-practice-handbook-11th-ed-eff-July-2014-corr-sept-2014.ashx As a second framework, I briefly worked for a financial expert witness years ago and I have a brief anecdote I hope will be instructive. The first rule for the lawyers chasing cases is "show me the losses". If there are no losses, there can't be any damages, if there are no damages, their are no claims. So the way it works is that at the bottom rung of the the industry their are undoubtedly many law firms that look for losses, announce actions and start recruiting clients before they have figured out if there are any actual potential claims of wrong doing or fault. All you need to do to confirm this is to look at how many firms announce investigations as soon as a stock falls in price above a certain amount. I am convinced that if someone looked for it they would probably find a couple of firms that announced investigations or even cases when the stock actually fell due to a special dividend or something equally ridiculous. I only worked very briefly at the highest end of the market, but I assume the easiest way for the ambulance chaser types to prospect for business is to just pile in to the fray and try to find clients whenever they see claims and settlements announced somewhere. The previously cited sources and most other publicly available information on the web seems to fit that mold. Also, I would note that an often cited data point in the alternative management industry is that the vast majority of funds that shut down shut down due to operational issues, not fraud or mismanagement. Plus you need to add in a lot of bad luck in combination with operational issues in many cases. So even if I knew nothing about this situation, a base rate analysis should have lead me to believe that bad luck and operational issues are much more likely than fraud or mismanagement. The original direction of this thread had all the makings of the worst of social media swarming and misinformation, with Gregmal interjecting some early reason from someone with experience. If you're trying to understand what some of the online ill's of society are these days and how disinformation can flourish, I think this thread and it's interaction with one sided incomplete narratives from lawyers seeking clients is a really interesting study. A little bit of "knowledge" can be a dangerous thing. Finally, I find Roark33's original post and the fact that he used Picasso's real name a little bit odd. I see that last night after Picasso started posting Roark33 changed the title of the thread and changed his first post to just say "FELP". Interesting.

On the law firms, the second a FINRA complaint is filed, many of the ambulance chaser firms have automated programs that shoot out boilerplate press releases advising "anyone who worked with XXXXX XXXXXXX to contact us regarding your options".... On the first part, depending upon how the account was setup, its very possible to do the above without doing anything wrong. If he is not operating as a 65 but simply a 7/63, he has no fiduciary duty. All he has to do is make sure what he's recommending is suitable. And suitability is simply determined by what boxes are checked on account opening forms. The good old trick back in the day was to only deal with HNW investors who check "speculation" for objective and "max aggressive" for risk tolerance. You could literally put their entire investment in one name and then double it over on margin. Effectively 200% long in one stock. And its entirely kosher. For a stock broker, the UT claim is also probably one of the most common. Guy all of a sudden say "I never agreed to buy that". Always well after the trade has gone down....But you still have to ask, why if you didnt want it, did you wait until 2019/20 to file a complaint for a transaction that took place 5+ years ago? During which you've gotten 50+ monthly statements? The biggest complaint I see here that will stick is using the non-firm email to essentially guarantee clients against losses. Both are big No-Nos. Guys probably getting a lifetime ban. I admit I am biased because I respect Picasso as an analyst and like him as a person. I have no specific knowledge of these situation or complaints, but I would recommend patience before reaching a conclusion about this unfortunate situation. Here are a few reasons why. First I would ask the following. What happens if you put 50% of assets in a position that goes up 20X in a short period of time? What percent of the portfolio does it become? What impact does this have on taxes? What impact does liquidity have? What if you end up owning more than 10% of the company? What if lots of people are watching your moves? These are problems that many commenters have never had to deal with for clients. Also, as Greg mentions, I believe at least some clients likely represented that he was managing only a tiny portion of a very large total portfolio of an extremely wealthy. risk seeking, highly sophisticated client. 94% allocation for a very sophisticated client who is telling you to try swing for the fences and to hit a home run is not necessarily inappropriate. It is also possible that a client might represent themselves one way during the good times and a different way during the bad times. Greg has also hit on a couple of truths about the business. I would add to it that no one ever sues for taking too much risk if the outcome is a 20 bagger even if it becomes 94% of the portfolio. If that position gets paired down to a more reasonable position size and later goes to zero, expect lawyers whether there are merits to the complaints or not. A couple of other points. Settling doesn't necessarily signal anything other than a corporations willingness to make something go away, and record keeping regarding client communications, directives and suitability may be more important than many other issues mentioned in this thread. I believe Picasso was at one time managing multiple portfolios for multiple entities, so an email from the wrong account may not mean what it appears to mean. Also possible that what a complaint calls a guarantee is not what a reasonable person would call a guarantee. I would also say that the narrative presented here is dominated by statements and press releases written by lawyers for one side. FELP would be an inappropriate position in many portfolios. It would also be inappropriate for many clients to have a highly concentrated portfolio. That doesn't mean either are inappropriate for all portfolios, and we don't have enough information. It's too easy to jump to conclusions in this information age with only a small amount of information. sampr01--Much respect for your attitude and sorry to hear of your experience and financial loss. Note: Edited to remove name.

Highly recommended. I bought one in October of 2019. It has been a godsend. My wife and I spent just about all our free time out on Lake Winnipesaukee this spring, summer, and fall. A boat is great for social distancing. Also in case Biden gets any crazy gun control passed I lost all of my guns in a tragic boating incident this past summer. CorpRaider and rkbabang, could you suggest a specific ticker . . . er, I mean model?

Nice job, Mattee, of taking the time to point out some reality in your multiple posts on the subject. The truth is that Mattee's posts may only scratch the surface of how much some enthusiastic people may be overestimating the speed of distribution especially if you are talking about the amount of time for the body to acclimate after a second dose, we are talking a minimum of a month from first dose to second dose and then more time for your body to adapt after the second dose. It's good news, but it doesn't really change the optimistic schedule and we will all be wearing face masks in the mean time. If this is a positive harbinger for other candidates, some of which are much cheaper and with easier distribution, then multiple competing approved vaccines would start to chip away much more rapidly, but again many people have been counting on that outcome, so to some extent it is baked in to very optimistic expectations.

If you know anything about the equity market, it is very forward looking. This provides hope and that's what you need sometimes. It takes away the risk that a 50% effective vaccine is the only way forward. Not only is the market forward looking, but: 90% is potentially very good news, Pfizer's vaccine in some ways is among the best vaccines to prove highly efficacious because distribution preparations are well along the way, and it might be taken as a sign that other vaccines with a high probability of success are likely to be effective also. One piece of bad news in all of this is that the mutant mink coronavirus may be crossing to the USA as we speak and current vaccines are untested against the new mutation. Too bad the Trump administration is yet again failing to block all travel in time for what may turn out to be a new pandemic viral mutation. Other countries have already banned all travel and freight from Denmark as a precaution.

Hey muscle--no one on here understands this virus better than you--that's for sure! I grant you an honorary doctorate. Where that herd immunity at? Still waiting... :-X The herd immunity hypothesis is not broken. Georgia, FL, TX have all reopened and cases continued to trend down. NY reopened some restaurants and look stable so far. WA, CA's total cases/ population is only half the ratio of GA, FL, TX etc so I think they will get a new wave once they reopen. I do not have time to track all 50 states. What part do you see that makes you think herd immunity hypothesis is at risk? I think your terminology is broken, though maybe not your thesis? I have asked before, how do you define herd immunity? You seem to have a non-standard definition. Herd immunity = 80% + population immune to the virus. Therefore if society is open and the daily new cases continue to trend down, that's sign of herd immunity. It is not equal to 0 daily cases every day, unless 100% of population has immunity. There are lots of infections with no symptoms and probably a lot of people who have never been exposed to COVID but their T cell has strong reaction to it. So it is naive to use the confirmed total cases to divide the US population and require that to be greater than 80%. Finally! Thank you for providing your definition of herd immunity. It is not the textbook definition of herd immunity, but that is not the majority of where you seem to be going wrong in your reasoning. It's true that if we had achieved herd immunity that cases would be declining. It is NOT true that if cases are declining, we must have achieved herd immunity. If A then B, does not mean you can say, B therefore A. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirming_the_consequent I agree that it is likely that T-cell immune response likely varies widely and as I have said before I believe there are lots of reasons to believe the level of immunity in the US and elsewhere is likely materially underestimated. That doesn't mean that we are anywhere near the textbook definition of herd immunity anywhere in the world other than in a few narrowly defined communities.

Muscle, this is the most productive post I have seen from you in months. The only thing I don't agree with is that some of the people who are down on Trump or are very concerned about COVID have not sold any stock and/or have been adding aggressively and selectively. The idea that people who think that Trump is unnecessarily killing US citizens and that this is NOT going to go away by Easter and that it is NOT as hoax, must be selling out of their positions and going to cash is just wrong. In fact I don't personally know any members of this board who report to have done that although there have been many accusations fearful selling lobbed in this thread and in the politics section, those accusations are likely off base. You have probably missed my prior posts. I was calling for a major top in the end of August. You may go back and read my posts in the end of August for my reasoning. There is no linear relationship between COVID improving -> buying stocks or COVID terrible -> selling stocks. People who think that way need to spend more time learning. I think I have understood you except for your use of the term herd immunity, which is a separate conversation from the one quoted above. My point in the quoted post above has nothing to do with you thesis. It has to do with the fact that in your post above you are giving advice to Dalal and others. There seem to be members of the board that assume that Dalal and others have gone to cash. I have not been following Dalal, so I do not know in his case, but I know in many other cases, those accusations are false. Just as many people who are political conservatives are called "libtards" and stuff like that. There are some very wrong assumptions regarding information that posters on this forum do not disclose such as how their portfolios are actually positioned, or what their actual political beliefs are.

Muscle, this is the most productive post I have seen from you in months. The only thing I don't agree with is that some of the people who are down on Trump or are very concerned about COVID have not sold any stock and/or have been adding aggressively and selectively. The idea that people who think that Trump is unnecessarily killing US citizens and that this is NOT going to go away by Easter and that it is NOT as hoax, must be selling out of their positions and going to cash is just wrong. In fact I don't personally know any members of this board who report to have done that although there have been many accusations fearful selling lobbed in this thread and in the politics section, those accusations are likely off base.

Hey muscle--no one on here understands this virus better than you--that's for sure! I grant you an honorary doctorate. Where that herd immunity at? Still waiting... :-X The herd immunity hypothesis is not broken. Georgia, FL, TX have all reopened and cases continued to trend down. NY reopened some restaurants and look stable so far. WA, CA's total cases/ population is only half the ratio of GA, FL, TX etc so I think they will get a new wave once they reopen. I do not have time to track all 50 states. What part do you see that makes you think herd immunity hypothesis is at risk? I think your terminology is broken, though maybe not your thesis? I have asked before, how do you define herd immunity? You seem to have a non-standard definition.

i slept like a baby, thanks for asking. This AM, i walked with my youngest daughter on her way to the bus corner (first day of school for many here). It's really hard to be mad at life when seeing what she is becoming. FWIW, education authorities here (IMO) are navigating the return to school turbulence based on a reasonable course and a few compromises. It seems that they are using 'foreign' inputs for vicarious learning: https://www.npr.org/2020/08/01/898184566/how-denmark-is-thinking-about-reopening-schools-safely https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/switzerland-denmark-school-reopening-plan-covid-19-1.5683975 The importance of education can't be stressed enough. To learn the basics, ways to think, learn how to learn, rights and responsibilities of citizenship etc About the intensity of last night's exchanges, it happens rarely but, when it happens, my level of interest (for a person, an investment opportunity, a topic) can reach unusual levels and the coronavirus topic has been a relative focus lately. Hopefully, the exchanges are helpful for somebody. Helping others to help themselves tends to be productive while simply helping enters a territory of diminishing returns. And of course there's those that can't be helped. I have to say that the last couple of days this thread has been pretty ridiculous. Cigarbutt was consistently posting helpful well reasoned posts, with citations to reputable information sources, and he was surrounded by . . . let's just say for a while there Cigarbutt was an island to himself. Cigarbutt's post here reminds me of a personal message I received from a friend who lives near Cigarbutt. This person's educational training is as a medical historian focusing on pandemics and the plague. Her assessment was that her region had fared relatively not because the situation was managed perfectly or precisely but because there was just enough competence to get things under control. Her estimation of what had happened in the USA on the other hand was that the situation was entirely preventable and that the federal management stinks of criminal indifference. "Criminal indifference" seems like about the best characterization that I have heard. It's also interesting to note, that this is coming from a resident of what may have been the worst or at a minimum among the worst hit portions of Canada.

You have inadvertently clarified the major fault lines in this thread. If you downplay the risks of driving, it absolutely changes the risk level of driving. You drive a little faster, run yellow lights, text, drive after a beer. And risk doesn't rise linearly, so small behaviour changes dramatically increase your risk. And it doesn't just change your risk, you increase the risk for everyone else on the road. the estimated risk of a pedestrian being killed is approximately 9% if they are hit at a speed of 30 mph. The risk at an impact speed of 40 mph is much higher, at approximately 50%. The same thing happens when you downplay the risk of a pandemic. Good insights KCLarkin. And relevant not just to dumb think relative to the pandemic and automotive risk, but also dumb think regarding investing. If you think of someone creating an impression of safety and a resulting adjustment in behavior, you are soundly in the field of risk compensation theory and specifically the Pelzman effect is relevant. Usually the Pelzman effect is discussed in the context of actual improvements in safety, not in terms of false claims of efficacy or rank conspiracy theories, but it is certainly a useful framework for thinking about these risks. The Wikipedia page on risk compensation seems pretty good at first glance and includes a paragraph on the Pelzman effect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_compensation

Ok...So I guess "the crash" will be in 6 mo then... You also said schools will open in most states by September which is possible but depends too much on local politicians. I think new case numbers will improve from here on out (have likely peaked nationwide), but "dramatically improved" is questionable. Furthermore, hospitalizations and deaths will have a longer tail due to inherent delays. I definitely do not think there is enough data to suggest we are close to herd immunity as you've suggested. But none of this really matters economically as the damage is done particularly to the U.S. due to a much longer drawn out and larger in magnitude pandemic than most industrialized countries (second round of fiscal stimulus in progress...). Those second and third order (largely economic) effects of the pandemic will have a long tail... FWIW muscleman Thank you for apologizing about the 20k figure. Most people agreed a month ago that we had already peaked and cases would head downward. There is no sudden drop suggestive of herd immunity end of August. It’s a gradual decline. There is a clear epidemiological definition of herd immunity with a well defined threshold, we don’t need to debate that. FL and GA had double digit positivity rate last week (1/8 positive) which is not a good thing and shows herd immunity is not anywhere near at least according to an epidemiologist’s definition of the term. No I disagree. When you have GA and FL reopen and the new cases continues to drop, that's the sign of herd immunity. "double digit positivity rate last week" proves nothing. If there is only one guy who has symptoms in GA yesterday, he got tested, and it is positive, that's OMG 100% positive! That's the end of the world isn't it? Muscleman, I commend you for bringing up the subject of your forecast and admitting that you were wrong. I am not sure your admission would go so far as "rubbing your nose in it" as Munger might say, but I suspect it is more than most would do. GA and FL numbers are among the most suspect in the country, so using them as an example is very concerning. Pretty much only GA, FL and the US Federal agencies have had whistle blowers accusing them of manipulation. The high positivity rates combined with a good reason to be suspicious or at least cautious when using GA or FL numbers leads me to believe that there is little to nothing that can be said about herd immunity based on current FL and GA numbers. Plus you draw a singular link between mortality and herd immunity when there are so many other potential causes of decreasing CFR, such as improving standard of care. Here's another alternative explanation . . . wearing masks reduces severity! Here's an article written for a non-scientific audience: https://www.inverse.com/mind-body/masks-breathing-in-less-coronavirus-means-you-get-less-sick Some people have congratulated you for "being right", but the question is were you right or were you just lucky? Compared to most fields, this question is far harder to answer in investment, or in your case as a momentum trader, speculation. Using mortality as an indicator for herd immunity does not match the definition of herd immunity. At best it is a lagging indicator and herd immunity addresses susceptibility of a population to infection not susceptibility to mortality due to infection. There are so many other potential explanations. All of this makes me suspect you are using some non-standard definition of herd immunity. Can you provide the definition of herd immunity that you are thinking of?

An even more basic question, how can anyone believe cases are actually declining in GA when the positivity rate is 12.7%?

Putin's likely response: YA deystvitel'no ne znayu etogo parnya. YA s nim ne vstrechalsya. Chto yest', to yest'. ;)

Two addenda (edits) 1. I'm not a fan of trigger warnings, but if you're a hypochondriac, you might not want to read some of my thoughts below. 2. Cubs only gave two choices to choose from, but if I had chosen my own words, I probably would have rated the previous conversation as a) complicated, and b) not the best use of your time, which is more generous and potentially more accurate than simply calling it BS. On to the original unedited post: Unfortunately, basically a big pile of BS built upon the back of statements that needed to be incredibly carefully worded about an extremely complex subject in order to prevent misunderstanding by journalists or to open the door to intentionally misleading interpretations. This was from 6-10 weeks ago? There's plenty of contemporaneous analysis of the specifics of this past episode if you want to go looking for it. I'll try a brief, simple and concise description of my own which maybe other can build upon or comment upon. I think it would be more constructive to attempt to provide good information than to argue about bad information. First, it's important to understand that there is a good bit of evidence that there may not actually be such a thing as asymptomatic cases. Cases where the patient does not report symptoms are classified as asymptomatic. That does not mean the patient does not have symptoms. What we actually have is symptoms that are below the level of consciousness of the patient. Many patients who never were conscious of the infection have evidence of the infection including what may be permanent damage to their lungs, so just because they were not aware of the symptoms and did not report symptoms, does not mean the virus was not present, that their immune system was not responding, or that they were not infectious. This may actually be more common among children than adults. There are probably many contributing factors such as the health of the patient, the self-awareness of the patient, the level of positive affect, and the severity of infection, in addition to the specific symptoms generated by the infection. You don't have pain nerve endings in your lungs so its possible to suffer permanent damage their without sensing that, and other signs are likely just being ignored by some of the infected. In some ways it might be more understandable to the general public to call them "subconsciously symptomatic" (my own terminology) cases than asymptomatic cases. On the other hand on average someone who is asymptomatic is less likely to be infectious because their viral load is likely not that high even though it may be doing damage to them subconsciously and unless they are incredibly clueless, they probably aren't coughing and sneezing a lot. The problem is that since these people are kind of clueless, they are more likely to be highly mobile and even though they may not be highly infectious, they can contribute significantly to spread. Someone who is highly symptomatic is much less likely to be going about in crowds and is much more likely to have other people notice their symptoms and avoid them due to their obvious symptoms. Compare that to the most infectious, for example the very sick who are coughing and sneezing (coughs and sneezes spread diseases), and also those who have the virus growing within them but have not yet staged an immune response, or the presymptomatic infectious period. Most people are thought to actually be most infectious several days after inoculation and before the combination of the viral load and the immune response are great enough to generate self-reported symptoms in most patients. So the presymptomatic period is the most infectious period of most cases, whether the symptoms are ultimately consciously noted by the patient or not. Unfortunately, the only ways to prevent the presymptomatic and "subconsciously symptomatic" spread of SARS 2.0, you need to good testing and contact tracing (which the USA and some other areas are incapable of at the moment) or you can use face masks, social distancing, etc. Yes, it sucks. We got lucky with the virus in some ways, but this part really sucks. That last part was highly technical, but hopefully you can follow that. ;) Unfortunately, that's about as brief as I think you can be on this subject. If anything is not completely up to date or goes astray in this attempted summary, then please feel free to add to the discussion.

Not so fast. I'd give it a few days. SARS 2.0 is famous for people going up and down at about this point in the recovery. There are some pretty crazy stories about people claiming that it's a hoax, then getting sicker begging for help, then getting better claiming it's a hoax and they always new it, then getting sicker and packing their hospital go bag begging to get tested, then getting better and they start talking about how it's a hoax again. I hope it will go well for him, but feeling better for a few hours unfortunately means nothing.

Who would have predicted at the time of the poll that Biden would be expected to win the November elections and that the forward looking stock market would like that so much?

It would be roughly true if there were no public health interventions and no voluntary behaviour changes and no seasonality. It would be roughly true if there were no public health interventions and no voluntary behaviour changes and no seasonality and no massive improvements in standard of care and if there were not multiple self reinforcing exponential components with associated tipping points regarding severity of disease. I would not surprise me if we could be seeing a 95% reduction in fatality rates purely due to improvements in care. That alone would be enough to explain the difference, but such a wide gap is likely localized and not widespread. The thing you have to keep in mind is that early on in places like NYC, US healthcare was not only were not doing the right things, they actively doing the wrong things! There likely won't be much discussion of this fact due to many reasons, but litigation risk is clearly one of the top reasons.

Nice job building on some of my previous arguments, while expressing yourself more clearly and concisely, plus adding to them with other well expressed arguments. I'd like to mention a closely related odd tactic he uses when he says that the only thing NYS and Stockholm have in common is wild herd immunity and that must be driving down the mortality. There are several things wrong with that argument. I'll list two below. First, I can create an exceedingly long list of silly things that NYS and Stockholm have in common, but here are a few that aren't silly: - I bet a lot more people in both places know someone who got sick and it scared the crap out of them and they changed behavior - I bet a lot more people in both places know someone who died and that is changing behavior. I have seen estimates that in the USA on average eight people are grieving for each individual death from COVID-19. To be honest I have know idea what exactly that means, but I have a feeling it means that a lot more people are grieving than dying and those people probably don't think it's a hoax even if they did at one point. - Most importantly, standard of care has radically improved and that is driving down mortality independently of in the rate of infection. Second, herd immunity isn't a measure of the potential for deaths but of the potential for infections to spread, therefore we want to track new infections not mortality. So why is he using mortality as his primary metric when there are so many issues Mortality is a lagging indicator with a rather long lag period relative to the length to date of this Pandemic even now. Plus there is the problem that we would expect that mortality will decrease due to improvements in standard of care which has happened. You can even go back to my posts from March where I encouraged everyone to take this seriously for the first couple of months because anyone who got sick in the first couple of months would likely get pretty terrible care compared to what would be available later, and unfortunately that was true to an embarrassing extent. You could argue he uses mortality because he says wild herd immunity is to some extent about how ill people become once infected, but people who don't get very sick can still be infectious and infectiousness is what determines herd immunity so this all just seems silly at this point, and I think we would be better served by discussing higher quality sources of information.

The antibody tests sucking would actually support the idea that we are closer to herd immunity than most people realize. Most people are skeptical about the quality of the antigen tests, but most people including professionals believed the initial manufacturers claims regarding sensitivity. The more false negatives, the more we might underestimate the degree of immunity already present in the community. The accuracy of the estimates of the cruise ship is likely much higher than the accuracy of the estimates of other populations because the timing of antibody tests is so important to their accuracy. I would say we have more experience taking in to account the shortcomings of our antigen testing and making adjustments to the models as a result of those issue than we do with the antibody tests which many are just now starting to grapple with in the last few weeks.

Are you OK Cherzeca? I truly meant no offense to you or even to the original author, although I think his methods are atrocious. I am surprised by the nastiness of your response. Since you have generally been a respectful contributor allow me to apologize and assume the best of you. I actually agree that what he is talking about may be more likely than most people realize though not necessarily for the reasons he enumerates, and that the probability of decline from a number of factors in combination is underestimated, in fact I think I might be more educated on the subject than he is, but that doesn't change the fact that his argument is a giant mess. I actually shared the argument to a PhD who in the past was invited to teach research methods to medical students, but took a different position at the same graduate school instead. Assuming you've never taught research methods to medical professionals as part of their graduate school, I'm guessing we are less qualified to comment on the subject. Their response was that they just didn't even know where to start in attacking the argument because it was such a mess with so many different places you could start. These are stressful times for all of us, and if I need work to become a more thoughtful contributor, I will. In the meantime, I will reflect on the following inspirational post and hope that my contributions will be as constructive as possible in the future.

The twitter posts referenced compare a capital and most populous city in all of Scandinavia (Stockholm) to the average for all of NY State, much of which is very rural and sparsely populated. New Jersey, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland and Delaware all rank as more densely populated that NY State. This particular brand of false equivalency has been brought up before in this thread and seems to be a typical tactic for those who aren't really searching for the truth, but are pushing a political agenda. So we all might want to be on the look out for it before posting in the future, unless it is to point out misleading presentation of data. Stockholm and in fact all of Scandanavia are likely on average more homogeneous, and better educated than the USA. Plus they as a region have done very well at remaining cohesive by fighting disinformation and fake news, in fact I suspect these tweets would find a less receptive audience there than in the USA. Here is at least one relevant article regarding Finland, but there are many I could have chosen instead including more academic articles relevant to Sweden: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/28/fact-from-fiction-finlands-new-lessons-in-combating-fake-news The real secret to Stockholm is likely education level, cohesiveness, and a pro-social culture. With a conscientious population, there is less need to threaten or cajole, especially if they see it as personal interests aligning with self-interest, which should be the case all around the world. Evidence that they acted individually without national mandate can be seen in the data indicating a decline in mobility in Sweden which indicates they achieved similar or better social distancing without dictates. As I have been saying since February, it's a "complex, adaptive system". Human beings have agency and that complicates policy decisions and analysis. Stockholm syndrome could be useful to study for anyone who feels they are repeatedly fall prey to bad information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome Actually, I found that twitter thread to be fascinating. The participants seemed to be fixated on the difference between the population density of NYC vs Stockholm, and they dedicated virtually zero attention to the argument that the fellow was actually making, which was that it is possible that the Covid begins to peter out when a population hits 15%-20% presence of antibodies. I don't doubt that comparing the density of NYS to Stockholm is analytically weak, but that particular element was not crucial to his central hypothesis. Does anybody have any comment about his assertion that Covid peters out at 15%-20%? Looking at the United States at the national level, the daily new cases seems to be trending down. Official confirmed cases are 5.4m, and most seroprevalence studies show that there are 10x to 15x people with antibodies compared to the official number of cases. So, where is the US currently at from the perspective of prevalence of antibodies? It would not come as a surprise to me that the US might be in that 15%-20% range right now. As I noted, the daily new cases seem to be trending down, so as I asked last week, have we hit peak-virus in the US? The twitter guy's hypothesis would be yes. Or like the participants of the twitter thread, we could ignore the guy's core hypothesis and focus in on a peripheral analytical weakness. SJ One thing that most people don't realize yet is that the antibody tests suck. The data that they companies used to represent the quality of tests is very questionable, and may not be applicable to the real world, therefore, the prevalence is likely underestimated by testing and adjustments should really be made, but currently the tests are assumed to be a much better indicator than they likely are. The problem with trying to assign all of the impact to herd immunity is there are so many confounding variables. Mask wearing and other human behaviors that mimic herd immunity are on the rise at the same time. If you listen to top virologists, they don't think herd immunity is going to be achieved at 20%, but many are questioning the tests.

The twitter posts referenced compare a capital and most populous city in all of Scandinavia (Stockholm) to the average for all of NY State, much of which is very rural and sparsely populated. New Jersey, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland and Delaware all rank as more densely populated that NY State. I am confused. Over 70% of NYS cases are in NYC, so this seems like a fair comparison to make? That's a fair point, and you could argue that it makes the point even more strongly that you are mixing in the data from less populated regions, but let's look at the final conclusion: There are two problems with the final comment: First, it would be more accurate to compare New York City to Stockholm, so that you get an apples to apples comparison. In that case, NYC has well over twice the population density of Stockholm. Second, what really matters is how the populations behavior changed, rather than whether it changed through edict or common sense. There is a valuable lesson from Stockholm, but it's not that herd immunity is easily achievable and right around the corner. Oddly, I do think that an outcome very similar to herd immunity is very achievable much sooner and much more easily than most people realize and it involves wearing face masks and rapid, cheap testing.