Dalal.Holdings

Meh. Unlikely to be significant. A lot of URI/Sinus infections cause anosmia (taste/smell impact) and not due to brain involvement. Covid-19 binds ACE2 to gain entry in cells. ACE2 as far as I know is primarily expressed in upper respiratory tract and lungs. "neurological symptoms, including confusion, stroke and seizures". You know what else can cause these symptoms? Hypoxia.

DHT EURN Can anyone spell C-O-N-T-A-N-G-O? Asymmetric play on crude storage squeeze. Oil market ain't buying the lies Trumpy is selling them.

Amusing to see Trump supporters become the one thing they used to mock the most--snowflakes. Back to your safe space (politics section), snowflakes! Can't hide the POTUS' incompetence anymore behind duplicitous wise cracks about Obama/Hilary/Biden, it's too much to hide when there are 100k body bags being manufactured by the DOD. https://www.abc57.com/news/dod-working-to-get-100-000-body-bags-in-anticipation-of-increasing-coronavirus-deaths

Quite frankly, that’s a third grade comment. throwing inventive means you dont have a clue Spek. I put you in the Dalal pile

There is a correlation here...

Many of those red areas also coincide with "local/state government taking COVID the least seriously", so the severe cases/deaths unfortunately may reflect that... After all, there is a correlation between those who live in the red areas and those who are aligned with/follow what this POTUS tells them--it's a "hoax", "like the flu", "no one in West Virginia has it", and "churches will be packed in Easter for a celebration". Note the similarities in maps... https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/04/02/us/virus-distancing-promo/virus-distancing-promo-threeByTwoMediumAt2X-v4.png Source: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/02/us/coronavirus-social-distancing.html

Many of those red areas also coincide with "local/state government taking COVID the least seriously", so the severe cases/deaths unfortunately may reflect that... After all, there is a correlation between those who live in the red areas and those who are aligned with/follow what this POTUS tells them--it's a "hoax", "like the flu", "no one in West Virginia has it", and "churches will be packed in Easter for a celebration".

Because nepotism is part of this guy’s MO....oh, wait folks—look over there it’s Hunter Biden!! Diversion. It works like a charm.

Physician responds to b.s. Fox New propaganda on air about "millions and millions of tests", mentions how U.S. response pitiful compared to S Korea despite having 1st confirmed cases on same date (Jan 19):

It's ill-advised, perhaps even Irresponsible for non-experts to promote wearing of masks during a pandemic to a population unaccustomed to wearing masks. New mask wearers will fiddle with the masks from discomfort, thereby increasing their risk of transmission by transfer from their hands. Here are two McGill University medical experts weighing in with that message: No it isn't. Regular masks (not N95) prevent asymptomatic people from infecting others. They're quite effective elsewhere and should be worn by all. They shouldn't replace other measures, and people should be educated about them (as they have been in asia), rather than assume they're too dumb and shouldn't wear them. See: https://medium.com/@Cancerwarrior/covid-19-why-we-should-all-wear-masks-there-is-new-scientific-rationale-280e08ceee71 https://medium.com/@thejanellemj/please-join-me-in-wearing-a-mask-71e0e3f4fe4a Otherwise, it's like saying that people shouldn't wash their hands because they might do it badly and get a false sense of protection from it, or whatever... It's not about people being dumb. It's not even necessarily about education. It's instinct. When you first grow a beard, it will be itchy, and you WILL scratch it. But you get used to it over time. If you want to get a population used to wearing masks, you want them to get used to it OUTSIDE of a pandemic, because INSIDE of a pandemic, face-touching is a major cause of transmission. You have exhibit A above. Tobi wears a mask, and his glasses fog up. What does he do next? I am asking for the evidence that shows that new mask-wearers won't touch their face, not for evidence that masks work to prevent aerosol-based transmission. I estimate that, p(catching the virus from breathing it in from respiratory droplets) >>> p(catching the virus from touching your face after touching object with virus because mask is uncomfortable) Hence, there is a steep asymmetry: the benefit of wearing a mask >>> the cost/risk of wearing a mask You can't wait for the world to generate "evidence" to help you deciding how to act in a highly evolving, uncertain situation. You have to make quick estimates and act accordingly, with precaution as the #1 goal. Edit: And the above does not even consider the benefits of an infected individual of wearing a mask (for everyone else around them). Here is some "evidence", if that's what you are looking for:

Yeah, De Blasio also managed this terribly. WHO has been mocked by many for a while (esp for not recommending masks). Cuomo has been doing well however IMO. Many people (even on this forum) dismissed this threat as recently as a week ago. These people did not sign up to be POTUS, so the magnitude of damage from their errors is contained. I expect a POTUS to overreact (not listen to "academic models") and invoke precautionary principle when it comes to nat'l security. Especially when the threat is clearly playing out in the same way across the world. Like I said, different standards for POTUS among people. He did overreact with the travel ban, but did not follow this up with any other effective actions. His repertoire seems limited to tax cuts, tariffs, and travel bans, hence his limitations as a leader and the crisis we now have unfolding in the United States with ~200k positive cases despite being among the last countries to get this outbreak. Oh, and let's leave out calling this "like the flu" or a "hoax" or saying we'll be "back online by Easter"

Spot on. The lack of basic understanding shown in early stages of this is beyond belief. I still believe they are downplaying the true possible numbers here. Two more weeks and we will know, by tomorrow US will likely have 200K+ infections. Yes our "experts" showed great lack of understanding in early stages by their own admission. Dr. Fauci said "The American people should not be worried or frightened by this. It's a very, very low risk to the United States," Dr. Fauci said. https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/479939-government-health-agency-official-corona-virus-isnt-something-the' January 26 Director Redfield agreed with Dr. Fauci's assessment, saying that at that time in January the information coming out of China suggested "they were pretty certain that this was not transmitted human to human." https://radio.foxnews.com/2020/03/27/cdc-director-reacts-to-resurfaced-tape-of-dr-anthony-fauci-downplaying-virus-threat/ I will ask you one thing and its very simple. On February 5th as they are voting for impeachment, did you spend one second of time on Covid, even though already China had lockdown and US had travel restrictions on January 31st? Fauci downplayed the threat mid January, but by late January/early Feb the threat was taken seriously and you have evidence of that from congress members dumping shares and Trump putting in place a travel ban to China (and not following any of that up w other measures/FDA & CDC stopping a Seattle ID doc from testing people). WH gets things called intelligence briefings and one might say it’s the executive branch's job to anticipate and prepare for threats like these, but clearly some of us just hold the Presidency to a different standard than others... What’s even more interesting is WH defenders were quick to attack China’s “slow response” and now defend this administration which had multi month head start to prepare and did not. The irony is not apparent to them...

OT. Ahh, so this might be an explanation for a belief that you get cold/flu/pneumonia from being cold (or in the cold). It's just the MCC - and maybe some other parts of immune system? - work worse when a person is cold (is outside in the cold), so they are more likely to get infected? Thanks for insight. Most definitely. And remember--cold air is also drier (less humid), so it may dry out mucous lining in airways as you breathe it in (esp if you are a mouth breather vs nose breather) which impairs MCC/allows viruses to attach and gain entry into cells. Studies also show respiratory droplets (containing influenza for example) travel shorter distances in humid air vs dry air which may explain why Flu is seasonal towards cold/dry seasons (https://jvi.asm.org/content/88/14/7692). As COVID also spreads via respiratory droplets, humidifying indoors spaces and maintaining warmer temps is a low risk, potentially high reward action you can take to protect yourself.

My recommendations would be as follows (if not infected or if infected). If you are infected with URI symptoms, remember the goal is to prevent spread to your lungs (i.e. a lower respiratory tract infection). If you keep it as URI (in your nose, throat/pharynx), over time you will build antibodies (IgG in particular) to defend your whole body including lungs. Stop spread to the lungs however you can/optimize defenses by: 1) Humidify indoor spaces: mucociliary clearance (MCC) is the lung's primary innate defense mechanism (innate immunity, does not require prior exposure to a pathogen). Patients with impaired MCC (cystic fibrosis) are prone to frequent pneumonia. Studies show MCC is optimized at 100% relative humidity, adequate hydration, and avoiding cold temps (Pubmed ID: 27864314, https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Mechanisms-involved-in-respiratory-epithelial-innate-immunity-Inhaled-pathogens-such-as_fig1_304577962, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25361567) 2) Maintain hydration. If dehydrated, hydrate with fluids consistent with oral rehydration therapy (water + some sugar + salts) which allows H2O to be absorbed optimally via osmosis in GI tract. This keeps your airways moist, optimizes MCC, and increases mucous layer on respiratory epithelium (PCL) which prevents viral attachment and allows for clearance (Pubmed ID: 27864314) 3) Avoid cold temps (MCC/beating of the cilia is optimized when you are at core body temp/you don't breathe in super cold air) (Pubmed ID: 27864314) 4) Vitamin D at least 2000 IU a day has been shown to reduce URI frequency/severity, particularly in those who are Vitamin D deficient (increased deficiency in low sunlight places) (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3543548/) 5) Avoid close contacts (there may be a correlation to viral load and disease severity, but a lot of uncertainty at this point) 6) Light/moderate exercises (only if you are not sick, can help overall immune function) 7) Daily multi vitamin, fruits/vegetables Obviously some of these depend on if there is no contraindication in the individual/underlying conditions that would preclude doing these

"An ounce of prevention..." or another useless saying (for those who will now end up spending pounds and pounds on the cure). Unfortunately a lot of innocent people (restaurant workers, etc) will end up paying for much of the cost, let alone those who lose family members/themselves to this tragic pandemic. Another useless data point for the "nothing could be done anyway" and "we can't blame our leaders" (a.k.a. "keep politics out of this discussion please") crowd. Carry on. They're constantly trying out new narratives to shift the blame elsewhere. We've seen the "blame the governors" and "blame china", and I've seen that recently they've been thinking of trying "the impeachment distracted Trump from focusing on the virus". Just making stuff up to pass the buck, holding the president to the standards of a child rather than someone who should be a competent executive able to deal with multiple complex problems, which is the whole job in the first place.. Don't lose too much faith in the intellectual capacity of all of our leaders though. After all, several members of Congress saw the writing on the wall after a late January Intelligence briefing and showed it with their investment decisions shortly thereafter. They just chose not to speak up because it might scare people/markets which would then anger the child in the White House (after all, at that time, the child could still use the "How is your 401k doing?" campaign line). What a great state of affairs we have.

So their best guess for CFR is 1.38% (or more than an order of magnitude worse than the flu). Based on that, the number of patients requiring ICU beds is probably 10x or more (10-15% of infections)--hence the concern about healthcare strain and how this is not "just like the flu".

"An ounce of prevention..." or another useless saying (for those who will now end up spending pounds and pounds on the cure). Unfortunately a lot of innocent people (restaurant workers, etc) will end up paying for much of the cost, let alone those who lose family members/themselves to this tragic pandemic. Another useless data point for the "nothing could be done anyway" and "we can't blame our leaders" (a.k.a. "keep politics out of this discussion please") crowd. Carry on.

No. Because there's a big difference between a runaway exponential process and a stable, predictable one that you can build your healthcare system around. And when you have one on top of the other, then you get in real trouble. In other words, this is about as smart as someone saying "well, it snowed a lot this winter, how about that global warming?" But the next level of thinking is: Yes, we should do a lot more to also reduce deaths from other sources, like cars and the diseases of aging and other diseases, and I hope we do. But these stats are an argument to do more, not less. Well said. No one is trying to do the impossible and stop people from dying. As has been argued in many forms on this thread already, a contagious (i.e. multiplicative) process is very different from events with independent (i.e. non-correlated) risks: car accidents, cancer deaths, heart disease associated deaths. If you are an insurance company, would you rather be in the business of insuring car accidents in the entire United States or would you rather be in the business of insuring houses for floods on a single island in the Bahamas? In the latter example, on one day you are bound to learn a lesson about risk correlation.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/the-contrarian-coronavirus-theory-that-informed-the-trump-administration The dangers of botching interpretation of data and forecasting (and not engaging in the precautionary principle), and as recently as March 16th: A broken model leads to policy makers not taking this seriously...SMH

There could be day to day fluctuation on how data is released. Do West Coast states release data later? In some places is as much testing and release of lab results occurring on weekend days as on weekdays? Are fewer primary care sites (testing sites) and labs (to report tests) open on weekends? One would think mortality data would not have the same problem however. Also would not rely on data unless the day is complete (Midnight PDT) and it's all been reported. The big picture for U.S. not reassuring: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html And new areas (MI, FL, MA, IL, LA, PA) are entering the fold. At this point, regional quarantine is useless because this has seeded across the U.S.

Thank you. Hope I never get to find out what those choice names were. ;D I didn't do any fancy analysis--just: elementary understanding of compounding + watching how this played in other countries and acknowledging it had not hit here yet + consulting Taleb's works There was an 11 year bull market and a lot of doomsayers during those 11 years (incl Taleb who was musing about a rout in U.S. Treasury Bonds early in this time period). Nothing during those 11 years triggered me to exit to cash like what I saw was coming in Feb 2020. Many people got it earlier than me. The situation in the U.S. is tragic and frustrating to me because the proper action of travel ban was never followed up by preparations for outbreak at home by this administration. Really terrible that the United States looks to bear the worst of this (again, if you trust China's numbers, but even then, we're #2 at best).

This is why forming opinions based on the letters after someone's name (credentials) is not wise. Also, as far as I can tell--he's no physician--PhD, ScD. Not that I care about his degrees. You wouldn't believe all the nonsense that is heard on a daily basis on the inside of a physician's lounge.

I don't see how you can have higher inflation without a financial crisis. Not with everyone geared up to the debt levels they are. Higher inflation leads to higher interest rates and then lower spending the way I see it. My basic understanding is--inflation good for long term debtors. Deflation is what kills debtors (seen in Great Depression). If you have a 30 year mortgage and locked in at 3% interest a year, inflation of 4-5% would make it easier for you to pay the interest/debt off (negative real interest rate for you), especially if you earn a salary which rises with inflation. Coming out of this (12-18 months from now) qmy base case is the US will look much more like Europe (possibly with negative interest rates). I think that scenario is much more likely than we see meaningfully higher inflation. It’s possible, but I think we are different from Europe in many key ways—for one, not too worried about spending fiscal dollars (i.e. no austerity), no issues with different regions (i.e. Germans not too keen on “bailing out” southern countries). I think U.S. more likely to spend government dollars and distribute to bottom percentile (esp the workers hit hardest by this) and this is with Trump in WH and Republicans in Senate. If that changes the other way in Nov, the purse strings will put more $ power (call it “redistribution” if you will, but the poor/middle class have been screwed for decades now) in middle/lower classes which is likely to lead to uptick in inflation.

I don't see how you can have higher inflation without a financial crisis. Not with everyone geared up to the debt levels they are. Higher inflation leads to higher interest rates and then lower spending the way I see it. My basic understanding is--inflation good for long term debtors. Deflation is what kills debtors (seen in Great Depression). If you have a 30 year mortgage and locked in at 3% interest a year, inflation of 4-5% would make it easier for you to pay the interest/debt off (negative real interest rate for you), especially if you earn a salary which rises with inflation.

Thanks to bond market, USA can borrow like no other. Wouldn’t worry too much about fin crisis. End game of all of this will be inflation and taxes on wealthy and ultimate narrowing of wealth gap that has widened over decades. Wealthy folks will lose some of their (current) large share.