Dalal.Holdings

I am sorry to disappoint you... ABC/Ipsos: "In the new poll, 55% of Americans approve of the president's management of the crisis, compared to 43% who disapprove." Yep, that's why I said it remains to be seen. Right now, for people outside of WA/NY, this whole virus thing seems overblown. It is likely that that may not be the case for long...

The WH was warned last year that the country isn't ready for a pandemic. Hopefully after this, people realize the importance of having the right leadership in place. The average person is not wired to understand these multiplicative, systemic risks for the simple fact that evolutionarily we never faced them. Humans were never interconnected enough before for such things to cause devastation. We understand basic threats well (another person coming after you with a rock). It's the same issue with warnings about climate change--few take them as serious threats (we never impacted the climate or our environment on such a scale before). We are certainly lacking in leaders who employ preventative thinking and can do more than brute force tactics (travel bans, tariffs, tax cuts, tweets, etc). The travel ban worked, but because everything else was botched, the end result was that it only DELAYED covid outbreak in USA. In the end, the lack of other measures means the travel ban was pointless--we would have been hit sooner vs later. What would have been smart was using the time bought by the travel ban to prep testing, isolate cases and regions as soon as they crop up, ramp up mask/PPE production, etc etc. Playing well in the first quarter of a football game and then committing unforced errors and losing in the other 3 quarters doesn't count for anything. And of course, some Senators understood the threat in late January intelligence briefing and acted accordingly with their investments. They just didn't speak up because the guy in the White House would get upset. Leadership capable of more nuanced tactics and precautionary thinking would be great, but whether the average voter understands the benefit of that remains to be seen in November.

So much for the "there's nothing that can be done" argument. Oh wait, those people will now use the "but they are Asian! So they are better prepared/used to dealing with this/more compliant with containment/etc, so there is no hope for us non-Asians!". And destroys the "let it spread and achieve herd immunity" nuts too. Sounds like an ounce of prevention was worth pounds and pounds of cure.

If he is right that 50 people have it for every 1 we know about, then 22 people have died out of 180,000 infected in NYC. You have to take into account time it takes for the virus to run its course, though. Daily exponential growth means the vast majority of infections are early stage and haven’t had time to create complications. Do we also upwardly adjust the 180,000 number to add back the number of people who were once infected but no longer are? Really we need to look at this data at a cohort level, which as far as I know does not exist publicly. Without it we need to look at places like China where it's mostly run its course - otherwise we'll be comparing apples and oranges. The Chinese data tells us that 3.4% of the cases they identified died. But it doesn't tell us the % of infected that were identified. The Diamond Princess is the best population that I've heard of yet. 1% of infected died -- relatively old people go on cruises. So if we were to take the number of people who died in NYC yesterday, and if we can estimate when they contracted it, then perhaps we could estimate the number of infected people in NYC at that time. If we then estimate the rate of spread, we can take a stab at how many are infected in NYC today. I haven't looked into Diamond Princess in depth so I just tried to find some info. While I agree that it may be the best possible data set so far, it also seems potentially incomplete: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/02/coronavirus-infections-keep-mounting-after-cruise-ship-fiasco-japan Given the number of people who were infected but did not test so at the time of disembarkment, I'm just not sure how reliable the data is (again, may be the best we have). Either way, still a high level of imprecision it seems. What's notably missing in this "analysis" is that the Diamond Princess passengers had the benefit of ample hospital, ICU, and ventilator capacity to treat themselves in Japan and elsewhere. There are patients in many places who will not get the same level of care due to healthcare overload. Furthermore, there may be more deaths to come. Of note, a passenger on the Diamond Princess just died TODAY: https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20200321/p2g/00m/0na/050000c That's now 8 deaths.

This ain't "just like the Flu season", folks.

NY and WA are early in this course and predictors of what every other place will look like. The rest of the country is our France/Spain/Germany to the Italy (NY and WA). So what is going on in other places is irrelevant. Exponential growth blah blah I am in New York. I assume NYC is what you mean. The closest Urgent care in our network to NYC is Poughkeepsie. Ill call them and let them know what you said! You don't need to call anyone, you can just look at what this ER doc in Queens has to say: A trickle to a deluge. Wonder if that ever happens with cancer or heart disease...

NY and WA are early in this course and predictors of what every other place will look like. The rest of the country is our France/Spain/Germany to the Italy (NY and WA). So what is going on in other places is irrelevant. Exponential growth blah blah

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/20/nyregion/ny-coronavirus-hospitals.html

The only plausible refutation is a data sampling or reporting issue. Which, is still possible. But this possibility grows less likely every day. Yes and you have to somehow have to believe that months ago people were dying/being admitted to ICUs without having a known diagnosis, just ARDS without known cause and Flu negative... Seems like a bit of a stretch, no?

Deaths from COVID are already exponential in USA. A graph of heart disease deaths would be a straight line with no change in slope day to day (i.e. a linear plot, not an exponential). I am concerned about it more than cancer or heart disease. “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so”. -MT More: USA COVID deaths from March 16-17: 23 USA COVID deaths from March 17-18: 41 USA COVID deaths from March 18-19: 57 So, a 39% increase in # of daily deaths over past 2 days. Do heart disease, cancer, and auto accidents ever show similar trends? Are heart disease or cancer or auto accident deaths known to rise 39% or more from day after day like this? Do people have 39% more heart attacks nationwide on a Wednesday than they did on a Tuesday? Over three days, for sure. You could find many death causes that showed exponential growth in a 3-day period (of course, by chance). Not arguing the potential exponential growth in the death numbers due to COVID-19, but I find it funny how you show these three numbers as concrete evidence that there is an exponential trend. ??? I posted a plot over weeks but it was too complex for some to understand so I whittled it down to 3 numbers. Attached it here for u. The trend continues for much longer than 3d. For those who have some quantitative training, the trend looks awfully like an exponential one. Remember, the derivative of an exponential is...still an exponential. What would the plot for cumulative auto accidents or cardiovascular deaths look like? What is the derivative of such a curve? If you think auto accidents can rise 39% in a day, go talk to an actuary at GEICO.

Deaths from COVID are already exponential in USA. A graph of heart disease deaths would be a straight line with no change in slope day to day (i.e. a linear plot, not an exponential). I am concerned about it more than cancer or heart disease. “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so”. -MT More: USA COVID deaths from March 16-17: 23 USA COVID deaths from March 17-18: 41 USA COVID deaths from March 18-19: 57 So, a 39% increase in # of daily deaths over past 2 days. Do heart disease, cancer, and auto accidents ever show similar trends? Are heart disease or cancer or auto accident deaths known to rise 39% or more from day after day like this? Do people have 39% more heart attacks nationwide on a Wednesday than they did on a Tuesday? For those who believe so, please for your own sake never ever decide to invest in the insurance industry. For the umpteenth time, is a big difference between systemic, multiplicative processes and those that are not. Oh, and there goes the thesis about this having infected millions months ago in the U.S...

Deaths from COVID are already exponential in USA. A graph of heart disease deaths would be a straight line with no change in slope day to day (i.e. a linear plot, not an exponential). I am concerned about it more than cancer or heart disease. “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so”. -MT

Not surprising since that was pretty much the case on places like this website as well. It's all hysteria until it hits home. Just ask Sean Hannity.

Since you folks love anecdotes, here is a cautionary tale on the importance of social distancing (and avoiding large family gatherings for now--FYI none of these people fall into the 80 year old+ demographic whose actuarial tables you guys seem to consult often): https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/18/nyregion/new-jersey-family-coronavirus.html Where did the infection come from? So the man who died on March 10 likely spread it to this family in late February/early March and it is only now (March 18) when the matriarch of the family passed away...consistent with several week incubation + delay to severe symptoms/death. Very very unfortunate that intelligent people continue to dismiss this. This family has been incredibly and suddenly hit by this SYSTEMIC, MULTIPLICATIVE cause of death. Compare that to cancer or accidents or heart disease at your own peril.

Yes I want to follow S Korea. Italy did not do a good job of testing. USA is beyond where Japan ever was. This is an infection where it takes ~1 week to show symptoms from catching the virus and maybe ~2 weeks to severe symptoms and mortality. As the U.S. is early in this processes, as I have repeated on here (though some claim it has infected "millions for months" here), the fear is that the deaths are yet to come. S Korea is likely on the tail end so their deaths are probably going to level off. See the exponential mortality graph of U.S. I posted on here a few posts back.

According to a key part of your thesis, the virus has infected millions for months here. Strange why deaths are just now rising, then. Unless you propose that people died in January but we had no idea what the true cause of death was. Strange too that ICUs in NYC are just now starting to get loaded... Attached is a graph of U.S. mortality thus far from COVID. If I saw such a trend for cancer deaths, cardiovascular disease, or accidental deaths, I WOULD be concerned about those things. Not to mention the fact that none of these things that you mention that cause deaths are systemic, multiplicative (i.e. none of them are contagious) processes. A BIG difference.

This is correct IMO. The rate of spread ought to be higher amongst the young as well (think malls, night clubs, and party party party). So it stands to reason there are simply far more cases amongst the young because of rate of spread. CDC on clinical criteria for testing... https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/clinical-criteria.html This testing recommendation from CDC effectively biases those who get tests to older folks or people with preexisting medical problems (again, more likely to be older folks). Furthermore, it also depends on symptom severity and generally we know younger folks (based on data from China) show mild/no symptoms hence they are unlikely to get approved for a test in the United States. The older folks are more likely to throw a fever and develop shortness of breath. This leads one to conclude that the younger people who test positive for this illness must be the sicker younger folks who have this (because they were not denied a test) and we are excluding younger people with mild/no symptoms (who are denied testing). So the overall mortality/ICU stay skews higher since we are only looking at younger patients who are sicker to begin with. Again, for the 100th time explains the downside of being limited on testing. The U.S., being among the last developed nation to get this outbreak is among the most unprepared. A travesty of leadership. "The U.S., being among the last developed nation to get this outbreak is among the most unprepared." US has lot of travel both to Europe and China. Why do you think they are last in getting this outbreak? May be the policies are better that US held it off longer than any one else? May be everyone start date (outside China) is same. Why would Europe or Korea have earlier exposer than US? If you check deaths, they are lowest for US of most developed countries on per capita basis (worldometer numbers). For example US has 170 vs Korea with 90 for total deaths. But US population is 6.7 times more, making it much, much better. Korea adjusted for population to US would be 603 deaths. Even for "New Deaths", US has 21 vs S. Korea 7. That makes adjusted for population, S. Korea 46, well above US 21. Sweden with population of 10 million has total deaths of 11, adjusted to US population, it is 374. Norway with population of 5.4 million has total deaths of 7, adjusted to US population, it is 476. IMO all countries outside China got exposed around same time. If anything US having so much trade with China, probably has lot more travel with China and had more exposer. Yet in deaths, after four months (first case in Nov), US is doing better than any other nation in west or S Korea. Now, if you really want to follow, it is Japan. They controlled it pretty well. Japan with population of 127 million has total deaths of 32 and new deaths of 3, adjusted for US population, total deaths of 86 and new deaths of 8, better than US. But Japan didn't test much or have lock downs....now figure that out! It is clear from every global tracking system that U.S. was among the last places (after Europe, after Korea, Taiwan, Japan, etc) to get this outbreak. A lot has to do with the travel ban to China which, IMO was the only good early measure this administration took. This administration only understands measures like travel bans, tariffs, and tax cuts, while everything else is beyond its comprehension, so not difficult to see why this occurred. To compare U.S. today to S Korea today is laughable. S Korea is way ahead of U.S. and has now flattened its curve. U.S. still in early stages of rapid exponential growth. I guess this is what happens when you look at numbers too closely without considering broader context of things...

some random dude on twitter wrote some interesting (and very bullish) comments on the French study I linked here yesterday: https://twitter.com/boriquagato/status/1240630279301033986 and posts below that. It's just one person's thoughts so who cares, but I found them interesting, and I'd like to be an optimist these days and tweets like these help. what I and others had missed yesterday in this study was that it might have been remarkably succesful because of the combo of two seperate drugs working together, not just the hydroxychlorquine. SMH at people who think azithromycin, an antibiotic that works against bacteria and hydroxychlorquine, an agent that works against a parasite, is likely to fight a virus. Same as anti-HIV drugs for this which are anti-retrovirals (hint: COVID-19 is not a retrovirus).

Hannity and that Fox Business anchor told me this was all fake news a long time ago anyway. Just a democratic plot to hurt our president. You can only hide behind lies for so long in times like this...

This is correct IMO. The rate of spread ought to be higher amongst the young as well (think malls, night clubs, and party party party). So it stands to reason there are simply far more cases amongst the young because of rate of spread. CDC on clinical criteria for testing... https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/clinical-criteria.html This testing recommendation from CDC effectively biases those who get tests to older folks or people with preexisting medical problems (again, more likely to be older folks). Furthermore, it also depends on symptom severity and generally we know younger folks (based on data from China) show mild/no symptoms hence they are unlikely to get approved for a test in the United States. The older folks are more likely to throw a fever and develop shortness of breath. This leads one to conclude that the younger people who test positive for this illness must be the sicker younger folks who have this (because they were not denied a test) and we are excluding younger people with mild/no symptoms (who are denied testing). So the overall mortality/ICU stay skews higher since we are only looking at younger patients who are sicker to begin with. Again, for the 100th time explains the downside of being limited on testing. The U.S., being among the last developed nation to get this outbreak is among the most unprepared. A travesty of leadership.

No disputing that. However, the hospitalization rate is much higher than I expected. I thought for me (in the 20-44 group) - it was going to be a bad flu. I didn't think i'd have a 1/5 to 1/7 chance of going to the hospital. With n=705 for 20-44, I think you really need more information about the characteristics of the 100 that were hospitalized to know what the increased risk factors are and whether you have any. We think we know some (smoking, obesity), so assuming those don't apply to you, you're hospitalization rate ought to be lower. What it actually is though, remains unclear. It should be noted that due to testing shortage, those young folks and everyone else tested are likely to be the more symptomatic ones due to strict testing criteria in the U.S.. So even looking at hospitalizations as % of positive cases is likely sampling bias--you are not counting all the young folks walking around with this who have no or mild symptoms because they are never offered or are flat out denied testing. One of the advantages of widespread testing is you also throw in mild/asymptomatic in so those people reduce the spread (by cancelling their Spring Break plans and staying away from grandma and grandpa) and people freak out less about mortality.

No disputing that. However, the hospitalization rate is much higher than I expected. I thought for me (in the 20-44 group) - it was going to be a bad flu. I didn't think i'd have a 1/5 to 1/7 chance of going to the hospital. Well that's not surprising. Some people on here still think this is like the Flu and/or there is nothing we can do. All you had to do was look at other countries where they were ahead of us and see this was not the case. It's like the data is all right there and people still cannot understand it.

Look at the table (% of total cases in that age group), not the graph (raw numbers). Young people by and large do well. There will be younger patients who develop severe infections and unfortunately may even die, but the risk is much greater for older folks.

A lot of that is in NY which, largely thanks to Cuomo, is due to the state having achieved first world level of medical testing.

It looks to me like airlines, hotels, restaurants, cruise industry, travel industry, Boeing are all essentially bankrupt as of today. Most will not survive with no revenue if we do a soft lockdown that next 2-3 months. We know the government is going to try and bail some out. That is a tough thing for an investor to figure out (who the winners and losers are going to be). Didn’t work great for bank investors in 2008 (BAC and C); the companies survived but shareholders had their head handed to themselves. Shadow banking system might be the next shoe to fall... overleveraged companies. Oil and gas industry... Looks to me like their might be a real bifurcation in the market. A stock pickers market. 30% of companies weather the storm and 70% get shit kicked. Not great for ETF holders. Private equity would be my guess as a casualty. Another thing I noticed - treasuries were very weak today and interest rates have shot up. That rarely happens in such a down market. Is the financial system getting squeaky? If treasuries yields would explode upwards it would be game over, imo. Noticed that too - people have been saying even Treasury liquidity is off so people dumping what they can at what prices they can to get cash. Could it be the inflation scare of the House floating 2k/month payouts to every adult citizen and 1k/month for every child? If it passes, That's lots of f*cking money about to flood the system to a lot of people who don't really need it at a time when you dont have to spend it on the essentials (same bill allows deferral of ALL consumer and small business debt service like mortgages and credit cards and student loans w/ no penalties). I'm all for getting money into the hands of people who need it - but 4-8k/month for a household is A LOT and it sounds like it would be going to everyone regardless of immediate need. Meh. The bottom 90% of people have been screwed for 3 decades plus. $5k/mo is peanuts compared to decline in wealth over time. Unlikely to be for more than few mo after it runs thru the Senate. Then again, Trumpy might push for it because it helps him in November to have given checks out to every citizen. Those at the top have benefitted disproportionately from Monetary Policy past decade. Time to give some fiscal pump to those down below. We wonder why inflation has been persistently low for so long...putting money in the bottom 90% may push that inflation number up and that is not a bad thing during a crisis like this.