Cigarbutt

The problem with that is that people can collectively panic and react in unpredictable ways. This epidemic has the potential to kill perhaps 0.5% of the population or ~1.7M people based on current data If you just remove 1.7M people from the economy with a large skew toward older people, then you could conclude it’s not a big deal. However if you think it through and consider that those 1.7M people collectively have a lot of money and perhaps don’t want to die and there are ~30M people with a lot of money in the same risk group, Who will behave very differently then it starts to matter. Florida and Arizona might be good examples of this. Are older people still going to move there (these states are big destinations for retirees) while they let the Virus circulate freely? If they are already there, will those people spent money in restaurants etc? Unlike the millennials, those folks tend to have a lot of money, so it does matter what they think and how they feel. Florida has a big tourism industry on top of the retirees l so how this will be going? Even if you aren’t scared for your life, it’s not a great prospect to contract a disease that is far worse than having a flu for 2-3 weeks? Worth going to Disneyland for? Then there are European and Asian travelers which at this point are going to be a zero, as they will require quarantine upon coming back most likely. Most folks from these countries won’t bother visiting the US anyways for a while. So, I think the economic impact of this delayed wave in these states will be significant. The good news and the reason why Mr. Market hasn’t panicked yet, is they death rates are still low. I think they will go up somewhat but hopefully we will never seen the levels seen in the NE from March/April again anywhere. Exactly—you can’t just look at deaths and ignore the second/third order effects. Certainly not in a consumption oriented economy like the U.S....airlines, restaurants, retail, hotels—many of these are low margin businesses and even a 10-15% revenue hit can be devastating. To think that “isolating seniors” will somehow spare the economy pain is nuts. The best thing that could have been done for the economy was to act early—January/February—we did not. Then the next thing was to ensure it did not rise again in the U.S. once you stop the initial surge...as you are seeing we also did not achieve this. So now we have EU countries mostly moving past this because they did what was needed and U.S. stuck in viral quagmire with even R governors scaling back reopening now and closing bars... As was said way back—an ounce of prevention would have been worth pounds and pounds of cure, but our federal leadership is at best uninterested in being proactive and and worst exacerbating things by denying and holding indoor rallies in AZ, TX, OK...if you think it’s political, then oh well ---) policy-political part Letting the pandemic run its course will create noise but an improved demographic profile would result in more potential growth in standards of living for the remaining population (evolutionary perspective). WWII did wonders for economic growth for the victors, even if your country's infrastructures were devastated by war. It's the transition that matters. Countries like Brazil (and a few others) have limited real capacity to limit the spread, Sweden tried to formulate a "sustainable" approach which limitations have become obvious over time, the area where i live had significant spread because mostly of competence and governance issues and it looks like the US has collectively (?) chosen a unique way to muddle through, with excess mortality. In the Houston area, it's been reported that 15% of CV-dedicated ICU beds are occupied by people in their 20s and 30s. This is not enough to show in the aggregate statistics but the excess mortality is real. I get it that greed is good and is part of the equation. It's just that increasing levels of greed has met marginal declines in overall utility in the US and the CV episode triggered another inequity notch up, taking the entire population closer to non-linear changes. Even if one adopts the evolutionary perspective, an argument can be made that the drift may have reached a point where imbalances will correct somehow with potential negative impacts on most portfolios. Debt-fueled temporary UBIs are unlikely to do the trick IMO. An argument could be made that the US delayed its entry into WWI and WWII in order to minimize the impact (casualties) on its population and to maximize the domestic economic benefits at large. This time around, aiming to maximize the economic benefits will tend to concentrate in the few and the burden will fall on a group large enough not to stay silent. ---)fundamental part A key aspect of this pandemic is the significance of asymptomatic carriers (CV+). It appears that this aspect has been underestimated, to some degree, and many asymptomatic carriers carry high viral loads, can spread the virus and show significant lung disease (as shown on test images). It's a real challenge. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0965-6.pdf @Gregmal, Figure 2 adds other evidence that the Ct-level does not show a significant difference between symptomatic and asymptomatic carriers. One of the challenging messages is that asymptomatic carriers also develop antibodies that don't stick around, meaning that the key to resist this disease is to have the inherent ability to mount an immune response, an ability that is distributed very unevenly in the general population.

What I or you think is irrelevant. How do the financial markets value an 80 year old with a 3-5 year further life expectancy? How much do they contribute to the economy? If we are talking about investing, and penalizing markets/GDP/company multiples, these figures dont exactly move the needle. However, completely shutting down everything, does. Is it surprising that we continue to see improving economic figures, even in states with rising cases? Is it possible the economy can run better than expected even with a pandemic, as long as governments do not interfere? These are the investment ramifications I think one needs to look at. Whereas my parents/grandparents or yours can die, and we'd be effected, but the guy down the street doesnt care, and neither does Mr. Market. On the Ct-value upper threshold, intrinsic characteristics of the test and evolving data in the US show that using lower cutoff values at this point is either irrelevant or inadequate (asymptomatic CV+ may carry similar viral loads and may have similar contagiousness). "Again, part of the problem with this. Too much data and enough to support any narrative one wants." Is that your analysis grid? From a purely evolutionary standpoint (adaptation through physical changes or behavioral changes (inherited and non-inherited behavior)), this virus should be allowed to run its course as it preferentially kills the old, maimed and weak. End of story for an investment thread if the end point is personal discretionary spending. But, sometimes, an evolutionary perspective requires a long term outlook. ---o---o--- Additional thoughts: There is a story going around saying that a long time ago, the nomadic Inuit populations living in the Arctic, when crossing certain rivers and following the hunt, would leave the older part of the group behind...If true, did they have a choice for immediate community survival? "if most are not major cogs in the economy anyway" It's interesting that the concept of a cog is used. I hear that you're Jewish so you may know that this is the theory that Adolf Eichmann (person in charge of exterminations) brought up at his trial; he asserted he was just a cog in the machine. "What I or you think is irrelevant" In an investment thread maybe but not in my book. ---o---o--- @RichardGibbons We're pretty much on the same page. I just wanted to modulate the expectations. Longer term studies have a habit of showing less than impressive results even after marvelous beginnings. It may be an incentive thing. Interestingly, it's also a typical feature of investment funds, in the early years.

The question of the upper cutoff value is worth looking into. Looking for disconfirming evidence (specific to COVID-19) but, so far, this does not seem to be some kind of conspiracy. -the upper and lower Ct-values are determined on best-evidence and based on the specific assay used (different assays are used globally). -there may be some conflict when deciding if for individual or population-based protocols, but the goal is to optimize the reliability of the test. -an assumption for CV: most of the cases become positive during the log-linear phase, well below the max Ct-value -an assumption for CV: the distribution of test results has a "normal" pattern and changing the upper Ct-value (ie from 40 to 38 or to 35) has relatively little effect on the reported numbers -an assumption for CV: the upper cutoff value used in the US has not changed and then the theory does not fit with the very unusual rise in positive test rates reported recently -adjusting the upper Ct-value (before use of test at large) has an effect on the sensitivity and specificity parameters (artefacts, contamination etc) but small changes are unlikely to greatly impact larger trends Conclusion (so far): If looking for an explanation for recent trends in many states, many variables appear potentially significant but a suboptimal control (suboptimal if you adhere to a certain school of thought) of community spread is a concerning one. To bridge with an investing theme, changing a leverage ratio (as a cutoff) from 4.0 to 3.5 will reduce your investing universe but is unlikely, by itself, to change much the outcome of investing decisions. @RichardGibbons i don't want to choke your enthusiasm and results are improving but the "breakthroughs" haven't happened yet. It's the same ingredients and people are simply coming up with the better recipes under the circumstances (large numbers of infected have 'helped', in an opportunistic way) but it's still, more or less, the same dish.

Sunday morning ramblings. 1-Visual and nonpartisan summary https://www.scientificamerican.com/interactive/inside-the-coronavirus/ A nice and short summary. The topic of virulence was raised before in this thread and it seems there is even difficulty defining what viral virulence means although tribal debates shine an interesting and polarizing light. The last section has a short part on the genomic aspect. The virus has an unusually long sequence. Coronaviruses typically don't mutate rapidly and even possess a proofread mechanism to get rid of errors that occur during replication. 2-On the regional heterogeneity of response (and results) https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/208354 It's an old study and contains very obvious limitations, but still quite helpful. Even under high uncertainty and baked-in-the-cake "features", it seems that doing the right things tends to result in good outcomes even if nothing is guaranteed. Figure 3 is interesting. The study was published in 2007 and since then trust in institutions has worsened and maybe that's the most important issue to deal with. One advantage of regional variations is the possibility to learn from others. 3-Long-term homes, impact and consequences in an aging population https://www.cihi.ca/sites/default/files/document/covid-19-rapid-response-long-term-care-snapshot-en.pdf In my area, the results were very poor. At the critical period, when the ill-defined wave was coming, focus (human and physical resources) was put on acute hospital capacity while attention slipped for the protection of chronic care facilities. This is giving rise to private opportunities to get rich slowly as it has become clear that a void needs to be filled and public players are looking for partners. In general, you won't hear much about chronic care for the old but it's a growth story in the making.

bizaro86, not taking a shot at your thoughts on the float liability, but rather want to see if you can poke holes in how I think about it. I'll use a hypothetical company that is 100% capitalized by float as my example. Let's assume we issue a $1.0m policy at the beginning of every year that gets paid out at the end of the year. We take that $1.0m and invest it into Treasury bills at a 10% rate (day-dreaming over here, I know). Well at the end of the year we would have $0.1m in the bank, $1.0m in a Treasury bill, receive cash inflows of $1.0m for the new policy issued, and pay out $1.0m of insurance claims/expense for the beginning of the year policy (assuming cost of float is zero). In this situation, the equity holder would be able to receive a dividend of $0.1m, unencumbered by the float liability. We can have this same situation occur forever into perpetuity, collecting $0.1m every year. My question becomes, why knock something off of the equity value if we never have to truly pay back the float and it doesn't cost anything in interest? That's $0.1m in my pocket every single year, just as if I funded the company 100% with my own money. Well, good way to think of it is- would you rather have $1 m in equity or $1 m in float, all else being equal? The real liability amount of float is less than, perhaps substantially so, then what is on the balance sheet but it is of course greater than zero. Personally, I think I would prefer $1.0m in float. I don't have to lay out a dime of my own money to earn $0.1m per year. If I'm laying out my own money to purchase the business from someone else, I would certainly prefer float if I wanted to grow the business - I would be able to distribute all earnings and grow them by using float instead of my own equity. I would also prefer float if it was profitable (i.e. essentially borrowing at a negative rate). Waiting for bizaro's more sensible and practical answer but here's a perspective. Float can be free or can even have negative cost but it's conditional on a cushion of equity. One way to see it is if the characteristics of the insurance business allow you to discount the insurance reserve liabilities. Take the following (simplified) and consider the ends of the spectrum: Assets (float)=240, Liabilities (reserves)=160, equity=80 Scenario #1, poor business You buy the business to put in runoff and pay about book value or a slight discount to BV (say 0.9 BV). So you pay 72 and record 8 as negative goodwill. A way to appraise the negative goodwill (as an equivalent) is to augment the value of the reserves (often done post-acquisition with a hit to acquired equity when such a business is acquired). Scenario #2, great business, expect underwriting profit and growth (other end of the spectrum) You buy the business, pay a premium to book value (say 2 BV). So you pay 160 and record 80 as goodwill. A way to appraise the goodwill (as an equivalent) is a contra-account to decrease the value of the reserves. When you look at float as a source of financing (from policy holders), you can't choose it above other sources of financing but its value can be modified by the type of business you're running or acquiring. Historically, insurance companies have behaved closer to scenario #1, which is a reason why reserves are not typically discounted and high premiums to BV are not the norm.

The book is available here: https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.225177/page/n1/mode/2up If anything, the book is interesting for historical reasons and investing work still basically comes down to somehow imagining future cashflows and using an appropriate discount factor. The emphasis on dividends has changed and Mr. Burr Williams hoped that investment analysis may eventually help to reduce the damage done by the cycle. i wouldn't bet on that. i haven't heard (or read) Mr. Bloomstran lately but it may be related to what he wrote in his last annual letter (p113, adjusted net income,economic earnings) https://static.fmgsuite.com/media/documents/c388840b-3dda-41da-a062-077bf785255b.pdf

Perhaps ... https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EbTNx76UwAA6mZV?format=jpg&name=900x900 It is very curious that U.S. is the only country showing these dynamics. Canada, as an example, has increased testing but decreased cases and hospitalizations despite reopening. And our cases are also skewing younger. And it is very strange how the sunbelt was largely spared in March but seems on the edge of a major outbreak now. So weird. I also found this to be weird. Maybe it's because in the sunbelt, the winters are milder so that people tend to go outside in March. But June is hot and scorching so people tend to stay indoors in AC. So you have the opposite of the NYC in winter dynamic where everyone is coup up inside. Can't really go outside that much in Texas during the day or Vegas for that matter. Nate Silver did some simple regressions on this, plausible explanation, but will be difficult to isolate and prove. The virus is likely to have some seasonality features. Those seasonality features will be a function of 1-the virus itself (the virus will slowly mutate but this is an intrinsic feature), 2-the "climate" (the climate can be changed to some degree but this is basically a difficult entity to control on a short-term basis) and 3-individual behavior (individual behavior is related to internal drivers but can be modified by extrinsic factors, which can be a significant feature in 'advanced' societies, can be positive or negative and can overestimate the difference in regional behaviors as people tend to react similarly to similar phenomena. https://bfi.uchicago.edu/wp-content/uploads/BFI_WP_202080v2.pdf While "staying indoors" can be a risk factor for transmission in certain selected scenarios and in selected time frames, it's surprising that this factor could be considered a major factor at large or a factor in resurgence activity, when referring to an epidemic spread.. There is also the risk that autocorrelated innuendos may contribute to the feeding of certain beliefs and to suppression of critical information that the rational part of brains may be suggesting. It's a slippery slope and that may be why certain people are suggesting to go back to forests in order to smell floating chemicals that increase the potency of natural killer cells, suggesting that the way to go is to revert to being hunters and gatherers. Reminder: Stock exchanges did not exist then and the concept of simply and slowly getting rich did not survive very well. ---o--- Resurgence activity is expected to go up when opening up. It's simply that the pattern is unusual in certain states, warrants close inspection and precautionary action and cannot be explained significantly by the higher use of seasonal air conditioning. The tension between the uniformity of public policy response and individual freedoms is playing out and there is a specific risk-reward profile related to that. https://rt.live/ https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-surge-map-7714f8d1-5ba1-46f8-9bf3-5d59938f2c95.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top i bet the next rally will be in Michigan.

Recently, i had discussions about "touristic" destinations next summer and it looks like some regions are developing "travel bubbles" and "corona corridors". i hear that Atlantic Canada is also planning some kind of bubble. There may be a need to carry two passports and the world may be getting smaller, at least for a while.

I'd be surprised if Liberty has it just because it's a chart from a third-party. That said, it's pretty easy to visualize because the EU has about the population of the USA, plus a third. So, keep the same line from the EU, and move the USA line up a third. That said, I agree with your underlying point--the chart is a bit deceptive because, compared to the EU, USA has actually done even worse than you'd think just by looking at the chart. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-deaths-covid-19?time=2020-03-02..&country=USA~European%20Union You can edit the chart to select the start-end dates, etc. It's not a seven day rolling average though AFAIK. The rising positive test % rate is puzzling and unusual. It raises the possibility that some areas are behind the ball. It may represent delayed community spread, higher testing capacity, higher testing in the younger population as well as targeted contact tracing. In many states, this appears to be mostly noise but, in some states, there is signal in the data suggesting that the uncoordinated response will "succeed" in preventing the slope of deaths from going down. After a deeper look, it seems that Texas, for example, may be one of the worst examples of this. The State is showing higher positive tests, higher positive rate %, higher hospitalizations and ICU occupation, younger age profile in the hospitalized group and Texas is scored low in its capacity to test and trace. In this case, rising positive test % shows an inability to contain the virus. It's also interesting to note that hospitals in general have "reopened" for elective cases which means that "excess" capacity is now much lower than it was a few weeks ago. In Texas, i hear that a pediatric hospital is making modifications to now accept young CV+ adults.. It is ironic that some may eventually express the "no-brainer" opinion that the eventual rise in poor outcomes will have been caused by the senseless (relative) re-lockdowns to be announced which, in fact, will have resulted from the lack of respect for the margin of safety concept.

Yes, this is why I called Gato's analysis the stupidest thing posted on this thread! Let's do this analysis for February. U.S. -> 1 death, no lockdown Canada -> 0 deaths, no lockdown Wuhan -> Thousands of deaths*, lockdown. Lockdowns are definitely correlated with deaths! But, I'm confident that Wuhan locked down BECAUSE of the outbreak. * numbers made up Lets take this further. Causation comes with timing. When did lockdown start in New York City? When did all the deaths come. Before or after? Well, most people die of the flu after the vaccine has been administered. Another correlation: most of the deaths came after Trump told us that he shut down the flights from China. And it all happened after Valentine's Day, so I'm wondering if all those Hallmark cards were involved. After Flu vaccine is given, number of cases of flu go down, not up. After lockdown did cases go down or up? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_hoc_ergo_propter_hoc i'm not saying you're wrong, but you have a lot more work to do in order to form a convincing case. BTW, it's a typical fallacy when people assume that they develop a problem after a vaccine.

Excellent observation as some data suggests positive rates around 10-15% in more targeted contact tracing scenarios, even with relatively low prevalence in the community. -The positive for this thesis: Efforts for contact tracing have been ramping up and this could show a temporary blip, at some point, in positive test results (inverse "J" effect). -The negatives for this thesis: The timeline does not fit very well (the blip should have been seen before), the pattern of rising positive tests appear high versus what tracing efforts could achieve, hospitalization rates have started to correlate in some places (which should be coincidentally independent of tracing efforts) and a well planned and coordinated deployment of a tracing strategy at large would constitute a relative break from previous mitigation trends. The data is noisy but i have a feeling that some states probably are implementing successful efforts at driving down the positive rates already due to tracing while other states may have difficulty building tracing teams or may meet unusual resistance (not related to immunity) in some quarters and, in this instance also, there may be a pattern developing..

^In the spirit of balanced analysis and go-forward perspective, the recent rise in US and Sweden "cases" needs to take into account the rising number of tests. Also, it appears (at least in the US) that the median age of people with positive tests has been coming down, which would imply some mitigation for the number of hospitalized and ICU patients to come. However, these adjustments only help slightly given the VERY unusual trend in curves in the US, compared to similar advanced economies and the heterogeneity in results will make it very hard (impossible?) to test and trace effectively. Calculated Risk produces regular updates related to this aspect and the author suggests that 3% rate of positive tests is a relevant threshold. The 3% is not a cause and effect criteria ie a low positive test rate does not cause the caseload to go down, it is associated with it. https://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2020/06/june-20-covid-19-test-results-most.html https://www.vox.com/2020/5/28/21270515/coronavirus-covid-reopen-economy-social-distancing-states-map-data See goal 4. A concerning aspect is that the rate of positive tests has started to go up versus the number of tests done, suggesting community spread to a degree which may become uncomfortable and which may render a "V"-shaped recovery (to previous economic trends) less likely. A question: Why were frail CV+ patients sent back to nursing homes from hospitals? A possible solution to this difficult question may be to avoid ending up in a situation when the question needs to be asked.

Point well taken. -Do you agree that this net positive trend line hides the feature that many states are improving while many other states are not, even at this stage of the game, post-peak? -What do you think of the fact that the closest "comparables", in terms of the trend of hospitalized and ICU cases post-peak (once basic adjustments are made for population size, testing, etc) are Brazil and Russia? Conceptually, this virus wants to spread and persist and there are 'natural' reasons to prevent that. Why would you be satisfied with a process that helps the virus to stick around while slowly mutating? "Lockdown" measures have huge costs but, so far, the economic damage hasn't been proportional to the degrees of lockdown measures. So far, it appears that countries and regions that reacted slowly are the ones opening up too fast and (this leading to that) are the most likely to react slowly if there is a second wave. Isn't that bizarre?

What's your point? Do you want to put emphasis on relative performance (intra- and inter- geographies) going through the first wave? There's an old law, Farr's law, which basically suggests that an epidemic scenario will have an intrinsic set of reasons pushing for a pattern of an up and then down curve pattern. Of course, human can interact to flatten the slope of the curve, going up and down, in a positive sense.

This is an excellent idea. While maybe annoying, is there any reason at all it doesnt make sense to mandate an individual with limited investing experience take a brief online tutorial/course prior to being permitted to open a trading account? Doesnt even have to be pass/fail, just a basic intro of "hey this is what you're getting in to". I think the best argument against it is empirical rather than philosophical -- it wouldn't actually do anything to change people's behavior, but it would allow those who wish to do so to say that appropriate steps were taken and "You were warned. It's on you." In short, it seems to be a symbolic act, rather than a real effort to solve a problem. That being said, my objection could be tested by some type of randomized trial to see if the proposal has any effects. If it actually does change outcomes in a good way, then I see no reason not to do it. You might be right. My thought process is to view it as similar to driving. You can just say people drive the way they want to drive and that self interest should ensure that they would try to minimize accidents. So there is no need for a driving test. I think that making people aware of basic signs, yield, right of way, double yellow line, etc. they become more likely to follow rules than if they have never even been made to go through that written and a driving test. I would think that something similar is likely. Just like we do not eliminate drunk driving or reckless driving completely, we could reduce it. In 1999 I bought two stocks about $1000 each. I think after reading an article on each. :) They went to $6800 before going to nearly zero. I had no idea if I lost money because stock market is a giant gambling machine and I just got the wrong cards, or if there is some approach that I am supposed to follow and did not know about it or something else. That curiosity led me down the path of my interest in investing. Went through all the books of the investing section of the local library twice over the next couple of years. Assuming I am not a complete idiot (may not be a safe assumption), many people new to investing might be similar to me and do not really know much about the stock market. By making them aware of very simple investing knowledge they would be less inclined to do what I did. We are not going to avoid it completely but I would think it would diminish some of errors people make. Just by putting this kind of gate, we can reduce the number of people who get into trouble with single stocks and options. Imagine you set this kind of test at some threshold that requires some basic numerical literacy and understanding of financial concepts, I think that might say not allow some x% who do not meet that standard from being able to even get into trouble as they would be unable to open an account for individual stocks or options. Of course, the remaining 100% - x%, might feel like geniuses for passing the test and trade even more recklessly :) so you might end up being right. Vinod Investing in policies to protect people from themselves is a difficult and low return undertaking. Example of a natural experiment: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3509807 i would also submit that driving has the obvious potential consequence of harming others. Although occasional (and unrestrained) meanderings of the investing crowd may, in the end, cause a lot of harm. This is a difficult problem and this author, who, because of origin, race and other attributes, was imputed with a qualified objective stance, published a small treaty that shows that not much has really changed in financial markets: It's the perfect place for human flaws and emotions to play out and, perhaps, even worse than prevention is the actual act to reinforce through extend and pretend. https://www.gwern.net/docs/economics/1688-delavega-confusionofconfusions.pdf Herd behavior and greed have always been difficult to regulate and the book is unlikely to be popular with the crowd at this point but who cares?

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/06/19/national/japan-contact-tracing-app-launched/#.Xu-DNndFwls That app was launched just recently and as far as I'm aware, Japan hasn't done individual contact tracing like South Korea has. I'd be all for it if an app gets developed, is useful and can be scaled up well. Japan already had an institutional platform (related to TB it seems) and evolved their tracking to emphasize retrospective tracing. https://asiatimes.com/2020/06/japans-contact-tracing-method-is-old-but-gold/

^Japan did use a cluster-approach, which evolved over time and will include the app going forward. The Japan model has positive characteristics but can it be exported "as is"? https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jun/06/contact-tracing-japan-coronavirus-covid-19-patients-social-etiquette This may become relevant if a second wave occurs. When alluding to what happened in New York and related places and the high number of cluster cases, it's important to retroactively assess what components of the "approach" went wrong but it's also important to remember root and proximate causes. When people retrospectively evaluated the causes behind the sinking of the Titanic, some suggested, rightly, that the management of lifeboats could have been improved.

In Canada, a similar (in principle) virus tracing app will be released in July. The federal government had a few contenders and they chose an app developed by Shopify and Blackberry (link with Fairfax). The other day, there was this "cyber"-technology analyst who mentioned that the app would work much better if it becomes widely spread (he even used the herd immunity concept to get his point across)..So, let's spread the word.

1) about dexa: corticoid use in severely ill covid patients was very likely already a norm, due to its use in ARDS. As such, unfortunately, I'm not sure it will save that many lives. 2) about other coronavirus, this was already a possibility raised early in the pandemic: rolling Full Member Posts: 135 Re: Coronavirus « Reply #1380 on: March 13, 2020, 09:28:38 AM » There are other possible explanations. Children, who are typically bombarded with certain other coronaviruses, such as the ones that cause the common cold, may have antibodies in their bloodstream from exposure to those that offers some cross-protection for this virus, said Dr. Buddy Creech, an associate professor of pediatric infectious diseases at Vanderbilt Children's Hospital. Why don't authorities throughout the world bomb us with regular coronavirus cold? For sure the US have some inoffensive coronavirus on labs that they could spread, right? It looks like some are suggesting the god ole MMR vaccine to boost immunity in a nonspecific way: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-06-mmr-vaccine-worst-symptoms-covid-.html It's ironic, to some degree, that, at the early stage of the disease, one aims to boost immunity and, at the late stage of the disease, one aims to stop the excessive (and detrimental) immunity response (with dexamethasone and the like). There is an interesting parallel with disease management at the population level and it can get confusing. Maybe that helps to explain why, in many parts of the US, the rates of cases are going up while the rates of testing are going down..

Multiple jokes spontaneously came up but there is always the risk to offend. From purely mechanistic and anatomic standpoints, cognitive ability cannot arise from your fingers. If this corresponds to anything repressed and you have unusual dreams involving somebody naked with short fingers, wearing a long tie and a red cap, you can share. i won't judge. :) ----- Growth will be a function of 1-the employment-total population ratio and 2-productivity. 1- has been on a downward trend for various reasons but an aging population has played and will continue to play a significant role. It should be noted (this is quite significant since the GFC) that an increasing participation of the older population has partly mitigated, so far, the lower participation trend at the population level. 2- has been on a downward trend for various reasons but an aging population has played and will continue to play a significant role. It is interesting to note that an older profile tends to directly influence productivity and also the older group tend to 'spend' in very unproductive sectors (services, healthcare etc). We will adapt (probably through unforeseen developments) but the key will be to improve the very poor productivity trends that have secularly become entrenched. Take Japan as a potential leading indicator. Historically, Japan has been a leader in manufacturing productivity and has tried, with some successes, to transfer those skills to the services sector but, at this point, productivity measures at the aggregate level show an increasing difficulty to mitigate the close-to-zero productivity growth in the services sector. Japan is a leader in the robot sector, also for the care and support of their growing share of older individuals. Robots can be involved in institutions and in individual homes. Robots can be useful for: task delegation, physical assistance, monitoring, position transfers and basic hygiene care. These are all business opportunities. The most impressive opportunity though (IMO) is in the use of companion robots (typically looks like a pet). Older people affected by loneliness and/or cognitive decline react very positively to such device and don't seem to be affected by the negative effects of technological addiction manifested by other segments of the population.

-^Congratulations on those Danish numbers. I hear that your country has opened its borders to its neighbors on an invitation-only basis. :) Can i still write stuff in this thread even if the numbers in my jurisdiction are terrible? -The dexamethasone data appears strong but the work needs to be dissected to the bone and replicated. Given the drug profile and price, it is very reasonable to include it in standard protocols (it's only a variation on a well known theme). i just want to add also that the drug is likely to make a difference only in the sickest patients (which is still a big +) and primary or secondary prevention tend to work better than third degree. Also, dexamethasone belongs to the steroid class which is a class used to treat many conditions and most treatment decisions are based on tradition. Cortisol-like treatment is very similar to QE in a way. It seems to work in very adverse situations (whatever the cause), tends to be used chronically with little evidence, is associated with a very poor side effect profile and is often continued chronically with little evidence. -@meiroy Your last post caused my resting heart rate to go above 50 for a few seconds. -@Investor20 i'm also fascinated by the Japan approach. Their cluster approach "worked" but it's still unclear if the 3C strategy is enough, as an independent variable, to explain the outcome. There are still so many unknowns. The following is technical but may be interesting to some. This is developing (much like the evolving knowledge discovery of transmission risk in certain specific asymptomatic groups) but it seems that, unrelated to antibodies presence, there is a subgroup in the population that is able to effectively mount an immune response to COVID-19 even with no previous specific exposure. Age and general host conditions are obviously relevant but previous exposure to coronavirus or even other virus may have contributed, over time, to some kind of latent immunity in certain populations. https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(20)30610-3

He seems to do this a lot. I find the the people who call crashes every 6 months have a perfect record in terms of having "called" all the previous ones. https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704905604575027602834843606 I remember that Mr. Grantham once sounded like you: he said that people with cash tend to suffer from terminal paralysis (rigor mortis). https://www.gmo.com/americas/research-library/reinvesting-when-terrified/ The one-page memo (which can be downloaded) holds a special place in my financial portfolio. His fair value assessment for the S&P500 was at 900 then and many felt he was wildly optimistic...

The cost for an "uninsured" can vary ++ and it's possible that the federal government comes to the rescue directly or indirectly (US hospitals are reporting very poor numbers). If you think like an underwriter, the average expected cost of a COVID-19 hospitalization lies between 20-75k, with 30k as a reasonable estimate. (references available if felt needed) The distribution cost curve is shaping up to have a positive skew with a significant tail on the right (high cost) side. This is bound to have an impact on the snowbird phenomenon as many in that category belong in higher risk groups.

For those interested, here is a distilled list of best-evidence that has built up over the last few weeks versus prevention of transmission. https://academic.oup.com/jid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/infdis/jiaa189/5820886 https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/publications-data/using-face-masks-community-reducing-covid-19-transmission https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31142-9/fulltext From a humble perspective, a detached and rational approach tends to avoid running into sterile debates and tribal drift but i often feel like an idiot. It's fascinating that this virus, which is somewhat benign from an evolutionary standpoint, stirs so much reptilian instincts and one has to wonder about the host (and its institutions). Maybe i focus too much on governance issues.

From this year's proxy: "The Sixty Two Investment Company Limited (‘‘Sixty Two’’) owns 50,620 subordinate voting shares and 1,548,000 multiple voting shares, representing 41.9% of the total votes attached to all classes of our shares (100% of the total votes attached to the multiple voting shares and 0.2% of the total votes attached to the subordinate voting shares). V. Prem Watsa, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, controls Sixty Two and himself beneficially owns an additional 258,790 subordinate voting shares and exercises control or direction over an additional 2,100 subordinate voting shares. These shares, together with the shares owned directly by Sixty Two, represent 42.5% of the total votes attached to all classes of our shares (100% of the total votes attached to the multiple voting shares and 1.2% of the total votes attached to the subordinate voting shares)." For context: https://s1.q4cdn.com/579586326/files/doc_downloads/shareholder_letters/1992-Letter.pdf