clutch

^^^ All these things show you just how everything in the US is political and the truth/good simply depends on whether it fits your political narrative or not. Many people, even those highly educated, cannot think on their own and simply fall along the lines of left or right. Bipartisan democracy at its finest.

Sold my Corona-damaged basket - BUD, MLHR, BPY.UN, RL - for 20~30% gains.

+1 Americans should blame themselves (as individuals) first and foremost.

^ interesting observation. Especially regarding the dwindling interest. Sort of shows you the significant effect the media has on people's current focus/interest, even with supposedly highly intellectual people we have on this board. As the racial issue and the protest occupy the people's news feed, both the interest and the fear of COVID-19 seem to have faded away. Reminds me of what Johan Giesecke, the Swedish epidemiologist, said in one of his interviews... "We won't learn anything from this pandemic... we will forget about this [again]." Such is human nature, unfortunately.

When discussing investments, people are often willing to hear other opposing thoughts that challenge them. It's part of the due diligence process. When discussing politics, that is rarely the case. They (and myself included) are simply reinforcing their beliefs.

Who knew a violent protest would come after a Coronavirus lockdown... and not because of the lockdown. With protestors wearing masks, of course. 2020 has been truly absurd.

ROFL

Probably shouldn’t trust a source that doesn’t know what “data” means. It's not just this source. This news have been reported by multiple sources. After all, these estimates are from CDC: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scenarios.html Under "Scenario 5: Current Best Estimate", Symptomatic Case Fatality Ratio, overall (of all age groups) is given as 0.004.

Probably shouldn’t trust a source that doesn’t know what “data” means. It's not just this source. This news have been reported by multiple sources. After all, these estimates are from CDC: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scenarios.html

"New data from CDC estimates COVID 19 mortality rate is 0.4%, significantly lower than previously reported" https://www.wcnc.com/mobile/article/news/health/coronavirus/data-cdc-estimates-covid-19-mortality-rate/275-fc43f37f-6764-45e3-b615-123459f0082b

I hope you had ended up buying this stock...

For many people, Trump's actions have become the gold standard for distinguishing good (friends) vs. bad (enemies). Whenever Trump criticizes something or someone, that target suddenly becomes good or their dearest friend. The hatred toward the man is so strong that it has turned their brains to mush. ::)

On Sweden

why do you think many people don't trust "experts" on TV? Because the media does things like this... "Greta Thunberg added to CNN’s expert coronavirus panel, Twitter erupts" https://nypost.com/2020/05/13/greta-thunberg-added-to-cnn-expert-covid-19-panel-twitter-erupts/

"Fighting the COVID-19 pandemic could herald a rise in superbugs" https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/fighting-the-covid-19-pandemic-could-herald-a-rise-in-superbugs-1.4938905

Good news for Canada. "First coronavirus antibody tests will roll out as quickly as possible, Tam says" https://globalnews.ca/news/6938888/antibody-test-coronavirus-canada/

And this will be more painstakingly clear as countries deal with second waves as soon as they lift lockdown measures... see what's happening in Singapore, S Korea, Wuhan as we speak...

That's an important "but" that can't be hand-waved away. A lot of antibody tests had false positives in the 50% range, depending the population being sampled (it'll be higher outside of the major outbreak zones). That's way too high to be very useful. Stanford Dr. Bhattacharya says he had 0.5% false positive in his test. The 0.5% may be important for Santa Carla study that found 3% infection rate. But still you can take 2.5% and calculate IFR. 0.5% false positive is not important for NYC with 20% infection rate. Or Boston Chelsea with 30% infection rate. The different studies gave infection fatality rate between 0.1% to 0.5%. NY had higher rate at 0.5%. For example Miami Dade study gave 6% and 0.5% is not very important. https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article242260406.html They say 165000 infected. Presently about 500 dead (I dont know numbers as of mid April). So a conservative number of using todays 500 deaths/165000 gives 0.3% IFR. Below is a study by Denmark: Using available data on fatalities and population numbers a combined IFR in patients younger than 70 is estimated at 82 per 100,000 (CI: 59-154) infections. Thats 0.082% for patients younger than 70. The seroprevalence was adjusted for assay sensitivity and specificity taking the uncertainties of the test validation into account when reporting the 95% confidence intervals (CI). New tests are even better. See below: Researchers at the University of Washington School of Medicine found Abbott’s test had a specificity rate of 99.9% and a sensitivity rate of 100%, suggesting very few chances of incorrectly diagnosing a healthy person with the infection and no false negatives. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/08/study-suggests-abbott-covid-19-antibody-test-highly-likely-to-give-correct-results.html Some people dont like the result of 0.1% to 0.5% IFR but it is now done by Denmark, Germany, Santa Carla, LA, Miami Dade, NYC, Boston by different well known professors and hospitals. The IFR is much lower if you take less than 70 population. At one point people need to agree with the data. +1 It's puzzling how some people overlook at observed DATA because of the uncertainties while they trust a predictive MODEL with even more uncertainties due to its nature. Much of that has to do with their original (political) bias.

For that, randomized antibody testing studies would be better. Depends what the false positive rate is. It's one more data point, but it shouldn't be given more weight than it deserves. Sure, but once we find a method that is precise enough, it will give us very strong confidence in the most important data -- infection fatality rate & infection rate.

For that, randomized antibody testing studies would be better. I agree. Why isn't it happening? I think they are being done at the moment in many states, but many people are concerned about its accuracy. https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/07/politics/coronavirus-antibody-testing-problems-cdc-fda-invs/index.html

For that, randomized antibody testing studies would be better.

Other countries have tested more people per capita than S Korea, without the draconian measures. I fail to see how less information is more useful. Not saying it isn't useful... but pointing out the shortcoming.

And I realize that the situation is different here, where people just get sent home and are asked to self-quarantine themselves when you test positive. So when you don't receive any treatment and are just sent home -- what incentivizes people from getting tested? (unless you live with someone who is in the vulnerable group)

If anyone thinks mass testing would help resolve this pandemic, think about this... In South Korea, if you test positive, you are forced to be admitted to the hospital until you test negative -- which can take over a month in some cases. And if you break the quarantine orders, you will get fined or go to jail. So what would some people do? Just avoid getting tested... Especially if your symptoms are mild or non-existent (which seems to be the majority of the cases), why would you bother? Would you really want to voluntarily get locked up in a hospital and place yourself under full surveillance for a number of days/weeks? Then your identity would be revealed. In South Korea interestingly, there have been outbreaks in a cult church and a gay club... People wouldn't want to get tested and risk revealing themselves. They get bullied and stigmatized both online/offline... so why bother? Sure, testing would help, but it won't resolve the issue with this kind of contagious (and not so lethal) virus. That is... unless you force-test everyone like an authoritarian government... but that won't fly here in North America.

That is the life. Existence is suffering. You have to embrace the chaos and move forward. And we will. There’s degrees of flying blind. And there’s flying reckless. https://twitter.com/sam_baker/status/1259801828591534080?s=21 “ S. Korea had to re-clamp down because it got 34 new cases in one day. We have 25,000 per day and all we’re talking about is opening up. There’s even a risk of an outbreak inside the White House. We know what we’re on for.” I agree with this but imagine what would happen if the US took measures like S. Korea (clamping down after 34 new cases). There would be a civil war. It's not always the government's fault -- it's on individuals as well.