Castanza

Orthopa, the problem is that what you're saying doesn't seem to align with evidence. It seems fairly clear that a bunch of people have died in Italy, Iran, and China as a result of COVID-19. You seem to be claim is that millions in the USA have been infected a long enough time ago that we'd already be seeing lots of deaths if COVID-19 were a big deal. But USA has not seen lots of deaths. So, to be credible, you need to make it simple for us to understand this disconnect. Are Americans just more robust than the Italians, Iran, or Chinese? Do Americans have some sort of herd immunity that makes them less likely to die? Are Italy, Iran, and China simply pretending to have all these deaths, when really, they don't? Is there something about American culture that allows millions to catch COVID-19, but nobody to die? If you don't have some explanation for this disconnect between your hypothesis of millions infected but nobody dying, the most reasonable thing for people to believe is that your hypothesis is wrong. Particularly considering that there doesn't actually appear to be any evidence for your hypothesis except "some people got sick this flu season and didn't die, and it's conceivable that those people had COVID-19". (That said, I don't think you're ignorant. I think you've got the "I'm smart and know a lot about the topic, so my hypothesis unsupported by evidence must be right, and I'll defend it unto death" thing going. Pretty well all smart people make that mistake occasionally.) Orthopa's general point is this. (correct me if I'm wrong) As testing is rolled out nationwide what statistic will compound at a higher rate of discovery? A.) Terminal cases B.) Mild cases The correct answer is B Duh. The counterpoint has been that widespread testing will reduce the number of illnesses at any given time and that Orthopa's ranting is in complete contradiction to every health oversight agency I'm not disagreeing that there is value to testing (probably only relevant to immediate treatment at this point). Testing is hindsight at this point. You're not skating to where the puck is going. You're not skating to where the puck is. You're skating to where the puck was.

Orthopa, the problem is that what you're saying doesn't seem to align with evidence. It seems fairly clear that a bunch of people have died in Italy, Iran, and China as a result of COVID-19. You seem to be claim is that millions in the USA have been infected a long enough time ago that we'd already be seeing lots of deaths if COVID-19 were a big deal. But USA has not seen lots of deaths. So, to be credible, you need to make it simple for us to understand this disconnect. Are Americans just more robust than the Italians, Iran, or Chinese? Do Americans have some sort of herd immunity that makes them less likely to die? Are Italy, Iran, and China simply pretending to have all these deaths, when really, they don't? Is there something about American culture that allows millions to catch COVID-19, but nobody to die? If you don't have some explanation for this disconnect between your hypothesis of millions infected but nobody dying, the most reasonable thing for people to believe is that your hypothesis is wrong. Particularly considering that there doesn't actually appear to be any evidence for your hypothesis except "some people got sick this flu season and didn't die, and it's conceivable that those people had COVID-19". (That said, I don't think you're ignorant. I think you've got the "I'm smart and know a lot about the topic, so my hypothesis unsupported by evidence must be right, and I'll defend it unto death" thing going. Pretty well all smart people make that mistake occasionally.) Orthopa's general point is this. (correct me if I'm wrong) As testing is rolled out nationwide what statistic will compound at a higher rate of discovery? A.) Terminal cases B.) Mild cases The correct answer is B

SAVE is a 3.9B EV...that's chump change. Never say never is right.

He should buy SAVE :P

My wife's hospital just announced first confirmed covid-19 case. As a result my work told me I'm no longer red team blue team and instead I have to stay home indefinitely (makes sense).

"The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent your dry powder can last." V, WM, UPS, CMCSA, T, BRK, SBUX, MSG, GRBK, (WFC, BAC, USB) all on the top 10 list. Starting to feel like the dog who caught the car and doesn't know what do do (buy) Bonus check comes in this month :)

I plan on living off take out Chinese food. Nobody else is ordering it and it’s always ready in 10 minutes. Edit: not to mention the 65lbs of ground venison I still have :o

I mentioned it earlier, but Everclear 190. I sometimes use it when backpacking as stove fuel, sanitizer, and of course spirits.

MSG

Sold 50% of remaining SPCE puts to free up some more cash

Thanks for sharing, FWIW I appreciate your logical approach to most topics on this forum. I agree that scalability is certainly possible in the US. But it will most likely take military precautions as you've mentioned. The thing I struggle with is what are the secondary effects of this thing. I can see similar effects with both "letting it run its course" and "lets shut everything down". But both of these have a common input which is uncertain (severity). Until the severity question is answered I have a hard time saying lets preemptively lock down the whole US economy. I guess I'm in the boat of "take personal precautions, and encourage businesses to take precautions as well." Either way I smell massive taxpayer funded bailouts on the horizon.

And be thought a fool by everyone with a strong opinion? Better to remain silent. ;) @orthopa I think what folks are saying when saying testing is important is that identifying as many spreaders as possible is key to containment. You can't catch them all. Don't let perfect be the enemy of the good. Some folks spread to 1 person. Some spread disease to dozens. You want to eliminate as many spreaders as possible so that the disease population can't reach escape velocity. Basically to the point above about the number sick at any given time being semi-controllable. Whats your plan for asymptomatic people/kids who don't seem to be affected and dont go to the doctor? I already answered. You can't catch everyone. Any additional you do catch early can moderate the number sick at any given time. You might not be able to control total number to get sick, but spreading that number out over a longer period leads to far better outcomes in aggregate. That's why people are testing. Further, WHO says adult to child transmission is more common than reverse, as opposed to seasonal flu. To the "it's been here for 1+ month" comment, viruses compound when no one has immunity. I don't disagree with this point on spreading it out, but what exactly is the threshold (number of patients a hospital can hold)? Healthcare capacity is derived and constructed off of averages and then scaled according to population. A pandemic by nature is already over-capacity right? If I had to guess the threshold is quite low and I'm doubtful any solutions will be effective. The US is especially difficult to contain and isolate due to its size, efficiency and reliance on individual travel (interstate) compared to small countries like Germany (who funny enough just announced 3/4 of their citizens are likely to be infected). If small countries that heavily rely on public transit can barely contain this thing how can a vast country like the US contain it? I guess scale could make quarantining sections of the country possible, but with the reliance on individual transit it feels like a bucket full of holes trying to carry water.

Just an observation: It seems a lot of individuals greatly underappreciated the scale of the Interstate and road systems in the US. Not to mention the sheer land mass of this country. Comparing the lock down of a country the size of Minnesota (that heavily relies on public transit) to the US is apples to oranges. Containment in the US is magnitudes more difficult.

Where I live there are no confirmed cases. Life has been going on as usual. Costco and Wegmans have not been overly busy and I saw people with *gasp* one pack of toilet paper. Schools are still open. My employer has allowed us to work at home if we want. Bars, breweries and pubs are still packed. As far as I know there have been no reports of unusual amounts deaths. Say tomorrow the CDC rolls in and magically test everyone in the local area. And 30% of those people test positive. What has fundamentally changed about my area? Edit: And I agree with precautions (hand washing etc)

MAXR starter under 13

"Extinction" of what? Was thinking the same thing haha Since I typically derail threads I'll be a hypocrite and say lets move the conversation here https://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/general-discussion/coronavirus/msg399288/?topicseen#msg399288 ;D

Good thing we have the Negotiator in Chief! ;D

PLNT (Starter) DIS

Tickling match? I’m OK with the drop if that’s what it takes to get rid of this douchenozzle. That’s happens when you let Republicans run the economy. . Bush Sr -1991 Bush Jr 2001& 2008 Trump 2020 Then look at his favorite industries : Coal, oil and steel. Must be bad luck. I wonder if Obama is still claiming credit to this economy? Perhaps we will see a tweet taking that back? For the record I think it's dumb for any president to make claims to economic conditions.

A little: RDS.b, WMB, RTN, GRBK, HHC, SAVE, UPS and JETS

It's 9:40AM here...too early?

Everclear 190 is made for situations like this

People avoiding the quarantine in Italy.

Did you even read what he wrote? Where does it say anything about spending money? Taxpayer money? Isn’t it assumed? Maybe I read it wrong, but isn’t he saying govt SHOULD take precaution? I mean govt effort or lack of efforts seems to be the core theme in this thread. I meant nothing in this post about government at all, and I don't believe that this thread is or should be about politics. Nor do I believe that arguing about domestic politics has that been the motivation of most people here. Personally, I was thinking of Taleb's comments with respect to reducing health risk for individuals and with respect to portfolio management. If there are those who would like to argue about the government response, and argue in a non-productive way as we have seen before on CoB&F, I would suggest this topic has become large enough to create a separate thread within the Politics section and potentially another thread within investment strategies to discuss portfolio management in the context of COVID-19. Ultimately we are all here as investors, but let's not forget that some of us have already lost friends or family to this epidemic and more certainly will. I have many close friends on this board who I value immensely. Many of them are older and some are older with health issues that could put them right in the cross hairs of this virus. I worry for them and selfishly I fear for my loss were there something to happen to them. I just found the original context of Nassim's comments, and I have to admit I don't fully understand the context, especially the disagreement: I especially don't understand his spat with Tetlock: Taleb's deragotory comments addressed at Tetlock seem unnecessary and I think engaging with a variety of viewpoints would be valuable in this situation. I think this board would similarly benefit from a variety of viewpoints and we could all be more welcoming by focusing on the ideas and not attacking individuals, but focusing on the specifics of an argument and responding with an argument that is even more well reasoned. From watching the interactions of several others on this board in the past couple of days I think the discussions would have been better if everyone could have refrained from the use of "you" and tried to refrain from making assumptions or at least questioned their assumptions about other people's motivations. There has certainly been a mix of comments in this thread. But the government aspect of this is undoubtedly connected to the investment side. The context in which government is referred to has been both on and off track at points. Whether or not government decides to quarantine large swaths of people will most definitely have an impact on the market and the economy. Domestic politics and the political aspects of this investment thesis have been touched on by pretty much everyone in this thread.

Did you even read what he wrote? Where does it say anything about spending money? Taxpayer money? Isn’t it assumed? Maybe I read it wrong, but isn’t he saying govt SHOULD take precaution? I mean govt effort or lack of efforts seems to be the core theme in this thread.