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**Mega** · April 12, 2020, 06:13 PM

Re: After The Virus - What Next?

1. Saving Rate?.............are you joking!........zero rates + Mass unemployment.

2. People might trade for things, I watched a ASMR "Youtube" were a chap was doing shoe-shine, people started sending him boots to polish ....he make ASMR video's & barter for stuff.

3. Chains?.....whatever is most cost effective ......

4.China?.....Alt Right & anyone with any sense what so ever will, CNN (China's news network) & the New York Times will try to blame EVERYONE other than China. I watch Norm Chomsky yesterday, he getting old but still with us. He blamed Trump/Boris, spent 20 mins attacking them.....not 1 word of anger against China, not one Bloody Word!

5. Yes, a new focus on Green power fuelled (sic) by cheap Carbon power.

6. Any Shopping stores under pressure before will face REAL trouble now, their only hope is if the landlords cut rents BIG time. Even then many will follow Kodak...

7. House prices will fall but I suspect it will be across the range.

8. Boris tried to get "War powers" the Tory party told him to piss off......he got some powers & those have a "Sun set" clause in them.

9. People will have limted cash for some time, Flights will have to offer value for money & the TSA might start to treat people better. I long hoped that someone would arranged a boycott of Flying on a Monday or some other day to make the airlines park up their planes.....sitting on the ground not making money. Cruises?.....massive cuts & ships lay up.

**Mega** · April 12, 2020, 06:16 PM

Re: After The Virus - What Next?

You didn't ask about crime?
(its 12:17 here & time for Bed)

jk · April 12, 2020, 07:02 PM

Re: After The Virus - What Next?

first, let me highly recommend looking at this slide presentation, it's quick and it's cogent, addressing possible social, economic and political consequences of the pandemic:

https://mehlmancastagnetti.com/wp-co...an-Q2-2020.pdf

i think a major variable you left undefined, grg, is whether the pandemic:

a. just burns itself out, slowly or quickly, leaving a residue of annual infections and deaths at level which doesn't overwhelm our healthcare systems

or

b. we have an effective vaccine.

for me, at least, these conditions would have enormously different consequences. for example, i was supposed to meet one of my children and her family in sedona in late march for several days of hiking and visiting. then i was supposed to fly on to los angeles to visit another of my kids and her family.

in early march, when things were quite unclear, my wife and i decided to cancel that trip. one of the possibilities which led me to that conclusion was the idea that i might become locked down in los angeles, and unable to return home for an indeterminate period.

if there is a vaccine, highly effective and widely available, i would be quite likely to do some traveling. otoh, if the virus is smoldering on, i would be concerned that wherever i went might become a hotspot and either at worst make me ill or at least severely inconvenience me.

re spending/savings
i expect savings rates to go sky high. currently 52% of workers under 45 are either jobless, furloughed, or have had work hours reduced. when these people get work again i think it unlikely that they will choose to put a water scooter on their credit card.

re healthcare
i think a lot of people who once said they were happy with their private health insurance will discover they're not so happy when they are laid off and said insurance is no longer theirs. it is my hope that this experience will increase political support for separating the availability of healthcare from employment.

re supply chains
i think there will be pressure to bring closer supply chains for medications, medical supplies and devices and other strategically important goods. this will be justified, and appropriately so, on national security grounds. pharma might not be motivated to do this, because money, but might be forced to by law and regulation.
the same pressures have already appeared in technology, witness the huawei brouhaha. so this will spread to other goods which are less obviously tied to military functions. the definition of "national security" will be significantly broadened. [will it include toilet paper?]
water scooters will still be manufactured in china or wherever is cheapest.

cheap oil and gas will retard the development of "green" energy unless the latter is heavily subsidized. this is possible within the context of - finally- major infrastructure spending aimed in part at offsetting the huge deflationary impulse generated by the current economic stasis.

**shiny!** · April 12, 2020, 09:17 PM

Re: After The Virus - What Next?

Originally posted by GRG55 View Post

Then again, maybe I am completely wrong and we will all remain fearful

and hunkered down in our homes, hoarding toilet paper

for years to come.

Have at 'er! Where are we headed next?

Feeling a little more brain fog than usual today so I don't have the energy to find data to support my hunch; I'm not sure how it could be statisti-fied anyway. But here goes:

Our public policy response to Covid-19 would have been less traumatizing to both the economy and national psyche if it had been more nuanced, i.e., everyone in a high risk group for age or pre-existing health problems should have been told to self-isolate, but everyone else should have been told to simply go about their business but:
1. wear masks in public at all times,
2. wash their hands a lot, and
3. practice social distancing as much as possible.

Instead we used a shotgun to kill a fly in the living room. How quickly we recover and what that recovery will look like depends as much on how individuals handle stress and trauma as it does on fiscal and monetary policies.

The media, using this crisis to boost their ratings and readerships, fanned the flames of panic. When people have been made to fear that basic social interaction can be fatal, how do you then undo that message?

Not since we went to war after 911 have so many people had their emotions manipulated by non-stop propaganda. The post 9/11 response brought us invasions of privacy and "your papers, please" restrictions that heretofore had only been in authoritarian dictatorships. People were promised that these restrictions would keep them safe, so they welcomed it. Dissent was crushed. Once established, these infringements on our freedoms never went away.

People were much tougher and much more resiliant a hundred years ago when the Spanish flu burned through society. It left its mark in their memories but it didn't leave them permanently traumatized and cowering in their homes. They went back out and got on with their lives. They had no choice. There was no government bailout, no government check.

Cracks were already forming in our society before Covid-19 happened. Too much wealth inequality; too many balkanized, anxiety and depression-ridden petulant snowflakes. I don't think we're going to handle the aftermath of this pandemic nearly as well as our great-grandparents did.

I expect a plethora of heavy-handed, permanent regulations are coming down the pike. Just as 9/11 brought us the Patriot Act, the Dept. of Homeland Security and the TSA, Covid-19 might result in universal mandatory vaccinations and having to show our vaccination papers just to board a bus or go to the store. Or if Bill Gates has his way, someday we'll have trackers implanted with our vaccinations so that we can be scanned wherever we go. That'll just be the start.

Government responses to Covid-19 will destroy the last vestiges of freedom in our society, and a timid, frightened populace will welcome it because, as one friend told me, "I don't care about all that! I just want my family to be safe!"

**jpatter666** · April 13, 2020, 08:21 AM

Re: After The Virus - What Next?

Originally posted by GRG55 View Post

A thread to encourage some informed debate about where the world is headed and what will it look like and function like, once COVID-19 inevitably declines, the lockdowns are lifted and our economies are re-started again.

By "informed" I mean something more than just a raw opinion. Support what you post with some cogent arguments and facts (example at the end below).

Some possible questions, in no particular order, that may be of interest to seed the discussion:

Will personal and household savings rates increase, and credit leverage decrease as a result of this experience (people want to be better prepared for the next time)?
Will we see a rise in the barter economy due to ongoing income compression and structural unemployment in the aftermath of the lockdown?
Will there be a material change in supply chains (more local production compared to outsourcing "everything" to China), or will the talk only last for the duration of the current crisis, after which old habits and existing installed production capacity gets restarted as the quickest and most economical/efficient way to get the global economy functioning again?
Will China become a global pariah for some time for its handling of C-19, and will that affect its economy and growth in any material way? Or will it's systematic buying off of developing nations and UN agencies continue to protect it from scrutiny and consequences?
Will an era of low oil prices, and government's reduced ability to subsidize, lead to a material setback in the adoption rate of "green" or renewable energy?
Can "bricks & mortar" store retailers, already under pressure from Amazon et al before the virus forced everyone indoors, ever recover? Or are we destined to see more permanently boarded up malls and main streets in the coronavirus aftermath, as consumers have learned to browse a website and fill their digital shopping carts?
Will the desire for family "safety" cause a resurgence in demand for suburban homes with yard space compared to the concrete-box-in-the-sky urban apartment condominium city-center lifestyle we've heard so much about? Sort of your own personal DMZ ribbon of lawn.
The aftermath of 9/11 ushered in the TSA (and equivalents at every major airport worldwide). Will COVID-19 result in a permanent TSA-like system of mandated "health status" screenings at major public event facilities, such as professional sports stadiums, airport terminal entrances, large convention centers, music concert venues?
Can the international travel and tourism business rebuild after this calamity? Tourism (despite the emissions from jet planes and cruise ships) had been touted as one of the new, "green" economic industry drivers of advanced economies.

On Question 9 the consensus meme seems to be it will take years for the international air and cruise ship travel industry to rebuild after this. I'm not so sure of that. Here's some counterarguments in favour of a faster recovery:

9/11 was a commercial airplane specific threat - immediately after if you got into one of those big aluminum tubes the fear was some mumbling bearded foreigner would convert it into a smoking hole in the ground. COVID-19 is not a threat specific to airplanes, cruise ships or hotels, so why would people be any more fearful of getting on a plane or a cruise ship than, say, going to a sports stadium and share space, food service and toilets with tens of thousands of people watching a football match (AT&T in Arlington Texas seats 105,000, Wembley seats 90,000 and Manchester United's Old Trafford seats 75,000).
International air traffic recovered to pre-9/11 volumes in about 2 years after the event, and went on to set all time new records, even through the aftermath of the global financial crisis.
International air travel, the cruise industry and other tourism activities recovered from 9/11 despite steeply rising oil prices (energy is a big input to most segments of this industry). Oil rose from $10 per barrel in 1999 through post-9/11 recession, to $150 per barrel by the spring of 2008, and generally stayed above $100 per barrel for another 5 years after that. Today oil prices have crashed and that should prove a significant "tailwind" during the coming global recovery.
The people that travel internationally are generally those with sufficient disposable income. The Boomer generation controls the most wealth of any demographic in human history. And this consists of far more people than the infamous 1%. And to add insult to injury, government policies and entitlement programs (in places like the USA) are in place to execute the greatest transfer of wealth from the young to the old we've ever seen.
45% of Carnival Cruise passengers with cancelled bookings due to C-19 chose to take a credit voucher to be used for a future booking instead of a cash refund.

I wouldn't be surprised if the airline and cruise industry recover a LOT faster than anyone can imagine in the emotion charged atmosphere we are in today.
Then again, maybe I am completely wrong and we will all remain fearful

and hunkered down in our homes, hoarding toilet paper

for years to come.

Have at 'er! Where are we headed next?

And I was just looking at this over the weekend: Webinar: Tyler Cowen on the future social and political implications of COVID-19

https://bcf.princeton.edu/event-directory/covid19_06/

I think much of this depends on:
(a) Is there an effective and cheap treatment. If this becomes "take a C-PAK" and rest for a few days
(b) Is there an effective vaccine

1 ) I think companies are likely to increase reserves/decrease leverage out of fear of a recurrence. I'm not so sure about personal savings because I'm waiting to see how this helicopter money plays out. If people feel there are no (or little) consequences then they may splurge.
2 ) Too soon to call, but unless things go completely south, I'd say no.
[edit: was wrong on this one. And I looked at Nextdoor and yes, this is happening. https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-f...g-malbec-masks ]
3 ) Yes. Especially if Trump gets re-elected. After this is over and there is some retrospective, expect China to be eviscerated on its handling of the initial crisis. The political pressure will overwhelm the economic ones. Politicians will want a scapegoat for their own failings and China will serve that purpose admirably. That said, as the Cowen interview states, this will increase the speed of alignment choice of China or the West. Some countries will explicitly enter China's orbit.
4 ) See above.
5 ) Actually, I think there will be a speedup towards adoption of green technologies because in many countries people have gotten a actual real look at what theirs lives *could* be like. Clean air, water, views. It's not fantasy now, they've seen the real possibility and they won't forget or go back easily.
6 ) Boarded up. But also a new push for drone delivery.
7 ) No....unless crime surges. Then yes and faster than you'd think because telecommuting is now generally accepted and high-speed internet is available even in highly rural areas.
8 ) No. Not permanent. But expect the technology to do mass temperature screenings (i.e. instead of walking through a metal detector, you walk through a temperature scanner) to be created.
9 ) Again, see my initial caveats. If limited progress, I expect travel to resume -- but only to countries with first-rate medical capacity. Travel to third-world countries (even those with first-class resorts) will plummet. I'd also expect travel *to* the U.S. to plunge given the exorbitant cost of health care here.

And something I'd like to hear about is the explosion in the US deficit beyond reason and on-going. Other countries as well. What's the end-game here? Have we entered the final Ka-Poom stage?

Since many students have been told by their associated universities that on-line learning is just as good as on-campus, why should they continue to pay the on-campus prices?

Will this crisis push the US into a national healthcare plan? (while individual healthcare workers are covering themselves in glory, the same can not be said for most of the institutions)

jk · April 16, 2020, 09:08 AM

Re: After The Virus - What Next?

some thoughts on longer term consequences, including some repetition of what i wrote above:

currencies and regionalization

husge money printing must accelerate the loss of the dollar's reserve status.

however the lack of ready alternatives is what has maintained the dollar's centrality. i have for years been predicting that the world would break into 3 main currency blocs - centered on the dollar, euro and yuan. there might be moderately sized countries which maintain their own currencies - japan, the uk. i could see australia maintaining its currency but linked into both the yuan and dollar systems.

in light of what has unfolded in this coronavirus recession/?depression [dalio says "depression"], we see "just in time" moving toward "just in case", at least for strategic goods, broadly defined. such a trend toward shorter supply chains will promote the kind of economic and currency regionalization i have long foreseen.

there will have to be some way to settle accounts between blocs, although interbloc trade will not be nearly as voluminous as intra-bloc trade. i could foresee settlement in barrels of oil, in gold, in some digital-sdr, something. but in general, interbloc trade will be regulated by old-fashioned balance of payments considerations.

southeast asian countries, esp vietnam with its ancient animosities with china, will become the new non-aligned bloc. india? likely to join the dollar sphere i think, but i'm far from sure. africa? has it already been captured by china?

the country i find myself most perplexed about is mexico. it's a natural for relocation of u.s.-bound manufacturing now done in asia, but it is on the edge of becoming a failed state as the drug cartels wield ever-increasing power. i think there's a lot of risk,as well as a lot of potential reward, in investing there. can anyone think of a good way to do this?

inflation/deflation

i'm really trying to figure out how recent events should cause me to revise or toss out what has been my baseline scenario for future developments in the u.s.

my baseline has been that there would have to be a lot of money printing to pay for boomer entitlements. PRIOR to the current recession the u.s. was running a deficit of about $1.4 trillion [including off-balance-sheet, etc]. meanwhile about 10,000 baby boomers are reaching retirement age every day. social security and medicare costs must rise sharply over the next decade.

consequences? the u.s. would have to default on treasury paper [never when it can print instead], stop spending on the military [unlikely], cut social security and medicare [but old people vote], or print - the easy solution.

it was this thinking that led me put about 20% of my assets into gold when it was around $380. i thought money printing and inflation was inevitable. i pictured an artificially suppressed cpi [let's add chain pricing to hedonics] helping slow the growth of social security payments, but most of those extra dollars would make their way into the real economy. without any commensurate increase in the volume of goods available- productivity is not rising fast enough and shortened supply chains will raise prices at least intitially, so prices would have to rise.

the current situation changes things in several important ways. the printing has started accelerating earlier and more vigorously than i expected. the fed is likely to have a $10trillion balance sheet by the end of this year!

otoh, there are severe deflationary forces afoot. unemployment is skyrocketing and the economy is in the process of re-arranging itself in major ways that i do not expect to revert to the status quo ante. the slow demise of bricks and mortar has been sharply accelerated, for example. e-commerce has accelerated. how long a wait before people feel comfortable going to a theater, let alone an arena? streaming services obviously benefit, along with the technologies that support and improve them. more work from home, and less commercial office real-estate?

small and medium sized businesses are being hard-hit. many will never re-open. for quite a while there will be many boarded up shops. unemployment will be significantly higher, even as the participation rate goes even lower than it has already dropped in recent years.

the savings rate will go up and general consumption will go down. if you've been shocked by losing your income and finally get a job, likely at lower pay, you will not be as quick to take out your credit card to buy a water scooter. you're more likely to pay down that credit card balance to reduce your interest burden.

we will experience another of ray dalio's "beautiful de-leveragings," but on an even bigger scale than that of 10-12 years ago. it will consist of a combination of write-downs via bankruptcies, inflation, and paying down debt.

do you think there will be an end to the new, "temporary," income maintenance programs? there's the recent "temporary" boost in unemployment benefits, and forgivable loans to "small" businesses ["small"in quotes because the loans can be up to $10million, and "small" can have up to 500 employees]. the spv's the treasury is establishing, with leveraged funding from the fed, will provide loans and thus exert supervision over large chunks of the economy. in general, the federal gov't will have greater sway over more of the economy than ever before.

as milton friedman said, "nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program."

think of the political consequences! first, re health insurance. i am a doctor and my secretary has told me that he has not heard a single patient praise their private health insurance. the populace fears the unknown, so medicare for all was a loser from the start. but suddenly millions of people who got their health insurance from their employer have lost their jobs, and lost their insurance as well, all in the midst of a healthcare crisis. i imagine attitudes about how to fund healthcare will shift fairly sharply.

[it would be a great benefit both to individuals and to the economy to cut the tie between employment and health insurance. this system only arose as an artifact of wage controls during wwii, when employers couldn't lure workers - in short supply- by raising salaries. so they offered benefits which were not within the purview of the wage controls. as it is, it ties people to jobs they'd rather leave and discourages entrepreneurship. it imposes a cost burden on u.s. domiciled companies which foreign companies, located where there is universal health care, do not share. it discourages the hiring of lower paid workers, for whom benefits represent a much higher percentage burden on compensation.]

more: was andrew yang a seer in advocating a universal basic income? i foresee significant long term unemployment. 48% of workers in this country are employed by small businesses, many of which will shut down. and every warehouse worker at amazon displaces 2-3 retail workers. the u.s. and state gov'ts could save a lot of money in administrative expenses by doing away with all the targeted aid programs and just giving everyone money every month. [adjust tax rates if you worry about subsidizing the wealthy.] this could be what the "temporary" income support measures turn into.

so not just medicare for all! let's have social security for all! i'm not predicting it, but it is now within the range of possible outcomes that i must consider.

what of the pension crisis? state and local pensions are grotesquely underfunded. bail out? bail-in, with pensions cut but with the addition of a u.b.i.?

will we finally rebuild, maintain and expand on the infrastructure bequeathed to us by the "greatest generation," and which we have basically allowed to deteriorate for decades? the long ballyhooed infrastructure program may finally occur on a grand scale, in large part to soak up unemployed labor.

in general, this is a scenario of the u.s going through a period of disruption accompanied by significant inflation or dollar-depreciation [not necessarily against other currencies, which will also be depreciating.]

5-7 years down the road we have a national debt measured in numbers formerly reserved for astronomy, a huge annual deficit, but a much stronger safety net. finally, or in stages along the way, the tax system is changed to support the much greater presence of the gov't in the economy. we come to resemble, in many ways, for good and for bad, the western europe of recent years,

i realize that this is mostly a "turn left" scenario, and there must a corresponding "turn right" scenario, which i am not the right person to contemplate, but which i would be most interested in hearing about.

so how to invest?

there will be stages. currently, we are at the beginning of a stage in which disinflation may turn into outright deflation. the inflation is sectoral, or only comes later. t-bonds for the next year or two?

then will come inflation. traditional commodities in anticipation of an infrastructure bill?

other thoughts, please?

**Mega** · April 16, 2020, 09:42 AM

Re: After The Virus - What Next?

Its Over, so I expect a "Blip" to November then another wave......but smaller one

Investing?..............say in cash/Gold.......Bear Market has far to run, say 18 months...then it will bottom. If inflation comes & thus a return of real interest rates that will CRUSH heavly indebted company. Even BIG names will fall.

**Mega** · April 16, 2020, 09:54 AM

Re: After The Virus - What Next?

Ah
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitic...-deadliest-day

NORTH DAKOTA GOVERNOR ISSUES GUIDELINES TO REOPEN STATE MAY 1 - STATEMENT - RTRS

**Techdread** · April 17, 2020, 11:46 AM

Re: After The Virus - What Next?

I don't think real Interest rates are possible.

Governments can print and print as much as they like.

Then let inflation kill the debt or just default on it and stuff bondholders.

Attached Files

**shiny!** · April 23, 2020, 10:45 PM

After the Virus? Cognitive Dissonance

You know I'm not good with numbers and stats, but I do think a lot about psychology. How can we can make predictions about economic recovery if we don't take human emotions and behavior into account? As talk is heating up about reopening the economy, I forsee that TPTB are going to have a problem trying to resolve a whopping case of cognitive dissonance.

In order to ensure compliance with stay-at-home orders, people have been subjected to a massive barrage of fearmongering by the media, i.e. This virus is so dangerous that everyone's life depends on locking themself into their home, seeing every other human being as a potential cause of their death. Covid-19 is a 30-foot great white shark lurking in a bay full of innocent vacationers.

Most people are basically kind, trusting and timid. They don't want to hurt anyone and they naturally don't want to die, so they accepted what amounts to house arrest at tremendous personal cost.

It's one thing to end the lockdown but quite another to undo the fear instilled in people's minds. I don't envision terrified people flocking back to restaurants, theatres, concerts and airplanes the moment the lockdowns are over. If where I live is indicative of anything, local polls are showing that the majority of people still want the lockdown to continue.

Given that we're not getting a vaccine anytime soon (if ever), the only way TPTB can rebuild social confidence to get "consumers" consuming again is if they reverse course and erase the terror of this virus. The only way to do that is by dramatically lowering the CFR. And the only way to do that is if universal antibody testing shows that Covid-19 has already infected a huge portion of the population, most of whom didn't even feel sick.

They'll have to convince people that they have nothing to be afraid of: "There's no shark! Come on back! The water's fine!"

At which point millions of people who lost their jobs, their businesses, their health plans, and their sanity are going to be out for blood.

Just my $0.02, and worth exactly what you paid for it ;-)

**Chris Coles** · April 24, 2020, 01:32 AM

Re: After the Virus? Cognitive Dissonance

Originally posted by shiny! View Post

You know I'm not good with numbers and stats, but I do think a lot about psychology. How can we can make predictions about economic recovery if we don't take human emotions and behavior into account? As talk is heating up about reopening the economy, I forsee that TPTB are going to have a problem trying to resolve a whopping case of cognitive dissonance.

In order to ensure compliance with stay-at-home orders, people have been subjected to a massive barrage of fearmongering by the media, i.e. This virus is so dangerous that everyone's life depends on locking themself into their home, seeing every other human being as a potential cause of their death. Covid-19 is a 30-foot great white shark lurking in a bay full of innocent vacationers.

Most people are basically kind, trusting and timid. They don't want to hurt anyone and they naturally don't want to die, so they accepted what amounts to house arrest at tremendous personal cost.

It's one thing to end the lockdown but quite another to undo the fear instilled in people's minds. I don't envision terrified people flocking back to restaurants, theatres, concerts and airplanes the moment the lockdowns are over. If where I live is indicative of anything, local polls are showing that the majority of people still want the lockdown to continue.

Given that we're not getting a vaccine anytime soon (if ever), the only way TPTB can rebuild social confidence to get "consumers" consuming again is if they reverse course and erase the terror of this virus. The only way to do that is by dramatically lowering the CFR. And the only way to do that is if universal antibody testing shows that Covid-19 has already infected a huge portion of the population, most of whom didn't even feel sick.

They'll have to convince people that they have nothing to be afraid of: "There's no shark! Come on back! The water's fine!"

At which point millions of people who lost their jobs, their businesses, their health plans, and their sanity are going to be out for blood.

Just my $0.02, and worth exactly what you paid for it ;-)

This has turned up on UKColumn.org and answers all of the points you have raised, except that it makes it perfectly clear; there is no need for the fear mongering. https://www.ukcolumn.org/article/ret...down-democracy

jk · April 24, 2020, 09:13 AM

Re: After the Virus? Cognitive Dissonance

Originally posted by shiny! View Post

Given that we're not getting a vaccine anytime soon (if ever), the only way TPTB can rebuild social confidence to get "consumers" consuming again is if they reverse course and erase the terror of this virus. The only way to do that is by dramatically lowering the CFR. And the only way to do that is if universal antibody testing shows that Covid-19 has already infected a huge portion of the population, most of whom didn't even feel sick.

1. we already know that most SARS-CoV-2 infections are asymptomatic and mild for the bulk of the population, but become more severe with age and comorbid illnesses. even with the [almost] national lockdown, however, we are just beginning to plateau in terms on new cases and daily deaths. any "opening up" will start the curves rising again, as we will apparently have demonstrated soon in georgia. but even at current levels our icu's are barely coping, if they are indeed coping [given the number of deaths which have apparently happened at home, without hospital contact, and which are just being added to the statistics]. so we can "open up" now at the cost of overwhelming our healthcare system. be sure not to have heart attack, a stroke or need cancer surgery for the duration of this process, because you won't get treated adequately or at all.

2. multiple studies now agree that only about 3% of the population is sero-positive, i.e. has had the virus. that's a long way from the ~70% required for some herd immunity benefit.

3. by the way, there is no guarantee that there would be ANY herd immunity effect, no matter how high the proportion of the population which has already had the virus. that's because of the multiude of things we don't know:

a. does having antibodies confer any immunity whatsoever? we don't know. there are illnesses which cause antibodies to be produced but those antibodies do not provide immunity. remember the 35 [32?] yo chinese doctor who raised the alarm about the illness early on and was taken to the police station for his troubles? he had the virus and recovered. a month later he became sick again with covid-19 and died. was that a second infection or re-activation of dormant virus? we dont know. we also don't know if there is even such a thing as "dormant virus" with this illness. there are also suspicions that 2nd infections are WORSE than first infections because they cause an immune system over-reaction, a "cytokine storm."

b. if having had the virus does confer some immunity, if so can it partial or is it total? some infections produce lifelong immunity; many produce immunity limited in effectiveness and/or duration. if having had covid-19 confers some immunity, is it total or partial, and how long does that immunity last?

c. does the severity or treatment of the illness affect antibody production and, if so, does it affect levels of immunity?

so, given our current level of knowledge [or level of ignorance] even if 90% of the population were seropositive we would not know how safe it was to return to a more normal lifestyle. given that we are now only at 3%, however, we are likely to have some answers to the questions above by the time we reach 70%

even at 3% we know that many more people have had the virus than have had such infection proven by testing. that means the fatality rate is lower than initially thought. nonetheless, the morbidity and fatality rate is high enough, unfortunately, to push the limits of our healthcare system's capacity.

i think a more plausible basis on which we could significantly reduce people's fear is having a well-proven effective treatment for the illness. such a drug, or combination of drugs, might emerge within a few months, if we're lucky. of course then it would have to be produced on a bulk basis, but it is plausible that we might have good treatment, widely available, in 6-8 months. [plausible, far from certain.]

as for vaccines, everyone says 12-18months if we can develop one at all. it is apparently harder to develop vaccines for rna viruses such as SARS-CoV-2, than for dna based viruses. and there are such viruses for which we have never successfully developed a vaccine. another question relates back to the issue of the possibility that re-infection produces a dangerous cytokine storm. would a vaccine trigger the same reaction in someone who had had covid-19 at some time prior to getting the vaccine? if so, the higher the proportion of seropositive individuals in the population, the more dangerous the vaccine itself.

bottom line: we are profoundly ignorant about this virus and the illness it causes. it is hard to make policy given our state of ignorance, beyond the policy of trying to learn more, trying to minimize morbidity and mortality both from the iillness and the destruction wreaked on the economy, and trying not to destroy our healthcare system in the process.

**GRG55** · April 24, 2020, 10:15 AM

Re: After the Virus? Cognitive Dissonance

I couldn't help myself...I had to post this. I just about spit out my morning coffee all over my keyboard when I saw it.

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**jpatter666** · April 24, 2020, 10:21 AM

Re: After the Virus? Cognitive Dissonance

Originally posted by GRG55 View Post

I couldn't help myself...I had to post this. I just about spit out my morning coffee all over my keyboard when I saw it.

Forget to attach a link? Now I'm curious.....but let me finish my coffee first.

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After The Virus - What Next?

After The Virus - What Next?

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