the strong usd

[globaleconomicollaps]

Re: the strong usd

Death rate now estimated at 5% of infected.

[GRG55]

Re: the strong usd

Death rate now estimated at 5% of infected.

Still heavily skewed to the elderly and the ill. I don't see a lot of children succumbing to this thing, and even though the schools are closing there's no reason to believe their infection rates are less than the population as a whole.

[jpatter666]

Re: the strong usd

Still heavily skewed to the elderly and the ill. I don't see a lot of children succumbing to this thing, and even though the schools are closing there's no reason to believe their infection rates are less than the population as a whole.

And apparently a large number of people get this, barely show any symptoms and are thus not known. So I'd call it 5% death rate for verified infection group. True rate is still an unknown and of course there will be some deaths that were believed to be something else but will turn out to be CV.

[jk]

Re: the strong usd

re above video:

re italian data
% of cases by age would be more meaningful if we had handy the size of age cohorts in the overall population.
e.g. fertility in italy is very low, so there aren't so many youngsters in the first place.

also, italy has the oldest population in the world. so you'd expect more severity than other populations.
also true cfr must be at least somewhat lower because of the number of people who get ill but are never identified, never tested.
otoh chinese data is unreliably low because of people being turned away from hospitals.

bottom line though, the lancet study estimate of 5.7% mortality is quite scary.

[Mega]

Re: the strong usd

[globaleconomicollaps]

Re: the strong usd

re above video:

re italian data
% of cases by age would be more meaningful if we had handy the size of age cohorts in the overall population.
e.g. fertility in italy is very low, so there aren't so many youngsters in the first place.

also, italy has the oldest population in the world. so you'd expect more severity than other populations.
also true cfr must be at least somewhat lower because of the number of people who get ill but are never identified, never tested.
OTOH Chinese data is unreliably low because of people being turned away from hospitals.

bottom line though, the lancet study estimate of 5.7% mortality is quite scary.

Italy is turning people away from the hospital who are older than 60. They don't even look at them.

[globaleconomicollaps]

Re: the strong usd

Potential cure:

[snip] long quote about quinine cure [/snip]

So there is this guy with long hair who runs a hospital/research lab. He wants to give everybody quinine. The government wants to take a go slow approach and only give it to "critically ill" patents. He is giving it to all of his patients now. Professeur Didier Raoult resigned today from the Scientific Council advising the President ( or kind of sort of resigned but not really).

https://www.nouvelobs.com/coronaviru...tml#xtor=EPR-2

This guy has said something like "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself" « la pire maladie du siècle [est] la peur » or words to that effect. He is in the process of publishing a book entitled « Épidémies, vrais dangers et fausses alertes » ( Epidemics, true dangers and false alarms ). He doesn't think the corona virus is much of a threat. He is something of a divisive character in medical circles.

I don't know how on topic this is.


Obligatory on topic thought: Gold exploded higher today. The euro continues to do enormous gyrations that have so far left it right about where it was for the past several years. The DXY is right where it peaked in 2016. This thing has been going on for a month. Stocks, oil and TNX are shocked but this is not what I think of when I think of panic. All I hear is "when can I buy?".

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: the strong usd

...Gold exploded higher today. The euro continues to do enormous gyrations that have so far left it right about where it was for the past several years. The DXY is right where it peaked in 2016. This thing has been going on for a month. Stocks, oil and TNX are shocked but this is not what I think of when I think of panic. All I hear is "when can I buy?".

[jpatter666]

Re: the strong usd

[jk]

Re: the strong usd

everyone is just waiting for "the bottom" so that they can jump in and buy. as long as everyone is looking for when to buy, we're going lower.

[GRG55]

Re: the strong usd

everyone is just waiting for "the bottom" so that they can jump in and buy. as long as everyone is looking for when to buy, we're going lower.

I can't see how there is any way, at this time, of assessing with any confidence the amount of economic damage this is going to cause, the pace of recovery, re-alignments between national/region bloc economies (does Europe ever come back in our lifetime?) and which sectors & companies/& to what degree there may be "bailouts".

All I know for certain is the final result will be somewhere in between the bookends of the apocalyptic doomers and complacent "it's just a flu-bug" cohorts.

[santafe2]

Re: the strong usd

% of cases by age would be more meaningful if we had handy the size of age cohorts in the overall population.
e.g. fertility in italy is very low, so there aren't so many youngsters in the first place.

also, italy has the oldest population in the world. so you'd expect more severity than other populations.

The median age of the population does not appear to be a critical factor. Italy and Greece are about tied in this area yet are 100X different regarding infection rates and over 300X regarding mortality. Germany has dropped morbidity rates by over 3X in 5 days and mortality rates among this very old population are about .5%. There are several critical factors like social and political response but age is not one of them.

[jk]

Re: the strong usd

The median age of the population does not appear to be a critical factor. Italy and Greece are about tied in this area yet are 100X different regarding infection rates and over 300X regarding mortality. Germany has dropped morbidity rates by over 3X in 5 days and mortality rates among this very old population are about .5%. There are several critical factors like social and political response but age is not one of them.

how do you understand the differences between italy and greece. is it just that the virus hasn't really reached greece yet?

[touchring]

Re: the strong usd

how do you understand the differences between italy and greece. is it just that the virus hasn't really reached greece yet?

It takes time for the virus to spread through the population. Italy might even have gotten it in Dec as there's a large China population in Italy.

[santafe2]

Re: the strong usd

how do you understand the differences between italy and greece. is it just that the virus hasn't really reached greece yet?

I've been tracking the outbreak by country in Europe for the last 2+ weeks. It is of course possible that Greece will see a severe outbreak but they've locked down the country yesterday at a time when the spread remained low and is declining in most other European countries so a spike in daily spread from the current 8-9% increase per day seems unlikely. BTW, that is also the rate of case spread in Italy. All my measurements are from March 10 through this morning and include the 13 countries in Europe with at least 50 identified cases of COVID-19 on 3/10. At that time 57% of all reported cases were in Italy. I'll offer two examples where the median age is similar:

* Italy had 9,172 reported cases and currently have 69,176, 6820 deaths, median age 45.5 years
* Germany had 1,281 reported cases and currently have 32,986, 181 deaths, median age 47.1 years

Population density is about the same, a bit higher in Germany.
Median age is about the same again a bit higher in Germany.

Yet we see ~20X more deaths in Italy so clearly median age is at best a small contributing factor. The main factors in mitigating mortality rates are:
* Germany was not first, they had more time to plan. We see that in Washington State, New York and now New Jersey, (proximity/community sharing to New York).
* Germany has a dedicated, government based elder care program in place. Structurally they were prepared to test the most vulnerable.
* Germany began aggressively testing and isolating the elderly and other vulnerable communities.
* Germany's medical system was not overrun. See New York by this weekend and all of next week.

Germany wasn't perfect in their response which allowed CV to spread more than it should have over the last 2+ weeks. As I'm writing Germany was just updated to 35,353 cases.

I don't have answers for you with regard to Greece. Was it luck? Planning? Distancing? Ouzo? For whatever reason, Greece has so far been spared but if age is a factor, it's a minor one.

Over the last couple of weeks I've had the time to refine my model and apply it to the US but the outcomes are reasonably predictable based on the following:
* When - was your locale early in the infection cycle without peer examples. Washington State, of course. I don't think New York saw Washington State as a peer. Clearly Oregon and California did.
* Social / Political response - Has your state employed shelter in place before virus spread reached 1:10,000 residents and/or reported spread rates were in excess of 3X over a 5 day period. Our state, New Mexico, is an example of one where the governor tends toward safety first. We received a shelter in place, gatherings of no more than 5 and a non-essential business shutdown when reported cases reached 1:25,000 and our spread rate was 19% per day. Too soon? I think she'll look smart in a month but she's receiving death threats today. Arizona, on the other hand has few state based sanctions. As an example, malls are still open. Their cases are currently 1:22,000 with a spread rate of 33% per day. At this rate their case load will be over 5,000 in 10 days. Arizona's governor is still looking for federal guidance. It will be too late.

And one personal story. I was scheduled to speak at a medical conference in St. Louis next week. When I started building my model for Europe I realized the same thing would happen in the US and that we were even less prepared. I reached out to the society president with my concerns when there was only one case in New Mexico and none in Missouri. He understood my concerns and was gracious enough to let me bow out but he was skeptical this would be an issue. Missouri and St. Louis still appear to be a bit skeptical as they've been very slow to react. The infection rate in Missouri is now 1:21,400 and the daily rate of spread is ~38%, the highest in the country with St. Louis as the epicenter where the numbers are even more troubling.

While I've worn several hats in my professional career, I've worked as a data and business analyst for the last seven years. I have a difficult time understanding how people let their belief systems keep them from understanding a threat that is so easily measurable. I suspect that's more in your area of expertise. Be safe.