We are better off being nits here. We're playing on a limited bankroll of one life unless someone has the Konami code.

The flu is just as widespread, but we have herd immunity from all the centuries of previous infection and the annual vaccinations. SAR-CoV-2 is contagious before symptoms appear, and each person infected passes it on to another 2.3 people, on average, every four days (absent strong social distancing measures). It is predicted to infect 70-80% of the world population, if unchecked. So that means conservatively 4B cases, worldwide. A conservative estimate of the mortality rate is 1%, which would translate to 40M deaths worldwide, and double or triple that amount of hospitalizations. Even if you go by the South Korea numbers, where testing and isolation is extensive, the case mortality rate looks to be running at about 0.3%, conservatively. That would still be 12 million deaths worldwide. If you factor in the lack of available healthcare from an overburdened health care system, both for COVID-19 cases and for all other emergency care, the death count would probably double or triple, at least.

The steps taken now to "flatten the curve" are necessary, and in the long run less economically destructive than letting the disease run rampant. This isn't just for the sake of the "old people". You can do without your poker and other recreation for the months that it will take to bring a vaccine to market. (Or more optimistically, until the virus dies out from mutation or summer conditions.)

A medical expert was pointing out that summer on one side of the world is winter on the other side. So yes, it may lessen in one's summer, but on the other side of the world it will be in full force in their winter, and then when it turns back to winter in one's region it will return with a large impact.

So the only real positive prospect outcome is the discovery of the vaccine, which experts predict is 12 - 18 months away because vaccines have to go through rigorous tests before being released on the market. The good news is they are already quite advanced down the vaccine route, which is good news when one considers this started as an animal infection, so one wouldn't have expected such quick progress to find a solution for humans.

So all these events will continue for 12 - 18 months, so these official talks of 12 week plans, or old people in seclusion for four months is just to hide from us that it is actually a year plus we are really talking about.

Xanadu:

The rate in Korea is .9 per cent, not .3 per cent.

Makes a change from asking for a handjob.

I'm aware. I'm just doing the same thing as the government - holding back a little on the whole picture to make it more palatable. My "months" includes the predicted 12-18 months for vaccine availability. And there is a chance that fast-tracking will bring a [risky] vaccine to market faster.

There is still the possibility that the virus will mutate out of existence in the meantime, albeit small.

Yep. But since no one really knows as it is too early to be sure, I'm erring on the very conservative side so BluffNuts can't come back at it with some "blown out of proportion" bs.

Europe certainly hasn’t turned a corner.

If Italy hasn’t turned a corner at least then we are in even much bigger trouble than we ever imagined, because it indicates that we actually have no real sense of how the virus spreads or how to prevent it.

The population of the southern hemisphere is 1/9th the population of the northern hemisphere, so if the effect is as seasonal as flu, then this summer/fall (in the north) should see significant improvement. But the world is not going to stop and sit motionless waiting for a vaccine unless the virus starts showing much more significant impact on younger people. The damage would be too great. At some point, even before a vaccine is available, restrictions on movement/activity are going to be eased and the burden of social isolation will unfortunately fall on those most at risk only.

Perhaps a vaccine will be fast-tracked for those most at risk. But that would bring its own sets of risks and potentially negative consequences.

Of course restrictions will be eased, but they could be back.

Right now they are massively ramping up even in not very hard hit places to try and ease the very real surge. In a few weeks, the second wave of hardest hit places will start to ease. And with each wave that passes there hopefully will be more people who have built up immunity and more people both well adapted to restrictions, and health systems more in a ready stance to accomodate local outbreaks.

Then we probably enter a cycle where things ease somewhat but still carefully, you get new breakouts in places, and restrictions go back into effect.

But if everyone gets better at both testing infrastructure, and at travel containment and isolation measures, and we get better at identifying how easily it transmits, and at what point in the infection, with time measures need to be less wholesale.

This is not going away for a long time. But that doesn't mean it will just be a worldwide 18 month lockdown.

I stand corrected.

This.

And, at the low end of the spectrum...based upon the Texas Department of State Health Services, tests have been done on 1,268 persons with 64 cases as a positive/presumptive positive and ONE fatality. DSHS makes clear that they "do not include residents of other states who were repatriated from China or a cruise ship on a U.S. government flight to JBSA-Lackland in San Antonio."

This was updated as of noon today (two hours and twenty-five minutes ago, give or take a few minutes).

Meanwhile...actual flu numbers, nobody wants to talk about. Those numbers did actually decrease from last week, with the positive tests having dropped to 17.97% from 23.19%. For the current flu season, we have 15 pediatric flu deaths in this State.

Maybe these will help to place things in perspective for why people like me hold the positions we do on this matter...

The Venetian, Palazzo closing until at least April 1; no layoffs or furloughs

"According to a Tuesday statement from the company, the process of closing the The Venetian and Palazzo will be completed as soon as possible. Sands will decide whether to extend the closure or re-open the megaresorts “at a later date.”

Sands team members will continue to be paid while the resorts are closed, and the closure “will not impact health care eligibility,” according to a company statement."

"Sands also announced it is donating $250,000 to help “several important local organizations” serve the Las Vegas community during the outbreak, including Three Square, Communities In Schools and Share Village Las Vegas. It also plans to donate meals and needed equipment.

Caesars Entertainment Corp., Red Rock Resorts and Boyd Gaming Corp., told the Review-Journal on Sunday that they have no plans to close their Nevada properties at this time."

https://www.reviewjournal.com/busine...or%20furloughs

who cares about flu

flu doesn't put 20% of infected in the hospital or results in serious lung damage

it also doesn't spread nearly as fast

The flu comparison doesn't jive with many people. If the mortality rate remains on the order of 1% AND this virus spreads as far/wide as it seems capable of doing, then this will be far worse (probably an order of magnitude worse) than common flu for any given year. But again, that is all pure conjecture at this point. If that happens, I'm not sure it would rank ahead of 1918 as the most deadly outbreak in US history (.5% of population died), but it would certainly be bad.

All of the measures being implemented are trying to prevent that. Let's hope it works. But for the time being it is not inappropriate to consider historical context.

In the US, ~50,000 people die every year from flu; 12,500+ died from H1N1 in the 2009 outbreak; 500,000+ died in 1918 from that H1N1 outbreak.

So far < 100 deaths have been attributed to COVID-19

Are you using that statistic to support the view that everyone is overreacting? The "low end of the spectrum" having a mortality rate of over 1.5% of positive tests is a good thing?

Just hit 100+ deaths in US now.

Actually the CDC estimates flu causes about 17% hospitalizations, and that figure was 18% in 2018...

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html

and if you look at the mechanisms by which flu is spread...

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/disease/spread.htm

it is very similar to COVID-19. The one caveat is it appears COVID-19 symptoms can be non-existant or very mild in many people, so people are more likely to spread the virus without knowing it.

And if you peruse the symptoms and possible complications of flu...

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/symptoms/symptoms.htm

I think you would agree they are significant, particularly since the flu kills so many people each year.

So while it is way too early to classify COVID-19 as better, worse, or similar to the flu in regards to its overall effect on health. We should not minimize the effect flu has on health, not to mention the economy. If you care about infectious disease, you should care about flu.

Perhaps this situation will have a silver lining in that people will be more careful about their behavior when they get sick with less exotic, but still significant, diseases.

Take a look at the call options as well...I snagged several for January 2022 expiry. Even something like CZR should have returned to $9 and $10 by then (given that the El Dorado deal will likely be pushed back, meaning that the options are still in play in a year and a half). You lose the dividends on options contracts, but there are steals to be had on the days where the Dow has plunged...

And yes, I DID do the same thing with oil and transportation stocks.

Yes, well, let's check in on these numbers in two weeks, shall we? Every bit of evidence I've seen says Cov-19 is at least ten times more lethal than the flu, although less lethal to the very young and much more lethal to the old.

Your comparison of Cov-19 to the flu isn't realistic and isn't helpful.

Doing the math LATER is not a good option. You don't need to be a math genius to predict what will happen to the blue line on this graph:


Perhaps the scariest thing about these graphs is that China had confined about 100 million people to their homes when their death toll was <30, way back in January, and Italy started lockdowns in February. i.e. The purple and yellow lines on this chart are flattened curves.
Italy might have reached an inflexion point today, as their number of new deaths was lower than yesterday (where this graph ends), but Italy will surely overtake China for highest number of deaths fairly soon.
The US hasn't taken containment measures as strong as China or Italy, and already has a death toll of 100, which means it's only lagging about 12-14 days behind Italy. In a couple of weeks the US will be racing to the top of the chart.

Don't be the dinosaur that looks at the incoming asteroid and says "It doesn't make sense to change my behaviour. I'm going to the casino." Act now.

And yet, as akashenk duly notes, there ARE many similarities. There must ALSO be a reason why some agencies (including DSHS) place the numbers on the same page for quick reference...

Ummm.. dinosaur behavior had no effect on incoming asteroids. And it is highly unlikely dinosaurs spoke in English... or spent any time in casinos.

Flu coverup in full effect. This Treesong fellow is in on it. Keep drinking the koolaid people!