Japanese news outlets are reporting :

• 174 infections / 492 tests (35%) on the cruise
• 4 passengers in ICU (all 60 yrs +)
• a quarantine officer has been infected (boarded ship on 3 Feb, wore mask and gloves, but no goggles or bodysuit, had fever by 9th, tested on 10th)
• gov says it does not have capacity to test all 3700 ppl immediately

So many interesting data points there. We're ****ed. From the case studies we have now it looks like this is incubating to contagion in <5 days in many cases (which increases the rate of spread) yet for some staying asymptomatic for 10-14 days. The variable progression and onset is a real ***** for containment. You have fast spreaders/generations AND long lived asymptomatic infectors. Simple gloves and masks probably don't work.

Meanwhile as far as the market is concerned the virus is in decline/being contained because the new cases are trending down in China (only 2000 new cases overnight) and few in the mainstream media are highlighting the fact that numbers are meaningless because China dishonestly changed the count last week from all positive tests to only those with pneumonia.

I wouldn't worry too much about it, it will sort itself out.

I'm skeptical that this is true--that they changed it. I don't think they said that--I think they just stated that testing only those with pneumonia is their protocol, and they didn't clarify whether that's what they've been doing all along. Do you think they recently changed how they are counting deaths, also? Because those are down today also (which I predicted, using my unbiased brain).

The only thing to worry about is if masses in the near future do not die of something. All these scare stories about flu makes headlines but the real threat is overpopulation, which if huge numbers do not die, will one day wipe us out

Ok so tooth thinks 4K deaths by June 1st and Stinky thinks 25k. I thought both of you would say much higher (well in to the 6 figs) with all this talk. I don’t get it, but carry on..

June 1 is early and a single point estimate for the median is irrelevant when all the danger is in the fat tail

Of course you're skeptical - you're on the wrong side of absolutely everything. On the 6th of Feb (Chinese time) they issued an edict stating that confirmed cases will be only cases with symptoms (which they define as pneumonia). This is precisely when the new cases started declining.
At the same time they started a lockdown of "rumor mongering", arresting citizen journalists who were reporting on how bad it really is in Wuhan, and ordering their press that negative stories should be removed/only positive stories about how they were winning the fight.

China's infection numbers are worthless at this point. They mean nothing. Deaths are still reliable as a comparison, but are of course (and have been) grossly underreported, perhaps by 2-4x. The NYT has written extensively about numerous cases of people dying at home from fever and pneumonia without being tested, turned away from all hospitals, and then simply cremated. Its not a conspiracy, it's just the reality of overwhelmed health services having limited test kits and having to triage. The younger relatives catch the disease too but survive.

This is like your "almost linear" mathematical illiteracy from earlier. Data including last count (Feb 11):



My working assumption as far as trading goes is to treat the Chinese numbers as accurate - because the market will - and continue to realize that it has a fat very negative tail.

The majority of outcomes fall into a binary result. On the one side is a small number because the properties of the virus are such that containment works (low enough R0, low enough asymptomatic spread, some mitigation like an early vaccine arrives), OR global unlimited natural spread happens because the properties of the virus mean containment cannot work and is abandoned at a certain number (see: the cruise ship). Containment efforts will be highly front loaded/extreme early on, which will either limit the disease or lead to abandonment of efforts as numbers grow anyway.

@RayDalio
I think the most likely outcome is that this virus will be a larger version of SARS that will have a significant temporary effect but won’t have a big long term influence, so the downward market price moves related to it are probably becoming exaggerated.



You heard it guys, these downward market moves toward the all time high are exaggerated

I'm a lot more mathematically literate than you, as proved in that exchange. Look at the graph you yourself just posted. Deaths are indeed almost linear over the past few data points, and today they were down, which could well mark the inflection point, as I predicted. Viewing a whole week of data isn't the same as zooming in onto the equivalent of an hour of data of a graph of e^x. You also said the death rate was growing at 40% per day. How you feel about that statement now, biased mop?

The "The Limits to Growth" book (and it's sequels) is worth reading...

The models all show that population control alone isn't enough (it just delays the inevitable by 10-20 years...). It has to be population control and stopping the quest for continued growth in industrial output, to stand any chance of avoiding a total collapse by the middle of this century.

(of course this is never going to happen so we are all basically ****ed)

If you search for "Dennis L. Meadows" (one of the authors), then there are several interesting lectures/interviews on youtube too.

Juk

This is so dumb (the whole post is, but this shows the level of intelligence/honesty): I feel that we really need to flick the intellectually incompetent, the downright ******ed, and the dishonest trolls a lot sooner.

And yeah, China data is worthless at this point by the Chinese government's own pronouncement last Thursday, we have no numbers at all on infection rates in China now, only pneumonia cases [about 20%] are reported as confirmed cases going forward.

There's an argument that underpopulation is a greater threat than overpopulation.

Will check this out thanks.

Will check this out too, cheers.


Meanwhile, the amount of drivel in the media is beyond ******ed:

'KILLER VIRUS Coronavirus LIVE: More cases ‘highly likely’ in UK as 45 million deaths are forecast by experts'

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/109130...-live-updates/

45 million seems standard with current best estimates of R0 and death rate. 2009 H1N1 went through about 2 billion people, killing ~500K with a 0.02% death rate (1/100th of this) and was about 1//3 as infectious as this appears to be.

It's really a case of whether it gets out of the barn door or not, such that containment becomes impossible at scale and it runs its course through the world's population. All the data indicates it's quite likely it will.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/12/w...rus-cases.html

Good to know the sun is reading my posts and recognizes that I'm am expert

15k new cases reported and 250 new deaths

i guess they cleared the backlog

back to exponential growth

correction: they reclassified clinically diagnosed via CT scan cases as confirmed cases

I may get have missed it but any discussion today about massive under-reporting of deaths? I’m talking like 10x type rates.

Clearly the ability to test and report accurately is a factor, but I am curious how much the Chinese gov is trying to hide about the true scope.

It’s like the market gives 0 ****s about any of this let alone the change of reporting cases.

Long dated puts time or what?

Deaths are still under reported at least 2x imo. So many died at home without testing or a pneumonia diagnosis and were simply cremated. The NYT has reported heaps of cases of the critically ill turned away from several hospitals and sent home to die without being tested.

The market believed that the numbers were declining and that this would blow over. That's why it rallied. There are lots of very silly people like Brass. The market will care if it's not declining.

I assume they simply ran into the limits of test kits/facilities (as reported by NYT) and didn't bother testing hospitalized pneumonia patients - they just isolated them, tried to save their lives and kept the test kits for others. Then got recorded (as the Chinese do) as not coronavirus. Gives you an idea of how overworked health services are.

Given that they're not reporting confirmed non-pneumonia cases any more (>50% of positive confirmations I'd imagine), the numbers should still be way under-reported going forward.

Added just now. Still small with an average now around 3333.00

And then we have this in the UK:

Four thoughts:
1. Trump is a genius/right again as always.
2. This woman was traveling round all the sights, in public areas, touching surfaces no doubt. For every one they catch there are >20 they don't (as 75% are mild, yet others are asymptomatic but spreading before they fly home and get sick)
3. This and the other UK guy who infected 11 means are probably hundreds infected already in many countries and spreading it to thousands right now.
4. Once Hubei reached the thousands level, even total insane city-wide shutdown for 21 days hasn't stopped the spread. although I think at this point it's slowing.

Of course it is. If people decide there's nothing to be afraid of any more then they buy the dip. Once the dip start buying the FOMO comes in and the shorts/hedges cover. It's the nature of the market for the last 1.5 years since the "fed has my back" complacency set in when they rescued the market from crashing at 2400 in late 2018.