I'm dropping some quick, simple first principles here:
1) I'm expecting precisely those advantages that I see evidence of. The mortality rate
we know about is the 2.3% to date, and that is largely from cases in China. By the way, if anything, the more consistent pattern has been that they attempt to minimize reporting.... but if you attempt to minimize the no. of cases, and they "under-minimize" the mortality numbers, you get a higher mortality rate.
BUT, that's speculation, like many of you guys have quoted below.
The known is that 2.3% number.
so far.
2) When we know things "so far" there have, thus far, been factors that that have kept the worst outcomes largely at bay.
3) Today's press conference was great in a couple of ways. First, it might have killed POTUS, but they all walked back the "coronovirus is a hoax" language. It became some sort of "it's a hoax to cover it, but the virus itself is real" distinction. Whatever, regarding the politics. They're now not tethered to denial of the virus even being here.
4) notwithstanding (3), there's some issues remaining with the handling, but it is NOT a political thread and I'm not trying to take it there (granted many of us have verged on it.)
5) Fat tails. If you dont know "probablity slang," a fat tail event is one that's way unlikely and way high-impact. You really want to prevent them, so you do look out for something that looks like it CAN be the fat tail. In this case, it means the next Spanish Flu (basically). Now and then there's a candidate. So far they've fizzled. One day, it won't. Then bodies in the street.
Some people may have lived through too many hurricanes and the impending warnings of the apocalypse that come from the news coverage about them. I understand the news has a job to do in order to forewarn people, but you can only scream that the apocalypse is here so many times before people begin to laugh at you as if you’re some nut on a street corner in dirty underwear, and nothing else, screaming about God. Any pandemic is inherently dangerous. It’s the most realistic way outside of all out nuclear war that we’re going to be wiped out. But I’m not sure what to do about it. I’m still planning on traveling, going out, etc. If Coronavirus wants to find me and kill me, well... I guess it was my time to go.
(5), above. If there is info to get across, "thameeja" should help get it out there, the guys in white lab coats should figure out the best info, and you really want the technocrats in charge all the way around. That said, you HAVE to alarm even when you hope you don't get the worst outcome. That means that they tell you to leave for a hurricane that isn't that bad, because that's the thing you do 5 times before the 1 time that they tell you to leave before Katrina. Nature of the beast, to an extent. Safety's a species of risk management, and unless the goal is to protect ourselves in retrospect after we're dead or something... the majority of times that we begin to take precautions, we'll be wrong. Comforting thought, but don't get complacent, right?
I have a heightened stake in this with a wife who touches sick people in a big hospital four days a week. You personally are not at serious risk even if you contract the virus but quite a few folks will be. It's no stretch to figure this thing might hurt us all financially.
Yep, yep, and yep. Below, there's a comment regarding how extended the market rally's been, so this is just the inevitable thing that pops the present bubble... take everybody out of restaurants for a month, take down Chinese output significantly, etc., and reality becomes totally different... conceivably in a way that triggers a secular sea change. Might happen might not.
I can't imagine they won't have a preventive shot by then.
If it's bad, I think there will be attempts to put a shot out there after safety testing but before efficacy testing. That might get us there before a year is out... you know if it's bad they'll get it down to months (and then they'll brag about doing it.)
Come on, PF, you're smarter than that. Stop giving misleading information to suit your TDS agenda.
The 2.3% fatality rate for C-19 comes from 3rd world backwaters, primarily impoverished regions of China with a government more concerned with covering things up than in actually treating the patients. Hubei Province had a mortality rate of 2% to 4%, but in the rest of China outside that province, the mortality rate was 0.7%. There is every reason to believe that if/when it strikes the U.S., we will be much, much closer to that 0.7% than the 2.3%
Does C-19 have a higher mortality rate than the flu? So far, yes. But 23x is an exaggeration.
I don't know wtf a "TDS agenda" is. The remainder of your post is upbraiding me for quoting known facts, followed by you replacing the known-to-date with your speculation. Last line in your post - "does C-19 have a higher mortality rate than the flu? So far, yes, but 23x is an exaggeration" - is simply at odds with the facts. It's 2.3% vs. .1%. That's a factor of 23. You quarrel's not with me, it's with math.
PF, you need to stop believing all the chicken little worst case scenarios. Let me fill you in on how the world works:
The media loves sensationalism. Sensationalism drives ratings. So when one scientist predicts 2% of the population will get it, and another scientist predicts 40% to 70% of the population will get it, which story do you think they are going to run with?
Your 3 million number is ridiculous. A far, far more realistic estimate is 2% of American's get it with 0.1% of them dying. That puts the number of deaths in the range of 7,000, which is still much lower than annual flu deaths in the U.S.
I don't have a 3 million number. That's just the product of 2.3% mortality and a number toward the 40% end of the infection range (40-70%).
I'd love for the 3 million to be ridiculous. So far, such a result does
not track with my first hand experience, so even as I type the fact, I too have a gut biased response that it is incorrect from first principles.
By the same logic, famously, Europeans had only seen white swans for millennia. In fact, a "black swan" became short for something that doesn't exist. Then Europeans went to the antipodes and observed black swans.
The lesson is that black swans not only have not been observed, but
cannot be observed, by that logic. Why? Because we have not observed them.
But then we do (and everybody says "nobody could have predicted that."
Above, somebody else says he "cannot imagine" there won't be a shot before any really terrible outcome. But there's no reason given other than an inability to imagine.
By our present observations, we now appear to be seeing the next insanely deadly biological event (unless, of course, we're not.)
But that fat tail event, given enough tries, will happen. This particular disease is a candidate.
It is ridiculous to believe that 3 million americans will die in this outbreak. There is no reason to believe that they will not.
I will be
happy to see the first indications that we've dodged another bullet. But I get why the infrequent but high-consequence event appears to be inevitably non-threatening.
It's just not true.
