Thread: CoronaVirus ==> Empty Shelves

Originally Posted by FenceFurniture

I do not trust the figures from China, Iran, Russia, or Brazil. Maybe not Japan either.

Because of things like lack of openness/public accountability, insufficient testing, and the fact they are mostly early on in the game, any data from Africa, Central and South America, Asia (except for Singapore), Middle East, or Eastern Europe would have to be suss. In many of these places there's bugger all medical services and people already dying constantly for all sorts of reasons with not a medical person in sight let alone one that would be able to confirm a death as attributable to COVID19, so my guess is we'll never know what their real COVID19 death rates are. In the UK and the US additional people are dying in retirement homes and many of these are not being officially recorded as COVID19 deaths.

Doesn't really leave much of value to compare with does it?

Originally Posted by FenceFurniture

Today's spreadsheet attached.

Points to note

• I do not trust the figures from China, Iran, Russia, or Brazil. Maybe not Japan either.
• The Stans are now starting to appear in the 1000-2000 cases list
• Algeria doesn't quite have 2000+ cases but their death rate is top of the chart at 15.8%
• Spain, Italy and France are all slowing on both counts, but still have awful double digit death rates, as do UK, Belgium, Netherlands
• Germany's death rate is <¼ of the other big Euro nations
• Australia continues to slide down the cases list (-5 to 31) and is at or near the bottom in the other metrics
• Europe has 46% of world cases but 66% of the deaths. Euro nations with 2000+ cases are 7% of world pop.
• USA has 36% of world cases and 20% of the deaths. USA is 4% of world pop.
• The entire rest of the world (89% of world pop) has 19% of world cases and 14% of the deaths.
• If you don't have C19 then the safest place to be is probably right here (or NZ). IPM is relatively low at 250/mill, and if you do get it the death rate is one of the very lowest. All other countries with a lower IPM than Australia have a higher death rate, except Russia (and that will change).

Thanks for the spreadsheet and that analysis, Brett.

Everyone outside of China doubts their data. Browbeating the initial messenger didn't help there.

The following early release article has some data analysis that will be confirmed or otherwise when more data becomes available from other countries. Any fudging will start to show up then. It's a bit techo, but from what I can see the key reported findings are:

• The doubling time early in the epidemic in Wuhan was 2.3–3.3 days.
• The (median) number of other people an individual infected was 5.7 (broad confidence level of 95%).
• Results suggest: Active surveillance, contact tracing, quarantine, and early strong social distancing efforts are needed to stop transmission of the virus.

"How contagious SARS-CoV-2 is in other countries remains to be seen."

Early Release - High Contagiousness and Rapid Spread of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 - Volume 26, Number 7—July 2020 - Emerging Infectious Diseases journal - CDC

Originally Posted by doug3030

It's not so much the east or the west that are the problems - it's the bits in the middle

Hell. Many years ago I lived in Parkville and Carlton. Never realised I was in "crime central".

Originally Posted by Glider

I think you might find Carnival management will be re-naming that vessel at the first opportunity.

mick

Do you think Carnival Group and its management will survive?

In January its share price was above US$50, but it tanked to $7.97 on 2 April, and the company must still service debt in excess of US$11.5 billion.

But Uncle Donald can be generous with taxpayer money to billionaire mates!

Originally Posted by BobL

Because of things like lack of openness/public accountability, insufficient testing, and the fact they are mostly early on in the game, any data from Africa, Central and South America, Asia (except for Singapore), Middle East, or Eastern Europe would have to be suss. In many of these places there's bugger all medical services and people already dying constantly for all sorts of reasons with not a medical person in sight let alone one that would be able to confirm a death as attributable to COVID19, so my guess is we'll never know what their real COVID19 death rates are. Even in the US where people are dying in retirement homes some of these are not being officially recorded as COVID19 deaths.

Doesn't really leave much of value to compare with does it?

Yeah, look the spreadsheet is just for a bit of a ball park. WRT "not trusting China, Iran, Russia, or Brazil." I reckon they are deliberately feeding us BS for the usual reasons. Other places that you mention will have inaccurate figures because of insufficient testing and so on, but not necessarily because of BS.

I was talking to my ISP a few days ago. That is Internode, and their call centre is in Cape Town (and I must say that they are extremely polite and very easy to understand, unlike most other call centres, who may be extremely polite). Antonio (a good SA name) had to do some things which took a while so we got chatting about C19. I was saying that I expected that once it took hold in Africa it would quite possibly spread like wildfire. He disagreed to some extent because "we've had lots of epidemics in Africa and there is a certain preparedness for them". I just hope he's right.

Originally Posted by GraemeCook

Do you think Carnival Group and its management will survive?

In January its share price was above US$50, but it tanked to $7.97 on 2 April, and the company must still service debt in excess of US$11.5 billion.

But Uncle Donald can be generous to billionaire mates!

I very much doubt they'll go broke. Their assets reported as at 2019 are USD45 billion, revenue USD20 billion and a gross profit percentage which would make any CEO drool. They are the biggest player in the cruise business with a stable including Carnival (obviously), P&O, Holland America, Costa, Cunard etc. BTW, they pay no tax, probably as a result of their interest bill.

Whoever's holding their notes would be crazy to call them in. In normal times, it's a very sound business and things will return to normal in time. The market has panicked, as it's wont to do. It would be good buying at current prices but don't expect a divvy for a while.

mick

Originally Posted by FenceFurniture

Yeah, look the spreadsheet is just for a bit of a ball park. WRT "not trusting China, Iran, Russia, or Brazil." I reckon they are deliberately feeding us BS for the usual reasons. Other places that you mention will have inaccurate figures because of insufficient testing and so on, but not necessarily because of BS..

Ummm . . . not so sure about that there are still a lot of large population countries i do not trust, India, and Indonesia, and any of the "stans" are just some of examples as they have to continually be making themselves out being better than they are. The numbers for any country with (semi) despots in power also have to be queried, eg Venezuela, Saudi A, Turkey, even USA etc.

Wait until there is free money /AID going towards the problem and then we'll see the professional beggars come out of the wood work and claim more numbers than they actually have. Tragic really, we'll get played along like suckers - again.

coming to you live from Japan...

It's weird here. Everyone knows about it, it has gotten VERY quiet over the last couple of days...but not really the kind of response I would have expected. They are pretty good at natural disasters, and have plenty of hospital beds, plus a huge manufacturing industry that is exceptionally good at getting things done...domestic logistics second to none.

We went through the TP craze about 2 weeks before you guys. It has basically settled down, now hand soap and sanitizer are the harder to find things. Not impossible, but some places temporarily sold out. No real issue with food or anything like that. Early run on rice and pasta to some extent, but that all blew over quite quickly. Schools are sort of closed, not much in the way of public events, even sakura time was pretty tame. It's weird but sort of normal as well. I went in to the city to get some bits and pieces and there is still people around, though much reduced. Police didn't seem bothered by people wandering around...

I have plenty of the essentials here. Gin, whisky, beer, Italian salami, so overall am quite content.

Well I still don't know anyone with the virus, nor do I know anyone who knows anyone with it! That's not surprising because here in Queensland only one in 20,000 people that you're likely to run into on the streets has it. And then you have to catch it from them! Pretty good odds I think. I don't wear a mask, I don't possess any hand sanitizer, and I don't have the virus. If it wasn't for the heavy handed police presence (who appear to be immune to it) I'd be out there on the streets!

But what's the next move? I can't see any alternative to herd immunity but it would take a brave person to suggest we go down that route...

Fortunately we will soon be able to see how that works because Indonesia has no choice. There is no way they can enforce social distancing, they can't afford the testing (even if it was available), and they don't have the health system to support a catastrophe.

Originally Posted by Tccp123

Well I still don't know anyone with the virus, nor do I know anyone who knows anyone with it! That's not surprising because here in Queensland only one in 20,000 people that you're likely to run into on the streets has it. And then you have to catch it from them! Pretty good odds I think. I don't wear a mask, I don't possess any hand sanitizer, and I don't have the virus. If it wasn't for the heavy handed police presence (who appear to be immune to it) I'd be out there on the streets!

But what's the next move? I can't see any alternative to herd immunity but it would take a brave person to suggest we go down that route...

No comment needed here.

Originally Posted by Glider

No comment needed here.

Then why did you even bother hitting reply?

I went looking for the "Do Not Feed the Troll" smilie, but it doesn't seem to exist any more. It would be particularly useful in this thread.

Originally Posted by FenceFurniture

I went looking for the "Do Not Feed the Troll" smilie, but it doesn't seem to exist any more. It would be particularly useful in this thread.

Surely you can do better than that?

Originally Posted by Tccp123

Surely you can do better than that?

Obviously not...