patrick.net

WookieMan says

I'd venture to guess most people dying from this are fat, old, lazy, smokers.

Age, heart disease, diabetes and cancer are what they have determined so far to be risk factors for death. Not much different than the flu other than flu is also serious in the very young who don't appear to be at risk for death with the Covid-19 virus

This is more contagious than flu and more deadly than flu, and though flu kills a lot of people a large portion of the population has some protection from vaccines or resistance from previous infections. This dramatically slows down the spread. As far as can be determined there is no or very little resistance to the virus, though people can be a symptomatic or have very mild symptoms.

I think it highly unlikely it can be contained, I would guess it is far worse in China than is reported, the Chinese lie like dogs. To be truthful, particularly because of the asymptomatic population, it might be best to just let it go wild rather than try to contain it. Focus on treatment and isolation for the seriously at risk populations, and getting a vaccine and anti viral drug to treat it developed ASAP.

WookieMan says

If anyone is interested in inner city issues, this book is about the heat wave that hit Chicago in '95.

I was there then. It was really horrible, 106 degrees and extreme humidity. They had to bring in refrigerated trucks to hold the bodies because the morgues were full.

Most of the dead seemed to be elderly from bad neighborhoods who locked themselves in for safety, and had no air conditioning.

My wife and I went to a lot of movies and cafes just for the effective air conditioning there. Our own unit was shit.

Patrick says

from https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-age-sex-demographics/

This doesn't even look like it has the potential to make my commute easier. Damn!!!

This doesn't even look like it has the potential to make my commute easier. Damn!!!

Sure it will. Just fake some coughs and sneezes and people will clear out of you way!

From this graph on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_outbreak it looks like the worst of the spread is already past:

I'll fix the Migrants in a minute - historically, Migrants have indeed killed off the host civ.

Heraclitusstudent says

Yeah... people who died from the flu must have had it coming.
No other possible explanation....

Way to cut out the reasons why. Selective reading much?

Patrick says

Most of the dead seemed to be elderly from bad neighborhoods who locked themselves in for safety, and had no air conditioning.

The book itself explains demographics in a way that is educational and someone would be hard pressed to call it racist. But it points out the VAST difference between North Lawndale and South Lawndale in the city. One area Mexican and the other black.

I think most can guess which race had more fatalities during the heatwave. Definitely a must read for people on the left to understand the bigger picture in a non-confrontational manner. The destruction of the African American family is real and that heat wave was the absolute perfect case study on it.

Huh, we have a case in California of a woman who has no risk factors. She's never gone to China.

Maybe she ordered some cheap Chinese goods from Amazon and got a little bonus in the package.

https://finance.yahoo.com/m/db0cd149-1408-3f7e-a601-08c87ea5fce5/major-bank-economist-says-the.html

Major bank economist says the coronavirus market reaction ‘boggles the mind’

From that article link:

Porcelli finds the stock market reaction severe.

“To be sure, we sympathize with the narrative that some economic activity could be lost for good. In other words, you don’t double up on certain services spending once the dust settles because you put it off on COVID-19 fears. But a short-term drop-off in activity (even if not fully recoverable) has a diminishing impact on the net present value of future cash flows the further out your horizon goes! In other words, even if we are looking at a supply shock where postponed activity does not fully get recaptured, it still does not warrant a [more than] 10% repricing in a market that is supposed to be forward-looking in nature and ultimately realigns with fundamentals,” he says.

Porcelli acknowledges it is difficult to trust Chinese data, but points out that the infection rate outside of Wuhan is incredibly low. The Guangdong region, with a population of 110 million, has an incredibly low 0.001% infection rate, he says.

This all strikes me as potentially one of the best buying opportunities ever, if you can time it right.

I would not be at all surprised by further big declines in the days ahead, but ultimately the economy drives the stock market, and not the other way around. Trump's economy is still quite strong.

And now we have the long-term effect of lowered trust in the reliability of Chinese suppliers. So China's ability to put Americans out of work has been lowered. This seems like a strong positive sign for US manufacturing in the long term.

Quarantines are also a good argument for building the wall. So in a roundabout way, I think coronavirus is a net positive for US workers.

Patrick says

Huh, we have a case in California of a woman who has no risk factors. She's never gone to China.

Maybe she ordered some cheap Chinese goods from Amazon and got a little bonus in the package.

Douht the virus can survive that long. A few days is best case scenario under optimal conditions. She was near Travis AFB where a few sick had been brought back to. But it's def possible. That being said, I agree it's a great way to rethink our addiction to cheap crap from China and order made in America again.

HeadSet says

This doesn't even look like it has the potential to make my commute easier. Damn!!!

Sure it will. Just fake some coughs and sneezes and people will clear out of you way!

I went to a workout class with a cold. Never had that much space for myself.

Patrick says

This all strikes me as potentially one of the best buying opportunities ever, if you can time it right.

Don't time it, just buy. If you're inclined to research individual stocks, go ahead, but index funds would do just fine. This is going to go down as one of the biggest stock market overreactions in history.

Call me out in 6 months if I'm wrong, but this is so massively overblown and I'm usually not a stock market cheerleader.

UGH, even when called out for being idiots, they double down.

Media is full of idiots, thank goodness they're over.

Sri Lanka, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Mexico, Estonia, New Zealand, Belarus, Denmark, Belgium, Netherlands, Iceland, Norway, Nigeria, Ireland, Georgia, Lithuania, Nepal, Canada....

NoCoupForYou says

UGH, even when called out for being idiots, they double down.

Media is full of idiots, thank goodness they're over.

I'm pretty sure new antibiotic development is not "badly underfunded"

I jumped in with both feet today.

HEYYOU says

Some things are worth repeating.

Agent Smith:
I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here.It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I've realized that you are not actually mammals.Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment. But you humans do not.You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area.You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area.Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You are a plague.

As an aside;,"Your children aren't special!" & neither are your parents' children special!

That's pretty much the liberal set of beliefs today in a nutshell. They hate human race. In all honesty I think they should prove their point by killing themselves.

theoakman says

I'm pretty sure new antibiotic development is not "badly underfunded"

It is, but that has nothing to do with government. Pharma has too small profits on something that cures you in 2 weeks so they do not invest in antibiotics. Furthermore, idiots who stop taking prescribed antibiotics early, and meat industry who pumps animals full of antibiotics create bacteria that are resistant to particular antibiotic, and so new ones have to be developed quickly.

rd6B says

Pharma has too small profits on something that cures you in 2 weeks so they do not invest in antibiotics.

Myth.

They don't invest in that class because sales of new antibiotics are restricted by the government.

rd6B says

It is, but that has nothing to do with government. Pharma has too small profits on something that cures you in 2 weeks so they do not invest in antibiotics.

Yeah their incentives are to let you die unless they can put you on life long treatment, like in the AIDS case, that will provide them a rent.

There's nothing the government can do either. It's not their job to interfere with the market.

just_dregalicious says

They don't invest in that class because sales of new antibiotics are restricted by the government.

Yes, government imposed safety tests are known to be too drastic. No one ever dies from a FDA approved drug!

By the way. I didn't pull that out of my ass. I was hanging out with our CEO (pharmacia corp) in 2000 and he flat out told me that. We aren't going to invest in something we can't sell.

Government's expected us to keep it tucked away for emergencies.

... makes sense to me...

Government's should then fund the research. That would fill the gap.

I think antibiotics will be replaced by Eastern Euro tech: phages

just_dregalicious says

rd6B says

Pharma has too small profits on something that cures you in 2 weeks so they do not invest in antibiotics.

Myth.

They don't invest in that class because sales of new antibiotics are restricted by the government.

Don't know for sure, this is second-hand knowledge for me. A student of mine who works in pharma advanced this idea, and my PhD advisor with connections in pharma was saying that as well.
One could also think that pharma executives will try to blame gubbermint for their companies not looking well.

I always hear conspiracy theories about them not wanting to cure cancer as well. As if it's a single disease.

Total crock of shit.

It's just hard as fuck to solve. We used to just name them by body part. Only very recently are we starting to understand their many molecular signatures.

rd6B says

student of mine who works in pharma advanced this idea, and my PhD advisor with connections in pharma was saying that as well.

I like academics but most don't know shit about industry and many have a chip on their shoulder about it.

In over 25 years at over a dozen companies I have never once encountered such a situation. Quite the opposite in fact. Everyone wants to be the person or on the team who saves lives and becomes famous and furthers their incredibly difficult careers.

Primarily by way of a cure for X disease. In the short run turning it into a chronic yet manageable condition is second only due to the difficulty of finding a cure. Better diagnostics a third.

The implication of these conspiracy theories is that myself and my peers would actually work for an outfit like that is ludicrous.

The rumor mills at these companies are wide open. We'd know...

I'll concede that sometimes man bites dog but that is not the rule.

just_dregalicious says

conspiracy theories about them not wanting to cure cancer as well

That one I have not heard.

Go look at the conversations under stock tickers.

We do compete against each other brutally though. For example 16 years ago a small biotech named Amylin discovered a diabetes drug from Gila monster saliva. An incretin mimetic.

They made a deal with big pharma Eli-Lilly (diabetes company) to do the marketing.

Lilly didn't market for shit and started their own secret incretin mimetic program instead. Total scandal and I'm leaving a lot out.

That sort of crap happens all the time sadly.

In the end Amylin was bought out for pennies on the dollar for what they should have been worth.

just_dregalicious says

Go look at the conversations under stock tickers.

Those are probably professional conspiracy theorists with no other knowledge that everything is regulated by a clandestine secret society, and since we know their response to everything, we don't need to take their ideas seriously.

I am fairly far removed from pharma in my own research, but a few students get hired there to do chemistry, so my knowledge is somewhat limited and second-hand. And occasionally I read something like this: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-03/antibiotics-aren-t-profitable-enough-for-big-pharma-to-make-more
I am not sure how close to reality it is, since one can not trust a lot of media analyses.

Note the part where it says: Don't use it. Hold it in reserve.

Article could have been written in the 90s and still been accurate.

I truly think phages are the future. It's amazing that USSR states were working on that back when penicillin was discovered.

They were just too early. Future tech is going to (current already has) make that work swimmingly.

Also says: They're made to be used as little as possible.

If they were used they'd be profitable.

Holding in reserve is the right idea. Just need some incentive to fund them (better) anyway. Can't expect a business to do that.

I like the idea of funding phage research instead though.

Give the little bacterial cock-a-roaches corona virus:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.livescience.com/amp/65455-superbug-killing-phage-therapy-how-it-works.html

Heraclitusstudent says

Yes, government imposed safety tests are known to be too drastic. No one ever dies from a FDA approved drug!

Did you listen to Trump's speech with the CDC this week? In particular when the director guy spoke?

"We'll have vaccine in about two months"

Then he goes on and on about the durations of this and that trial etc., and finally says 1-1.5 or 2 years.

And that were already testing some in china right now.

Fucking FDA man.