OT: Corona virus

[Ian R]

Obvert, some good news today - the Oz curve has flattened.

ORIGINAL: obvert

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake

"the person" [8|]

I presume that does not mean Mr Chou who sold the bat-shit covered pangolin burgers at the Wuhan wet market? Or Mr. Liu who scraped the thing off the road with a shovel?

How is the CIA supposed to spot a couple of guys with fever and cough in the middle of the influenza season?

I realize you may be angry and I grieve for New York but let's get real.

Soup du jou

Maybe a link with no posted pictures next time?

Very visual here. I'm still trying to get the image of bat soup out of my mind.

[Ian R]

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn

Offensive image deleted.

Mate, I have tried to take your posts in jest for a while.

But really? You don't need to post that stuff.

Be contrarian by all means.

Express your reasoned view for discussion.

But do not discount the prospect that there are people who can track you down through the internet.

[RFalvo69]

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake
Are the banks running out of cash? Are they just protecting their employees? Are electronic banking systems failing? That doesn't sound good.

My understanding is: all of three. My daughter’s bank in Milan now requires an appointment for any kind of operation - including money withdrawing. I called on Thursday morning and I got my appointment for Monday at 12PM.

What I guess is happening is that money in the ATMs is running out, so you can't withdraw money with a credit or debit card - and there is a cap anyway (about 250 Euro, even if it depends from the bank and the kind of card you have). Since the bank is closed for the best part of the week, no one refills the ATM, and that's it.

Of course you can pay with your card, but some services (home delivery, for example) need cash. Portable devices are still not common enough in the South.

And then maybe you are going broke because your income is frozen (as I said, savings in the South are smaller) and need even a small loan (4-5000 Euro) giving as collateral the promise to repay once the economy is running again (or, more probably, your home - if you own it). If so, you meet two problems: first, the bank can just say "no"; second, the bank is closed anyway. As a result the liquidity available to you and your family is basically zero (this is what is happening to the people screaming at the bank in the video I posted). I shudder just thinking about it.

Then there is the ENORMOUS segment of the Italian population who works illegally - an endemic problem in Italy. These people are paid in cash, so they are not registered as workers and have no social security net. Once they finish the money they, almost literally, keep in their pockets, they are out of luck. They cannot even ask for loans, because, formally, they have no income. And there are A LOT of people in this situation, right now.

Here is where the criminality rides to the rescue. Going to an usurer is the classic way (I guess however that even he will ask for some collateral), but there is a simpler one: selling your gold. When the shockwave of the 2008 crack hit Italy, shops called "Compro Oro" ("We Buy Gold") appeared everywhere - and never really disappeared. Selling gold "the official way" in Italy is a long and tedious process. With the "Compro Oro" shops you bring to them maybe your wedding ring, or a small gold chain your parents gave you when you turned eighteen, or your grandma jewellery. The gold is valued, weighted and the shop pays you about half of its current value, in cash, at once, no question asked.

Most of these shops, of course, are run by some sort of criminal gang. However, what the "Compro Oro" shops do was never declared illegal (the only regulation is that cannot buy stolen gold - even unknowingly), and they are a source of cash in desperate times.

The examples I made are only a sample of the economic problems our South is facing right now - and why the government should act quickly: force the banks to stay open, allow low-interest loans and inject liquidity into the southern regions. While the rest of Italy could see these moves as "a privilege we didn't had", well, amen to that. The situation is already devolving. I wouldn't be surprised if guns come out during these assaults to the supermarkets (there are already rumbles that the trucks bringing groceries could be assaulted). The next move, if this happens, would be deploying the Army. And then?

Yes, I'm worried.

[Cap Mandrake]

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

Would the people who have did not get the drug combination work as a control group if everyone now seriously ill were to receive the drug combination? This is in regards to a double blind study. Or would you use information for the same patient as to before and after the drug combination? Or analyze both scenarios?

No, that is not randomized. You have to approach the control group the same way except for the one variable you are investigating

[Cap Mandrake]

ORIGINAL: RFalvo69

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake
Are the banks running out of cash? Are they just protecting their employees? Are electronic banking systems failing? That doesn't sound good.

My understanding is: all of three. My daughter’s bank in Milan now requires an appointment for any kind of operation - including money withdrawing. I called on Thursday morning and I got my appointment for Monday at 12PM.

What I guess is happening is that money in the ATMs is running out, so you can't withdraw money with a credit or debit card - and there is a cap anyway (about 250 Euro, even if it depends from the bank and the kind of card you have). Since the bank is closed for the best part of the week, no one refills the ATM, and that's it.

Of course you can pay with your card, but some services (home delivery, for example) need cash. Portable devices are still not common enough in the South.

And then maybe you are going broke because your income is frozen (as I said, savings in the South are smaller) and need even a small loan (4-5000 Euro) giving as collateral the promise to repay once the economy is running again (or, more probably, your home - if you own it). If so, you meet two problems: first, the bank can just say "no"; second, the bank is closed anyway. As a result the liquidity available to you and your family is basically zero (this is what is happening to the people screaming at the bank in the video I posted). I shudder just thinking about it.

Then there is the ENORMOUS segment of the Italian population who works illegally - an endemic problem in Italy. These people are paid in cash, so they are not registered as workers and have no social security net. Once they finish the money they, almost literally, keep in their pockets, they are out of luck. They cannot even ask for loans, because, formally, they have no income. And there are A LOT of people in this situation, right now.

Here is where the criminality rides to the rescue. Going to an usurer is the classic way (I guess however that even he will ask for some collateral), but there is a simpler one: selling your gold. When the shockwave of the 2008 crack hit Italy, shops called "Compro Oro" ("We Buy Gold") appeared everywhere - and never really disappeared. Selling gold "the official way" in Italy is a long and tedious process. With the "Compro Oro" shops you bring to them maybe your wedding ring, or a small gold chain your parents gave you when you turned eighteen, or your grandma jewellery. The gold is valued, weighted and the shop pays you about half of its current value, in cash, at once, no question asked.

Most of these shops, of course, are run by some sort of criminal gang. However, what the "Compro Oro" shops do was never declared illegal (the only regulation is that cannot buy stolen gold - even unknowingly), and they are a source of cash in desperate times.

The examples I made are only a sample of the economic problems our South is facing right now - and why the government should act quickly: force the banks to stay open, allow low-interest loans and inject liquidity into the southern regions. While the rest of Italy could see these moves as "a privilege we didn't had", well, amen to that. The situation is already devolving. I wouldn't be surprised if guns come out during these assaults to the supermarkets (there are already rumbles that the trucks bringing groceries could be assaulted). The next move, if this happens, would be deploying the Army. And then?

Yes, I'm worried.

Yes, you need the Army but they need to BRING something with them to eat. That is skirting close to a breakdown in social order. If the infrastructure still works the UN brings in bakeries (like they did in Sarjevo). Or better yet you hire a bakery or two in every town and you pay the guy for the product on a pre-negotiated rate. Then you use the mail service (or drivers) to distribute it.

Time to tell the EU to stuff their borrowing limits up their Covid 19 pipe. We are very nearly printing money over here.

[warspite1]

So recently, prior to Coronavirus, it was suggested by someone in the Government (or their advisors) that we don't need farms in the UK...

... there is now a headline stating there will be a veg and fruit shortage because there is no one to pick the stuff.

So the UK no longer manufactures much, how important our financial services will be post Brexit who knows, and now, apparently, we don't need to produce any of our food either.....

You couldn't make this up.

[RFalvo69]

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake
Time to tell the EU to stuff their borrowing limits up their Covid 19 pipe. We are very nearly printing money over here.

The way the EU is behaving during this crisis is abysmal. This is exactly the kind of situation for which the EU was created. Now this happens, and everyone is running around panicked while guarding his own garden. Antieuropeist populist movements were always considered "ignorant, stupid and dangerous". Now they are being boosted by the EU itself.

Mario Draghi, former president of the European Central Bank, wrote a chilling editorial for the Financial Times. Basically he says that a deep recession is unavoidable, but if governments don't take "strong and speedy measures" the recession will morph into a prolonged depression that will leave irreversible damage.

The day after this editorial appeared, the EU decided to "take two more weeks to think about strong measures, like the emission of 'Coronabonds'". You do your math.

[ITAKLinus]

ORIGINAL: RFalvo69

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake
Are the banks running out of cash? Are they just protecting their employees? Are electronic banking systems failing? That doesn't sound good.

My understanding is: all of three. My daughter’s bank in Milan now requires an appointment for any kind of operation - including money withdrawing. I called on Thursday morning and I got my appointment for Monday at 12PM.

What I guess is happening is that money in the ATMs is running out, so you can't withdraw money with a credit or debit card - and there is a cap anyway (about 250 Euro, even if it depends from the bank and the kind of card you have). Since the bank is closed for the best part of the week, no one refills the ATM, and that's it.

Of course you can pay with your card, but some services (home delivery, for example) need cash. Portable devices are still not common enough in the South.

And then maybe you are going broke because your income is frozen (as I said, savings in the South are smaller) and need even a small loan (4-5000 Euro) giving as collateral the promise to repay once the economy is running again (or, more probably, your home - if you own it). If so, you meet two problems: first, the bank can just say "no"; second, the bank is closed anyway. As a result the liquidity available to you and your family is basically zero (this is what is happening to the people screaming at the bank in the video I posted). I shudder just thinking about it.

Then there is the ENORMOUS segment of the Italian population who works illegally - an endemic problem in Italy. These people are paid in cash, so they are not registered as workers and have no social security net. Once they finish the money they, almost literally, keep in their pockets, they are out of luck. They cannot even ask for loans, because, formally, they have no income. And there are A LOT of people in this situation, right now.

Here is where the criminality rides to the rescue. Going to an usurer is the classic way (I guess however that even he will ask for some collateral), but there is a simpler one: selling your gold. When the shockwave of the 2008 crack hit Italy, shops called "Compro Oro" ("We Buy Gold") appeared everywhere - and never really disappeared. Selling gold "the official way" in Italy is a long and tedious process. With the "Compro Oro" shops you bring to them maybe your wedding ring, or a small gold chain your parents gave you when you turned eighteen, or your grandma jewellery. The gold is valued, weighted and the shop pays you about half of its current value, in cash, at once, no question asked.

Most of these shops, of course, are run by some sort of criminal gang. However, what the "Compro Oro" shops do was never declared illegal (the only regulation is that cannot buy stolen gold - even unknowingly), and they are a source of cash in desperate times.

The examples I made are only a sample of the economic problems our South is facing right now - and why the government should act quickly: force the banks to stay open, allow low-interest loans and inject liquidity into the southern regions. While the rest of Italy could see these moves as "a privilege we didn't had", well, amen to that. The situation is already devolving. I wouldn't be surprised if guns come out during these assaults to the supermarkets (there are already rumbles that the trucks bringing groceries could be assaulted). The next move, if this happens, would be deploying the Army. And then?

Yes, I'm worried.

The problems seems to be that they're not refilling ATMs.


Also, that's the main element, Italy is one of the countries with the highes private wealth in the world. Therefore, it looks quite bizarre that people have no money and, in some cases, sharkloans are going to "offer their services" to them.

However, most of the wealth owned by italians is in assets, especially houses, which are by definition not liquid/cash. To this problem, we have to add few, relevant factors:
A) those who own houses are generally over-35 (if not 40) with stable jobs. It implies that they are part of the security net given by the State. They have basically to pay for the food and that's it.
B) those who don't own houses are younger, horribly under-paid people. They have basically no savings and they have to pay rents. Also, many of them are out of the safety net provided by the State because they have precarious jobs.
C) Southern-Italy is a whole different topic. Over there, the amount of people working illegaly is huge and Cov-19 emergency topped over a chronic economical fragility. Many survive through "small jobs" out of regular/stable contracts and they have little to none savings. Basically: if the cannot do some kind of little work and earn few hundred euro per-month, they have no way to survive. And the State cannot (doesn't want to...) help them.



I think the social stability of the country is in a very narrow road. Even in my relatively wealthy region, Tuscany, you can see that people are struggling. More importantly, the future is the big topic: I do believe that most of the people can make some efforts to go through this period, but, after that, we will be f@cked, economically speaking. And it doesn't help to keep the population calm. Everybody knows that now we are in the middle of the sanitary emergency but later we'll be in a huge economical tragedy.



Even if we imagine that we go back to normal at the end of April (and that's quite a wild assumption), there is still one month to that date. It's not gonna work. We cannot afford one more month, simply and plain as that.

[HansBolter]

ORIGINAL: warspite1

So recently, prior to Coronavirus, it was suggested by someone in the Government (or their advisors) that we don't need farms in the UK...

... there is now a headline stating there will be a veg and fruit shortage because there is no one to pick the stuff.

So the UK no longer manufactures much, how important our financial services will be post Brexit who knows, and now, apparently, we don't need to produce any of our food either.....

You couldn't make this up.

One lasting result I see coming is a move away from interdependency and toward self sufficiency.

That is only possible to the degree that the distribution of natural resources allows.

Sure, the US can move away from dependency on China for pharmaceuticals, but not away from SE Asia for rubber gloves.

[ITAKLinus]

ORIGINAL: RFalvo69

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake
Time to tell the EU to stuff their borrowing limits up their Covid 19 pipe. We are very nearly printing money over here.

The way the EU is behaving during this crisis is abysmal. This is exactly the kind of situation for which the EU was created. Now this happens, and everyone is running around panicked while guarding his own garden. Antieuropeist populist movements were always considered "ignorant, stupid and dangerous". Now they are being boosted by the EU itself.

Mario Draghi, former president of the European Central Bank, wrote a chilling editorial for the Financial Times. Basically he says that a deep recession is unavoidable, but if governments don't take "strong and speedy measures" the recession will morph into a prolonged depression that will leave irreversible damage.

The day after this editorial appeared, the EU decided to "take two more weeks to think about strong measures, like the emission of 'Coronabonds'". You do your math.

Look, I have always been a strong proponent of EU. Far from being an euro-skeptic. Still, I'm quite pissed off by this situation.

The stupidity, and miserable behavious, of some countries is just disgusting.

I'm quite open to a deep thinking on whether EU should go on as a project or we should just let it die.


Btw, my salary is paid by mama-EU, so I'm saying that even if I know that my job would disappear overnight.

[ITAKLinus]

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

ORIGINAL: warspite1

So recently, prior to Coronavirus, it was suggested by someone in the Government (or their advisors) that we don't need farms in the UK...

... there is now a headline stating there will be a veg and fruit shortage because there is no one to pick the stuff.

So the UK no longer manufactures much, how important our financial services will be post Brexit who knows, and now, apparently, we don't need to produce any of our food either.....

You couldn't make this up.

One lasting result I see coming is a move away from interdependency and toward self sufficiency.

That is only possible to the degree that the distribution of natural resources allows.

Sure, the US can move away from dependency on China for pharmaceuticals, but not away from SE Asia for rubber gloves.

Arguable. Just to stick to your example, you can get rubber gloves using rubber produced in Liberia (until few years ago the biggest rubber producer in the world) instead of Malaysia. They're gonna be marginally more expensive, but that's it.

It's a matter of cost. If we assume we can reduce somehow our consumption rates, we don't really need to purchase so much from Asia. Basically, we don't really need to "sub-contract" the world production to Asia if we accept that we have to lower our consumption, at least in the short-term.
In general, it's manufacturing that produces huge amounts of jobs and it's manufacturing that can help our economies to keep being relatively healthy and wealthy in the future. After this major crisis, we will enter in a complex economical situation and manufacturing is the main way to create jobs, whatever some streams of thought say.

[Cap Mandrake]

A very large proportion of the world population is going to be cautious about relying on the Chicoms.

This is perhaps the only good thing about this global catastrophe

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

ORIGINAL: warspite1

So recently, prior to Coronavirus, it was suggested by someone in the Government (or their advisors) that we don't need farms in the UK...

... there is now a headline stating there will be a veg and fruit shortage because there is no one to pick the stuff.

So the UK no longer manufactures much, how important our financial services will be post Brexit who knows, and now, apparently, we don't need to produce any of our food either.....

You couldn't make this up.

One lasting result I see coming is a move away from interdependency and toward self sufficiency.

That is only possible to the degree that the distribution of natural resources allows.

Sure, the US can move away from dependency on China for pharmaceuticals, but not away from SE Asia for rubber gloves.

warspite1

Yes, I hope that this is a wake up call, whether its gas from Russia or food or manufactured goods from anywhere - there needs to be a certain degree of capability maintained - or where not possible, at least a recognition of who one is relying upon.

[Cap Mandrake]

In the US the money spigot has been turned on the highest it has ever been.

2 Trillion in borrowed money (at <1% 10 year T-bill rates) and another Trillion or so already in "funny money" quantitative easing by the Fed.

Right now it would seem recession is inevitable but world-wide depression can be avoided if this doesn't last too long.

The lives of billions of human beings are being overturned by tiny spheres of lipids, proteins and RNA that have no cognizance of their existence.

[ITAKLinus]

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake

In the US the money spigot has been turned on the highest it has ever been.

2 Trillion in borrowed money (at <1% 10 year T-bill rates) and another Trillion or so already in "funny money" quantitative easing by the Fed.

Right now it would seem recession is inevitable but world-wide depression can be avoided if this doesn't last too long.

The lives of billions of human beings are being overturned by tiny spheres of lipids, proteins and RNA that have no cognizance of their existence.

America is fine.

Europe will be in a very, very complex situation. We have nothing even remotely comparable to the American economical answer to the emergency.

However, if Europe falls into depression, I suppose US won't be much healthier at that point.

[RangerJoe]

Boil a chicken and make some soup. Don't cover the kettle:

Study on new coronavirus says warmer weather may slow COVID-19 spread, and cooler weather may accelerate it

"Based on the current data on the spread of 2019-nCoV [or SARS-CoV-2, which causes the illness COVID-19], we hypothesize that the lower number of cases in tropical countries might be due to warm humid conditions, under which the spread of the virus might be slower as has been observed for other viruses," Bukhari and Jameel wrote in the research paper.

But, they cautioned, "The underlying reasoning behind this relationship is still not clear." When contacted by AccuWeather this week, the researchers elaborated on their work.

"Our key findings are that so far at absolute humidity levels above 10 g/m3, the spread of the cases appears to be slower than at places with absolute humidity levels less than 10 g/m3," Jameel told AccuWeather in an email. According to the National Weather Service, absolute humidity is "expressed as grams of water vapor per cubic meter volume of air" and "is a measure of the actual amount of water vapor (moisture) in the air, regardless of the air's temperature," which is what the above measurement refers to.

https://www.accuweather.com/en/health-w ... -it/707177

[Cap Mandrake]

Excellent reference, microbiology, clinical..etc.

Johns Hopkins

https://www.hopkinsguides.com/hopkins/v ... S_CoV_2_#1

[RangerJoe]

ORIGINAL: warspite1

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

ORIGINAL: warspite1

So recently, prior to Coronavirus, it was suggested by someone in the Government (or their advisors) that we don't need farms in the UK...

... there is now a headline stating there will be a veg and fruit shortage because there is no one to pick the stuff.

So the UK no longer manufactures much, how important our financial services will be post Brexit who knows, and now, apparently, we don't need to produce any of our food either.....

You couldn't make this up.

One lasting result I see coming is a move away from interdependency and toward self sufficiency.

That is only possible to the degree that the distribution of natural resources allows.

Sure, the US can move away from dependency on China for pharmaceuticals, but not away from SE Asia for rubber gloves.

warspite1

Yes, I hope that this is a wake up call, whether its gas from Russia or food or manufactured goods from anywhere - there needs to be a certain degree of capability maintained - or where not possible, at least a recognition of who one is relying upon.

Think of the cost and the time of manufacturing things elsewhere. The expansion of ports and shipping infrastructure plus their maintenence is not cheap. The people not working locally won't pay taxes and instead may work illegally and/or be on the dole. When I mean locally, I refer more to the region such as USA, Canada, and Mexico. Western, Southern and Central Europe should be considered another region. For the most part, each such region has a variety of resources and climates to produce/grow what is needed.

The May 2003 issue of Discover magazine has an article about how to turn any organic waste (plastics, what is flushed down the toilet, etc) into petroleum.

[witpqs]

In my business experience, this is pretty routine, people can't resist dipping into the cookie jar to grab some cash for whatever reason. Often it's just to look good and get a bigger bonus/raise.

https://www.redstate.com/jenvanlaar/2020/03/29/ca-dismantled-its-mobile-hospital-system-ventilator-stockpile-in-2011/

If Garcetti had access to three mobile 200-bed hospitals with ICU units and surgical suites, “50 million N95 respirators, 2,400 portable ventilators, and kits to set up 21,000 additional patient beds wherever they were needed,” he would probably feel a bit more prepared to handle the predicted onslaught.

California had such a system, implemented by former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2006. Schwarzenegger was troubled by the suffering he saw along the Gulf coast after Katrina and was concerned about a possible bird flu pandemic. Knowing that devastating earthquakes and “wanted to prepare the state for future calamities.”

...

During the 2008 recession state revenues plummeted, and the state faced a $26 billion budget deficit by the time Schwarzenegger left office. Gov. Jerry Brown cut the system in 2011, sarcastically remarking that “the programs had been set up to counter ‘a potential influenza pandemic which did not occur.‘”

Edit to add a little more.

Ventilators and Respirators

The 2,400 portable battery-powered ventilators were donated to county health departments and local hospitals. Medical device dealers told the Los Angeles Times they “recall many of California’s ventilators being resold by hospitals and nursing homes to other dealers, who then likely shipped them out of the United States.”

Out of the 50 million N95 respirator masks, 21 million remain – but they’re all out of date. Between 2011 and 2020 masks were used but not replaced. The expired masks have been released from the stockpile, but “are approved for use only in limited, low-risk circumstances,” according to the California Department of Health.

[warspite1]

With everything exploding around them - Italy, France, Spain, Netherlands, Belgium and the UK - the German and Austrian numbers just don't add up to me [&:]