In some ways this event can be seen as a dry run for greater dangers ahead...like the return of something like the Spanish flu. — Chester

I do wonder what the response would have been if Covid were a more deadly disease like Smallpox, but with an infection rate of Measles. Something that everyone would truly be afraid of.

A great short video explaining just why the economic depression is here to say and why a V-shaped recovery won't happen even if so called "lock-downs" are lifted:



Just to make one emphasis on this: a 90% economic "recovery" is a HUGE economic depression of -10%. It is something of epic historical proportions seldom seen in the economic history of various countries.

The early 2020's will suck.

I was hoping for more than "this happened in China, so it could happen everywhere.."

Will it really be a depression? Or will the economy lurch toward online retail in a way that's irreversible?

Plus, could you explain how China deals with an economic downturn vs the American way? I guess the American way at this point is "prop up and pretend everything's fine". What's the Chinese way?

we still have 7 months for current times to get more interesting. — Marchesk

Current times are boring as fuck IMO

Will it really be a depression? Or will the economy lurch toward online retail in a way that's irreversible? — frank

I think there's an accurate definition for an economy to be in a depression, but this kind of unemployment will have a big effect. Naturally nobody will admit it, of course.

Plus, could you explain how China deals with an economic downturn vs the American way? — frank

It's all about aggregate demand. Rule 1: Unemployed people or those believing that they might be unemployed don't spend as crazy. Rule 2: People are afraid and for a reason about the pandemic, which has already changed their spending habits. 3) Social distancing measures have hit the service sector, which employs the most people.

For comparison, when real estate booms go bust they create the problems because a) people have their life savings usually in real estate and b) houses aren't built by robots in China, but local construction workers. Now, just think how much more does the service sector employ than construction? You can see from the unemployment stats the size.

It's not about China at all, it's about the whole World. My and your country and Sweden or Brazil have already been affected.

Or put it in another way: How would you think aggregate demand would suddenly come back to the prior levels? You think people will start taking that vacation to Italy they were planning to do? You think people are going to buy that new house when people are getting laid of at their work? Are you going out just as you were before the pandemic and do you think other people will do so now when we don't have a vaccine and the pandemic hasn't been declared over?

It's not about China at all, it's about the whole World. My and your country and Sweden or Brazil have already been affected. — ssu

True, although it may be a survival of the fittest moment. Some american conservatives feel resentful and seem to want to establish their authority by rejecting the new normal. We'll see.

But I was asking how China deals with recessions, or are they like Australia and they've never actually had one?

Norway regrets lock down.

Norway regrets lock down. — Chester

Solberg says at the end of the article, "I think it was the right to do at the time," she said. "Based on the information we had, we took a precautionary strategy."

Adopting a precautionary strategy is the correct approach when the risk is uncertain and potentially devastating.

Norway is in a good position as a result of their lockdown (they are averaging 15 cases a day compared to Sweden's 500 cases a day). So they shouldn't need to lock down again - other effective and less costly options are available to them.

Adopting a precautionary strategy is the correct approach when the risk is uncertain and potentially devastating. — Andrew M

Yeah, it's better to err on the side of caution than risk something a lot worse.

The problem that Norway is beginning to recognise is that they have built zero herd immunity whereas Sweden is further down that road. Sweden has also help it's smaller businesses (like bars) survive for when this is over.

Based on recent studies on herd immunity, about 7% of people in the Stockholm region have antibodies to Coronavirus. So Sweden's cases and deaths may increase tenfold before reaching herd immunity.

An alternative strategy is to eliminate the virus. Almost 50 countries (and 7 US states) have less than 20 cases daily. Some such as NZ may already have eliminated it (the protests there will be a test of that).

Wow. This is a crazy story about recent pauses on hydroxichloroquine studies. Let’s hope none of this has put lives at risk, but certainly a lot of people have been fooled.

The World Health Organization and a number of national governments have changed their Covid-19 policies and treatments on the basis of flawed data from a little-known US healthcare analytics company, also calling into question the integrity of key studies published in some of the world’s most prestigious medical journals.

A Guardian investigation can reveal the US-based company Surgisphere, whose handful of employees appear to include a science fiction writer and an adult-content model, has provided data for multiple studies on Covid-19 co-authored by its chief executive, but has so far failed to adequately explain its data or methodology.

Data it claims to have legitimately obtained from more than a thousand hospitals worldwide formed the basis of scientific articles that have led to changes in Covid-19 treatment policies in Latin American countries. It was also behind a decision by the WHO and research institutes around the world to halt trials of the controversial drug hydroxychloroquine. On Wednesday, the WHO announced those trials would now resume.

...

A search of publicly available material suggests several of Surgisphere’s employees have little or no data or scientific background. An employee listed as a science editor appears to be a science fiction author and fantasy artist. Another employee listed as a marketing executive is an adult model and events hostess.

The company’s LinkedIn page has fewer than 100 followers and last week listed just six employees. This was changed to three employees as of Wednesday.

While Surgisphere claims to run one of the largest and fastest hospital databases in the world, it has almost no online presence. Its Twitter handle has fewer than 170 followers, with no posts between October 2017 and March 2020.

Until Monday, the “get in touch” link on Surgisphere’s homepage redirected to a WordPress template for a cryptocurrency website, raising questions about how hospitals could easily contact the company to join its database.

Desai has been named in three medical malpractice suits, unrelated to the Surgisphere database. In an interview with the Scientist, Desai previously described the allegations as “unfounded”.

In 2008, Desai launched a crowdfunding campaign on the website Indiegogo promoting a wearable “next generation human augmentation device that can help you achieve what
you never thought was possible”. The device never came to fruition.
Desai’s Wikipedia page has been deleted following questions about Surgisphere and his history, first raised in 2010.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/03/covid-19-surgisphere-who-world-health-organization-hydroxychloroquine

What could the motives behind this be?

What could the motives behind this be? — NOS4A2

Money?

Why wasn't the study peer reviewed properly by The Lancet?

The official Covid death figures in the UK on Wednesday (3rd June) was 359, for the same day the Covid deaths for the whole of the EU was 330. On the same day Johnson stood in parliament and said how proud he was of the way the government had handled the crisis. Plus, he was now going to personally take control of the crisis. "Take back control"

None of this was reported in the mainstream media, the public doesn't know, or care anymore.

But I was asking how China deals with recessions, or are they like Australia and they've never actually had one? — frank

Never had one?

Australia suffered badly during the period of the Great Depression of the 1930s. The Depression began with the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and rapidly spread worldwide. As in other nations, Australia suffered years of high unemployment, poverty, low profits, deflation, plunging incomes, and lost opportunities for economic growth and personal advancement.

The Australian economy and foreign policy largely rested upon its place as a primary producer within the British Empire, and Australia's important export industries, particularly primary products such as wool and wheat, suffered significantly from the collapse in international demand. Unemployment reached a record high of around 30% in 1932, and gross domestic product declined by 10% between 1929 and 1931. There were also incidents of civil unrest, particularly in Australia's largest city, Sydney.

China knows that the real objective for it is to be like the US: have a huge domestic market and those +1 billion citizens to be as great consumers as Americans and Europeans are. But of course the Chinese in general are far poorer, hence it has had to rely on being an export oriented economy. And if you are an export oriented economy, Global recessions will hit you hard.

Chinese leaders aren't delusional, not it's only a game not to tank even more:

China is scrapping its annual economic growth targets for the first time since 1990, when it started announcing such economic figures, as its leaders grapple with the economic fallout of the novel coronavirus pandemic.

In China's centrally planned economy, Beijing's GDP target serves as an all-important touchstone on which local governments and state enterprises fix their annual policies and investments.

China's economy shrank 6.8% in the first quarter this year, the first recorded contraction in more than 40 years. Official unemployment figures have risen to 6.2%, though independent analysts estimate the actual rate to hover around 20%. About 460,000 businesses have gone bankrupt, according to the South China Morning Post.

So this year, leaders are stressing economic stability and poverty alleviation rather than growth.

(See article China Abandons Economic Growth Targets Amid Pandemic)

(If you believe Chinese statistics....)

In a survey published Friday, 39% of 502 respondents reported engaging in “non-recommend, high-risk practices,” including using bleach on food, applying household cleaning or disinfectant products to their skin and inhaling or ingesting such products.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/06/05/covid-19-cleaning-cdc-says-risky-attempts-kill-virus-may-deadly/3155505001/

Now the WHO is saying that the spread of covid-19 through asymptomatic patients is very rare.

“From the data we have, it still seems to be rare that an asymptomatic person actually transmits onward to a secondary individual,” Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, head of WHO’s emerging diseases and zoonosis unit.

“We have a number of reports from countries who are doing very detailed contact tracing,” she said. “They’re following asymptomatic cases. They’re following contacts. And they’re not finding secondary transmission onward. It’s very rare.”

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/08/asymptomatic-coronavirus-patients-arent-spreading-new-infections-who-says.html

All that social distancing....for what?

All that social distancing....for what? — NOS4A2

I think that now you start to see the differences with in the numbers, like here in the Nordic countries:

...............Deaths due to COVID-19
Norway: 239(Lock-down)
Finland: 323 (Lock-down)
Denmark: 593 (Lock-down)
SWEDEN: 4694 (No lock-down, just social distancing)

Hence this alteration in policy meant for Sweden multiple times more deaths. And "herd-immunity"? Likely in the Stockholm area well less than 10% have had the epidemic and in other places it's even more rare, hence no herd immunity. (And no, Sweden is only twice as big as Finland / Norway, hence there's really a statistical difference!)

Besides, lock-down or not, all countries in an economic recession. Welcome to the hard economic times:

The global economy is expected to shrink by about 5.2% in 2020 as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, making it one of the four most severe downturns in 150 years, the World Bank said Monday.

Never before have so many countries entered a recession at once, even during three more severe episodes—the Great Depression and the downturns following the two world wars, the bank said.

What is concerning is that we based these policies on insufficient evidence. What was true yesterday is untrue today.

Sweden faired better than other lockdown countries in Europe and elsewhere, so I’m not sure why we’d limit the comparison to Norway, Finland and Denmark. What about the UK, Ireland, Belgium. And Denmark is at 0.34 deaths per million while Sweden is at 0.3.

I wager there would be no such recession had everyone went the Swedish route.

I wager there would be no such recession had everyone went the Swedish route. — NOS4A2

I would call that wager! Just that people likely will not now go to Northern Italy and other tourist placed would mean a lot just by itself. Just the slowdown in China would have effected dramatically the global economy even if the US and Europe would have avoided the pandemic.

Just look at the economic forecasts Sweden has got for this year. And remember that this is a country that didn't shut it restaurants, shops, etc. A GDP growth of -6% is utterly horrible.

so I’m not sure why we’d limit the comparison to Norway, Finland and Denmark. — NOS4A2

Same kind of places and all were in a very similar situation. They aren't the tourist hotspots like Northern Italy or New York. Just to give some reasons.

And Denmark is at 0.34 deaths per million while Sweden is at 0.3. — NOS4A2

This is utterly false.

Sweden has 465 deaths per 1 million where Denmark has only 102 as of now.

I think you have to check your stats.

This is utterly false.

Sweden has 465 deaths per 1 million where Denmark has only 102 as of now.

I think you have to check your stats.

You’re right. I was looking at the rate for today, and not the entirety. Thanks.

We are about to see what happens when there is not a lockdown, but chaos instead, in Brazil and the whole of Latin America.

I'm sure Bolsonaro has such disdain for the poor, he probably experiences it as culling the herd.

Why do viruses come in waves?

All that social distancing....for what? — NOS4A2

I don't know, but everyone outside where I live has pretty much stopped practicing it. Inside to some extent as well. We'll see what happens. The spread seems to vary quite a bit. If this were NYC, people would be a lot more cautious. But things are opening up there as well, and I'm guessing all the protests have somewhat relaxed many people's concerns about the virus.

We'll see what happens. — Marchesk

I think that in the US the pandemic wasn't squashed, but prevailed to spread on a higher level than in other countries: the tail from the height of pandemic isn't at all so low as in other countries, so clearly it looks that the country came out of lock down too soon.

These kind of news tell an ominous situation:

On Saturday, Texas hit an all-time high of patients hospitalized with the novel coronavirus. It was the fifth day this week hospitalizations have broken new records.

According to the Texas Department of State Health Services, 2,242 patients were hospitalized with COVID-19 — an increase of 76 patients from the previous record of 2,166 patients on Friday.

I wonder where the death toll in the US will be in November.

Very sad to learn cornavirus has delayed attempts to make the last living southern white rhino pregnant. She was already old and it may have been the last chance for the species. There were two males in a french zoo, but some people broke in and killed them for their horns, and the only other living male died some years ago.

:yawn: