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Coronavirus - Macro Investment Aspects Only

The home for all non-political Coronavirus (Covid-19) discussions on The Lemon Fool
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This is the home for all non-political Coronavirus (Covid-19) discussions on The Lemon Fool
odysseus2000
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Re: Coronavirus - Macro Investment Aspects Only

#293668

Postby odysseus2000 » March 24th, 2020, 11:55 am

This an alternate view about how ventilators are too complicated for car and other firms to make:

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/car-man ... entilators

Personally think this is a few industry experts talking nonsense. Engineers are clever innovative people and with unlimited funds they will imho learn how to make ventilators quickly.

Regards,

redsturgeon
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Re: Coronavirus - Macro Investment Aspects Only

#293669

Postby redsturgeon » March 24th, 2020, 11:59 am

odysseus2000 wrote:Gas masks were made in huge numbers at the start of the second war and current manufacturing is orders of magnitude faster.

Regards,


A ventilator is a lot more complex than a gas mask.

If another 5000 are being made available in the next ten days though I will be very relieved.
John

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Re: Coronavirus - Macro Investment Aspects Only

#293677

Postby Wuffle » March 24th, 2020, 12:13 pm

'Personally think this is a few industry experts talking nonsense. Engineers are clever innovative people and with unlimited funds they will imho learn how to make ventilators quickly.'

They could but that same analytical skill will tell them to refine their own product.
Capital has been sunk into that and this is a short term need.
And they (young healthy engineers) aren't dying.
Engineers are pretty good with the numbers.

W.

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Re: Coronavirus - Macro Investment Aspects Only

#293680

Postby Itsallaguess » March 24th, 2020, 12:20 pm

The BBC are running a story specifically around the new inventions cropping up to deal with this issue, including an emergency ventilator which has already been used to help successfully treat a virus victim.

Coronavirus -The new inventions inspired by a pandemic -

A new ventilator, a virus-killing snood and a hands-free door pull are just some of the innovations coming out of Wales to tackle coronavirus.

Since the outbreak, doctors, scientists and designers have been working on ideas to stop the virus spreading.

The ventilator has already successfully treated a Covid-19 patient and has been backed by the Welsh Government.

Mass production of the snood-type mask is under way while a 3D design of the handle has been widely circulated.


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-52008745

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

odysseus2000
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Re: Coronavirus - Macro Investment Aspects Only

#293703

Postby odysseus2000 » March 24th, 2020, 1:18 pm

Wuffle wrote:'Personally think this is a few industry experts talking nonsense. Engineers are clever innovative people and with unlimited funds they will imho learn how to make ventilators quickly.'

They could but that same analytical skill will tell them to refine their own product.
Capital has been sunk into that and this is a short term need.
And they (young healthy engineers) aren't dying.
Engineers are pretty good with the numbers.

W.


Yes, but they will also know that if they can flog these out quickly the government will pay what ever they ask.

If they don't then some competitor likely will get the money.

Regards,

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Re: Coronavirus - Macro Investment Aspects Only

#293706

Postby odysseus2000 » March 24th, 2020, 1:24 pm

redsturgeon wrote:
odysseus2000 wrote:Gas masks were made in huge numbers at the start of the second war and current manufacturing is orders of magnitude faster.

Regards,


A ventilator is a lot more complex than a gas mask.

If another 5000 are being made available in the next ten days though I will be very relieved.
John


Of course this is true, but the ability to make stuff is so much better now and there are no air raids, no blockade, not many folk needed to do the making and a lot needed so lots of turn over and profit to be had.

The article from the BBC showing the Welsh inventions, just posted by Itsallaguess, gives an idea of what can be done in an emergency when specific problems need to be solved.

Looking at the Welsh ventilator I am reasonably sure that I could make most of the bits in my own workshop and there are very many better equipped work shops than mine with trained staff to use the equipment.

Regards,

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Re: Coronavirus - Macro Investment Aspects Only

#293710

Postby 77ss » March 24th, 2020, 1:33 pm

colin wrote:...
yes it will as we have been told repeatedly in news media a more appropriate analogy is that of a forest fire, initially the fire spreads exponentially but at some point it reaches the stage where most nearby trees are already burnt so that slows the spread to a crawl.


Sounds to me like saying 'when people are dead, they can't spread the disease'! Even worse than 'herd immunity'.

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Re: Coronavirus - Macro Investment Aspects Only

#293715

Postby odysseus2000 » March 24th, 2020, 1:47 pm

77ss wrote:
colin wrote:...
yes it will as we have been told repeatedly in news media a more appropriate analogy is that of a forest fire, initially the fire spreads exponentially but at some point it reaches the stage where most nearby trees are already burnt so that slows the spread to a crawl.


Sounds to me like saying 'when people are dead, they can't spread the disease'! Even worse than 'herd immunity'.


Trees can't move, only the fire can jump.

People can move, literally all over the world, and 1 person can infect something like 3 people as the virus is so contagious, i believe about 10x that of influenza. If you Monte Carlo an ensemble of people with on average 3 people being infected by every person who gets the disease you soon get very big numbers for c19's ability to spread and overwhelm any health service.

The Forest fire analogy doesn't work if you have mobile people, but if everyone is locked down one can flatten the curve of transmission to get a forest fire like effect and until we get effective anti-c19 weapons that is about the best we can do as far as I can tell.

Regards,

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Re: Coronavirus - Macro Investment Aspects Only

#293816

Postby odysseus2000 » March 24th, 2020, 8:28 pm

US markets have been rallying, could be a dead cat bounce, but Trump seems certain that the US can be opened up by Easter:

https://www.businessinsider.com/coronav ... ?r=US&IR=T

This all feels wild, but the rally in the US markets get me wondering if Trump is all bluster or whether he has something up is sleeve that major market players are privy too.

Is there anything that the US can do that might make an Easter opening of the US possible?

Of the things that Trump might have, the most likely to me seems like a vaccine, perhaps one developed for another illnes which has been tested and approved that they are finding is 100% effective for c19.

Another potential solution would be if they believe they have some method to clean the air and furniture for big events like church services.

The UK and the rest of the world is fixated on isolation and flattening the curve and this seems the best option to me, but I am relying on what folk are telling me. I have no specialist knowledge in any of this. Does anyone have more specific knowledge.

Trump knows that if he screws up here he loses the election, but if he gets the US back to work by Easter he walks it.

Regards,

colin
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Re: Coronavirus - Macro Investment Aspects Only

#293829

Postby colin » March 24th, 2020, 8:59 pm

odysseus2000 wrote:US markets have been rallying, could be a dead cat bounce, but Trump seems certain that the US can be opened up by Easter:

https://www.businessinsider.com/coronav ... ?r=US&IR=T

I am not sure how much Trumps wants count in the USA as individual states seem to be imposing different restrictions as they see fit, they are even bidding against each other to buy ventilators!

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Re: Coronavirus - Macro Investment Aspects Only

#293897

Postby odysseus2000 » March 25th, 2020, 7:57 am

Virus seems to not be mutating quickly which is good for therapies:

https://twitter.com/i/events/1242561544249946112?s=13

Regeneron approach to this is outlined here. If they can make a vaccine that works and sell it then Regeneron is likely currently very inexpensive:

https://www.biopharmadive.com/news/rege ... st/574310/

The downside is that all of these vaccines etc are believed to be months away. The big question in my mind is how reliable are all these experts who are saying this and could something happen a lot faster in these emergency conditions.

One of the parallels to this was the BP oil spill in the gulf of Mexico. Expert after expert said it would take a long time to clean up and that techniques of injecting detergents into the well ahead would not be approved, but they were and things improved much faster than the consensus of experts said.

Regards,

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Re: Coronavirus - Macro Investment Aspects Only

#293960

Postby tikunetih » March 25th, 2020, 10:16 am

All models regarding the virus's impact to life and economies are extremely sensitive to data which we currently have a poor handle on. But, data capture regarding the virus will improve dramatically over the coming days/weeks/months, and particularly key will be widespread antibody testing that's shortly to ramp up.

The insights this data provides will inform decision making and could cause rapid reassessment of the present and forecast situation. For example, *if* it turned out that the virus was already much more widespread than was previously assumed in some models, its impact could be dramatically less (much lower fatality rate / much faster return to normality). And vice versa.

With investment, it's always important to keep an open mind, and be open to both much better and much worse outcomes than consensus, and that's still and particularly the case today. In terms of "much worse outcomes than expected", it can be important not to blindly extrapolate negative trends as doing so often ignores the highly adaptive nature of the human response to crises. Crises trigger rapid changes in behaviour in order to mitigate and manage threats, as we're seeing throughout the world.

For traders, these can be very difficult environments to navigate; for long term investors, aligning yourself with human ingenuity is very likely to be the winning strategy, so long as you can cope with periodic interim turbulence, hence the crucial important of portfolios matched to personal volatility tolerance and investment horizon.

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Re: Coronavirus - Macro Investment Aspects Only

#294062

Postby zico » March 25th, 2020, 2:46 pm

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... are_btn_tw

This looks like really big positive news for the economy (and hence for the market) - if nothing else, it will reduce uncertainty dramatically, by providing far better information, and freeing up lots of people to go about life normally.
Yesterday's huge rise in the stock market (which appeared to be based on nothing at all) now explained, if big investors knew about this in advance of the general public.

Thousands of 15-minute home tests for coronavirus will be delivered by Amazon to people self-isolating with symptoms or will go on sale on high street within days, according to Public Health England (PHE), in a move that could restore many people’s lives to a semblance of pre-lockdown normality.

Prof Sharon Peacock, the director of the national infection service at PHE, told MPs on the science and technology committee that mass testing in the UK would be possible by next week.

The UK government has bought 3.5m of the tests, which the health secretary, Matt Hancock, mentioned on Tuesday with no suggestion they would be available to the public so quickly, and is ordering millions more.

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Re: Coronavirus - Macro Investment Aspects Only

#294066

Postby alphab1 » March 25th, 2020, 2:53 pm

I find an important statistic is missing in the discussion of the incidence of this virus and its effect on a country, namely, the total number of patients 'hospitalized' due to this illness. It is the plot of this number with time that we would like to 'flatten' so that it does not exceed the capacity in a region. Discussion of the flattening the curve of the total number of 'cases' is really meaningless. Suppose most of the people in a region who are found to have the virus are young and do not need hospital treatment - they may not show any symptoms at all or only flu like symptoms that can be relieved by medication and rest. If this happens in a city like New York (say) then all the scare mongering about shortage of beds will prove to be uncalled for. Whereas in another state/location a large proportion of the patients may be elderly - there even with a less total number the situation may be critical.

Increasing the number of tests and finding the increase in the number of people with the virus does not change the death count. For a given death count the increase in the number of infected people found by a greater level of testing reduces the fatality rate - a number useful for comparison with other pandemics in a given country and for comparing how different countries are managing the illness.

For this illness, the rate of incidence is not the rate at which it is discovered by testing. Many positively infected patients do not show any symptoms at all or not for a number of days. For illnesses where the symptoms appear soon after infection the rates of incidence and discovery are the same. So, the talk of the rate at which the illness is spreading in a region based on more extensive test results is not appropriate for this virus. However, everyone is talking of this number (of positive test results) along with the number of deaths, as if these two are directly related.

Although any additional deaths due to this virus are a matter of great concern, it will be useful if theses numbers are presented along with the average death rate in the absence of an epidemic as well as the numbers contributed by the seasonal flu and traffic accidents. These comparisons will be helpful in deciding the degree of lock-down and the associated stoppage of economic activities warranted by this pandemic.

Just a few thoughts on this situation from a non-specialist. Please feel free to comment or criticize.

Regards.
alpha

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Re: Coronavirus - Macro Investment Aspects Only

#294073

Postby odysseus2000 » March 25th, 2020, 3:06 pm

It is not clear to me if the arguments that it is only old people who are in danger is correct.

Chloe was 21 when the virus killed her:

https://twitter.com/sensuality21/status ... 82432?s=20

Theo Usherwood, LBC political correspondent, by no means a classic at risk geezer had to be rushed into hospital to save his life:

https://twitter.com/sensuality21/status ... 82432?s=20

Yes, we need much better statistics, ideally everyone tested but it looks like it is all over the place, even Prince Charles is infected.

If this virus is all over the place as these things are suggesting, the danger is that the NHS will be broken, especially if the reports of lack of PPE for NHS staff are correct.

Should the news continue to go badly it will be interesting if the equity markets can continue the rally.

For the moment there seems a lot of complacency in what is for now a phoney war, but things can change very quickly as Italians found out.

Regards,

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Re: Coronavirus - Macro Investment Aspects Only

#294078

Postby dspp » March 25th, 2020, 3:24 pm

alphab1 wrote:I find an important statistic is missing in the discussion of the incidence of this virus and its effect on a country, namely, the total number of patients 'hospitalized' due to this illness. ....please feel free to comment or criticize.

Regards.
alpha


Then you have not been looking very hard. This number is widely available on the internet for weeks, and the relevant links have been posted here on TLF since pretty much the beginning.

dspp

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Re: Coronavirus - Macro Investment Aspects Only

#294107

Postby redsturgeon » March 25th, 2020, 4:06 pm

odysseus2000 wrote:It is not clear to me if the arguments that it is only old people who are in danger is correct.

Chloe was 21 when the virus killed her:

https://twitter.com/sensuality21/status ... 82432?s=20

Theo Usherwood, LBC political correspondent, by no means a classic at risk geezer had to be rushed into hospital to save his life:

https://twitter.com/sensuality21/status ... 82432?s=20

Yes, we need much better statistics, ideally everyone tested but it looks like it is all over the place, even Prince Charles is infected.

If this virus is all over the place as these things are suggesting, the danger is that the NHS will be broken, especially if the reports of lack of PPE for NHS staff are correct.

Should the news continue to go badly it will be interesting if the equity markets can continue the rally.

For the moment there seems a lot of complacency in what is for now a phoney war, but things can change very quickly as Italians found out.

Regards,


Here are the statistics:

https://twitter.com/AndyBiotech/status/ ... 09/photo/1

Nobody is saying ONLY old people are at danger but it is MUCH more dangerous for older people.

John

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Re: Coronavirus - Macro Investment Aspects Only

#294109

Postby tikunetih » March 25th, 2020, 4:09 pm

odysseus2000 wrote:It is not clear to me if the arguments that it is only old people who are in danger is correct.


There's plenty of data regarding fatality rates for different age cohorts:

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavir ... ographics/


odysseus2000 wrote:If this virus is all over the place as these things are suggesting, the danger is that the NHS will be broken, especially if the reports of lack of PPE for NHS staff are correct.


There are different aspects to this; for example:
- when health systems become overwhelmed, such that ventilator support etc is unavailable, fatality rates can rise very significantly (eg. tripling);
- but, if the virus was already much more widespread than previously thought, that could mean that fatality rates are much lower than presently appears (due to the denominator being grossly understated), and herd immunity would occur much sooner; antibody testing will improve clarity here.

It's the fog of war currently, but this will improve.

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Re: Coronavirus - Macro Investment Aspects Only

#294112

Postby SalvorHardin » March 25th, 2020, 4:11 pm

odysseus2000 wrote:It is not clear to me if the arguments that it is only old people who are in danger is correct.

True, but the vast majority of deaths are elderly people. Those with underlying health conditions (particularly those which affect respiration or have had organ transplants) dominate the statistics and those who aren't elderly yet died had similar underlying health conditions. There have been extremely few deaths of people who do not match this profile, such as the young Chinese health workers who died having been exposed to a huge "viral load" (massive exposure to the virus).

Although my biology education is weak (at least until a few weeks ago when I started reading up on virology), drawing on my statistics background I reckon that the relatively few people who have died and do not fit the above profile are due to genetic mutations (or undiagnosed conditions).

An example is the five year old girl who suffered life threatening infections from the common cold (rhinoviruses). It turned out that the girl's MDA5 proteins didn't detect rhinoviruses because of a genetic mutation so her immune system couldn't fight the cold. This is a rare condition.

https://www.livescience.com/59460-cold-susceptibility-genes.html

Back to investment. A huge amount of scientific research is going on to defeat the coronavirus. A biologist friend of mine calls it "This generation's Manhattan Project". Vaccines to protect those who aren't infected will take many months, if not a year, to come to market due to the need to test them. However, it's quite possible that researchers and regulators will compress the required time due to the global impact of the coronavirus.

There is a lot of research going on into antivirals which aim to reduce or eliminate the infection in those already infected. Some of these can quickly come to market because they have already been used on humans for other things, so doctors are able to prescribe them for use against the Coronavirus (e.g. Gilead Sciences' "Remdesivir"). If one of these antiviral treatments shows great promise after clinical trials, the markets will rocket even if there's been no major developments in vaccines. The use of these antivirals will stop health systems from collapsing under too many serious cases, which is the reason behind the self-isolation and social distancing strategy, freeing up much of the economy.

Better testing will help; identifying those who've recovered from it will let them move back into normal economic activity. Today's announcement of 3.5 million testing kits for the UK is a very good sign.

One treatment is using antibodies from those who have been infected and recovered. These can be turned into monoclonal antibodies which can be mass produced. Regeneron and Moderna are big players here. Earlier this month Moderna started trials of a vaccine which it hopes could come into experimental use on patients within six months.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-06/moderna-s-coronavirus-vaccine-trial-set-to-begin-this-month

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/03/23/business/moderna-might-seek-emergency-approval-this-fall-coronavirus-vaccine-health-care-workers/

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Re: Coronavirus - Macro Investment Aspects Only

#294177

Postby odysseus2000 » March 25th, 2020, 6:05 pm

redstrurgeon
Here are the statistics:

https://twitter.com/AndyBiotech/status/ ... 09/photo/1

Nobody is saying ONLY old people are at danger but it is MUCH more dangerous for older people.

John


Thank you!

Super informative chart.

Its a little concerning that the Italian death rates (green) are the largest, but as we have discussed this may reflect how many are being correctly diagnosed.

If the numbers are right and we have similar rates to Italy, Prince Charles has an 87.5% chance of surviving and likely better as he will have the best treatments possible and the best medics too.

Regards,


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