Coronavirus Crisis: Main Thread

[Elvis]

Grippe-ing.

Last year I saw a doctor for a bad flu/pneumonia lung infection, and I described the achy chills as "the grippe"—and the doctor had never heard this term! Nor had he heard of the word ague. I was shocked.

[norton ash]

Like when an old Scottish doctor who I was seeing for an ear infection asked:

Do you have catarrh?
What?
Do you have... ehh catarrh?
No, but I listen to a lot of loud music.
Nuuu nu ... d'ye have a cough wi mucus????

Meanwhile... a whole lot of senators sold a whole lot of their stock after a COVID-19 briefing in January.

[Iamwhomiam]

That was pretty funny, Norton. Hope you and yours fairs well. What's not so funny is my grandniece being stranded in New Zealand. Down there for a semester and has now become locked-in. Yesterday I had a conversation with both, her mother and grandmother, my sister. My sister had a heart attack and simultaneously suffered a partially debilitating stroke a couple of years ago, was hospitalized a few days ago after falling and breaking her humerus. She's in a PT/Transitional Care unit and will be sent to a nursing home of some sort. Hospitals are not allowing patients to receive visitors. She has Lupus and other health related issues and was expecting to have her liver biopsied on the 25th. A recent ultrasound test discovered a few "lumps." Explaining triage to her 50+ yo daughter I was straightforward. Damn, I wish I could see my sister and get my grandniece home!

[norton ash]

Good luck and health to you and yours as well, n'shalllah. My sister just had chemo and my best friend is 72 and has a few serious health issues already... Ma is 87 in a seniors home... all of my friends who work in health care... sigh.

[alloneword]

Needed to pick up a prescription today. Doctors surgery had a recorded message that basically said "If you're ill, don't come here, stay home and seek advice on the internet". Got down to the chemist, several big signs on the door and in the windows: "If you're ill, don't come in here, go home...".

Elderly lady being served dropped her walking stick. Nobody stepped forward to help her, was met with scowls of disapproval when I did.

Somewhere in that yawning two-metre divide that now 'must' separate us, our humanity lies bleeding.

[Elvis]

Elderly lady being served dropped her walking stick. Nobody stepped forward to help her, was met with scowls of disapproval when I did.

Good grief! The "distancing" thing will have unknown "side effects" and not good ones.

[alloneword]

The spectacle of an entire population clamouring - pleading even - for their Government to place them under house arrest to protect them from the goblins.

This is well worth a read:

https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/17/a-f ... able-data/

...It’s like an elephant being attacked by a house cat. Frustrated and trying to avoid the cat, the elephant accidentally jumps off a cliff and dies...

..If we had not known about a new virus out there, and had not checked individuals with PCR tests, the number of total deaths due to “influenza-like illness” would not seem unusual this year. At most, we might have casually noted that flu this season seems to be a bit worse than average. The media coverage would have been less than for an NBA game between the two most indifferent teams...

..One of the bottom lines is that we don’t know how long social distancing measures and lockdowns can be maintained without major consequences to the economy, society, and mental health. Unpredictable evolutions may ensue, including financial crisis, unrest, civil strife, war, and a meltdown of the social fabric. At a minimum, we need unbiased prevalence and incidence data for the evolving infectious load to guide decision-making.

In the most pessimistic scenario, which I do not espouse, if the new coronavirus infects 60% of the global population and 1% of the infected people die, that will translate into more than 40 million deaths globally, matching the 1918 influenza pandemic.

The vast majority of this hecatomb would be people with limited life expectancies. That’s in contrast to 1918, when many young people died.

One can only hope that, much like in 1918, life will continue. Conversely, with lockdowns of months, if not years, life largely stops, short-term and long-term consequences are entirely unknown, and billions, not just millions, of lives may be eventually at stake.

If we decide to jump off the cliff, we need some data to inform us about the rationale of such an action and the chances of landing somewhere safe.

John P.A. Ioannidis is professor of medicine, of epidemiology and population health, of biomedical data science, and of statistics at Stanford University and co-director of Stanford’s Meta-Research Innovation Center.

[identity]

Spiro interviews Hrvoje Moric of Geopolitics&Empire.com, who was the first to contact Prof. Peter Boyle re: COVID-19 (and whose youtube interview with Boyle was recently taken down...)

COVID-1984: A Global 9/11


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCTAJBIxtZQ

[identity]

Hrvoje Moric, Geopolitics&Empire.com podcast: https://guadalajarageopolitics.com

#131 Francis Boyle: Wuhan Coronavirus is an Offensive Biological Warfare Weapon

#135 Peter Schiff: How Coronavirus May Have Popped the Financial Bubble

[Harvey]

Presumably the World bank made a killing on it's Pandemic Bonds issued in 2017 and due to mature in a few months.





All in a good cause apparently:

The PEF will provide more than $500 million to cover developing countries against the risk of pandemic outbreaks over the next five years.

https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press ... g-facility

They could have told Bloomberg that pandemics threaten to unleash Democracy, job done.

[Harvey]

Needed to pick up a prescription today. Doctors surgery had a recorded message that basically said "If you're ill, don't come here, stay home and seek advice on the internet". Got down to the chemist, several big signs on the door and in the windows: "If you're ill, don't come in here, go home...".

Elderly lady being served dropped her walking stick. Nobody stepped forward to help her, was met with scowls of disapproval when I did.

Somewhere in that yawning two-metre divide that now 'must' separate us, our humanity lies bleeding.

^This.

For forty years or so we've been encouraged to be selfish, from the top down, the fruits of this are everywhere.

[JackRiddler]

Pandemic bonds. That is something.

How does it work? They're actual bonds, or just called that? If actual, it means investors buy the bonds, and expect interest, and the bank invests that how? And where does the interest come from?

And I assume you're mentioning Bloomberg since his desired appointment out of a [Biden*] admin is, in fact, the World Bank.

* actual president-actor TBA.

[Wombaticus Rex]

Pandemic bonds. That is something.

How does it work? They're actual bonds, or just called that? If actual, it means investors buy the bonds, and expect interest, and the bank invests that how? And where does the interest come from? .

Via: WSJ

Large investors such as pension funds and endowments have piled into catastrophe bonds in recent years as they seek diversification and higher returns. They work like this: Bondholders collect attractive interest payments on the bonds, but if certain events occur, like hurricane winds above a certain speed, investors can lose some or all of their principal.

Designing a pandemic bond was a new challenge. For bonds that are triggered by natural catastrophes, the principal can be used to cover damage after a disaster has occurred. But during a pandemic, affected countries need money to respond to an infectious disease while it is still spreading.

If the pandemic bonds are triggered, some or all of the investors’ principal would go to the World Bank to distribute among developing countries affected by a disease outbreak. The interest on the bonds is paid by two donor countries, Germany and Japan.

As an asset class they are, of course, dogshit, because they don't provide quality returns when everything else is on fire, which is rather the point of "diversifying" into bonds.

[Harvey]

Pandemic bonds. That is something.

How does it work? They're actual bonds, or just called that? If actual, it means investors buy the bonds, and expect interest, and the bank invests that how? And where does the interest come from?

They were expected to pay out in June, effectively a bet, except in the events listed, that any of the diseases named should cause a pandemic before that time. Coronavirus snuck in under the deadline. See image.

And I assume you're mentioning Bloomberg since his desired appointment out of a [Biden*] admin is, in fact, the World Bank.

* actual president-actor TBA.

Your notion is far more interesting. The reference was that the Bonds expected to raise exactly the same amount for humanitarian causes which Bloomberg spent on a few months publicity.

Edit: Rex, I didn't see your response before I posted.

[thrulookingglass]

Have the Speak-Easys re-opened yet? Keep me in the loop.

Hour wait at the cannabis shops here, but product is well stocked as of yet. A few have closed their doors with medical access or deliveries only. I always have fun schmoozing with my fellow pot heads while in line anyhow. I made a funny while delayed in queue today loudly declaring, "This is the line for toilet paper, right?!"

I wonder if you should consider undoing some bans (as boisterous as they may be)? Everyone needs some community. Now more than ever, we should think of the needs of others.

I live for the day where God and man don't engage in biological warfare.

Grace makes beauty out of ugly things.