1. I used 8% of cash to buy Fidelity S&P index and Vanguard Total Mkt on 3-20, did some tax loss harvesting (buying equivalent CEFs), and picked up PRU and PPL. PRU was down 17% after I bought until today; now it is up 2%. I'm a bit down on PPL.
2. If we had ubiquitous test availability (even nurses running a fever here in Reno can't get tested) and a serology test to see if one had the COVID and had built immunity, we could simply follow South Korea or Singapore and test, test, test, quarantining those who get sick and tracing contacts for quarantining and testing, with most returning to work after the shut-in period of a month or so.
The serology test would tell us who is almost completely safe for exposure and obviously for working among the public, until we get a vaccine.
But we don't have ubiquitous tests, and many regions did not shut in, so we're fighting a battle with our hands tied behind our back. The spring breakers will now mix with their families. Until we get ubiquitously available testing, we're in big trouble. And a lot of beds (empty hotels) where the exposed or slightly ill can isolate.
Or we can jsut have a big die off, like Patrick seems to think. Like the Spanish flu in the 3rd wave in spring 2019 (and 4th wave), a lot of the population had already had it (and a lot died like one of my greatgrandfathers) so there was herd immunity by the third wave, which wasn't as bad. I don't think we want to go that route.
The critical/death %ages are bad enough if you have sufficient oxygen & Critical Care beds. Once you run out of those......the death rate shoots up to almost Spanish flu levels, given the 10-15% of (identified) cases that turn seriously ill. Without oxygen (or a ventilator if it's critical), you are toast, fast. Same with the Spanish flu--they didn't have ventilators or antibiotics for bacterial secondary pneumonia.
3. Patrick used to be an alt-right radio jock in Houston when I was there and ran as a pro-life conservative, which now seems pretty funny in light of his comments.
I read that this morning. Yes, he's a Texan. My first thought was that he is crazy. He says and does a lot of things I think are crazy. But there is a certain cold logic to it...
What is the end game here? Obviously, a vaccine. As a wild optimist, that's at least a year away. We can't keep the economy locked down for a year.
What he's suggesting is we keep the most-at-risk of us locked down and let everyone else go back to work and school. They get the virus, some get sick, some really sick, some dead. But they don't get it again. The herd gets immunity and us high risk folks can rejoin the world.
-- Doug