Coronavirus - Health aspects

[brewer12345]

[mod edit]

Good luck with that.

 

[Bongleur]

HEALTH & Wuhan Virus: Flu shot may make you more vulnerable

Health related posts about the COVID-19 [mod edit] Virus should be separate from the financial implications of the situation.

The standard flu shot could REDUCE your ability to fight this virus:

https://sci-hub.tw/10.3389/fcimb.2018.00343
Back to the Future: Lessons Learned From the 1918 Influenza Pandemic
...
Unfortunately, antibodies elicited by seasonal
influenza vaccines do not provide protection in the case of an
antigenically distinct influenza virus of a novel subtype, such
as A/H5N1 or A/H7N9 (De Jong et al., 2000). Furthermore,
current inactivated seasonal influenza vaccines may even prevent
the induction of cross-reactive CD8+ T cell responses, which
are our primary protection in case of a pandemic outbreak
and may therefore prove to be a double-edged sword (Bodewes
et al., 2009a,b, 2011b,c).

 

[Bongleur]

Health related posts about the COVID-19 [mod edit] Virus need to be in the Health subforum, separate from the financial implications.

 

[Bongleur]

[mod edit]

Masks should be worn by those coughing or sneezing. The virus travels in the huge mist particles which masks DO stop. A mask can also intercept some of those globs of mucous when someone close by emits them.

 

[MichaelB]

Health related posts about the COVID-19 [mod edit] Virus need to be in the Health subforum, separate from the financial implications.

This thread is in the health forum and is discussing the health implications of the Coronavirus. To avoid confusion, other threads on the same topic are merged into this one.

 

[MichaelB]

Even 10x is still not as deadly nor prevalent as influenza

Coronavirus irrelevant

Irony is wearing a useless mask that can’t screen virus-sized particles and never having got the flu shot

People are dumb and easily made hysterical

You obviously have nothing positive to contribute to the discussion, so why don’t you just ignore it and move on? Just making fun of or denigrating people becasue they’re fearful or uncertain is entirely unhelpful.

 

[ncbill]

30 days comfortably and 60 less comfortably here, as long as there is power and water. If things get really bad, you may need to defend your food and water from the hungry hordes...

Not long enough...the 1918 influenza traveled the world in three major waves...over the course of a year.

 

[Running_Man]

The interesting comparison I heard made was to the San Francisco earthquake of 1906

The earthquake initially had no effect on the market and actually in first days went up, over time the financial impacts led to the Panic of 1907 which led to JP Morgan rescuing all the banks which averted one of the major bear markets of the 20th century.
Google, Microsoft, Apple are all shutting down operations in China so this will have some effect. I think the likely impact if it is to occur this time will be much larger implementation of negative interest rates.
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-51276322

 

[NW-Bound]

Masks should be worn by those coughing or sneezing. The virus travels in the huge mist particles which masks DO stop. A mask can also intercept some of those globs of mucous when someone close by emits them.

+1

It is ignorant to think that a sick person breathe out viruses without them being carried by bioaerosol particles.

This thread started out as one in the financial subforums. I think it is then appropriate for me to share an opinion I just found, regarding a cry to "buy, buy, buy" after the recent decline.

Would you say that there is extreme arrogance after considering the following points?

• The momo crowd, who are not virologists or epidemiologists, quickly declared that coronavirus was of no concern.

• Such proclamations happened at a time when epidemiologists and virologist were concerned.

• It was known that the virus had an incubation period of up to two weeks.

• It was known that asymptomatic patients were contagious.

• It was known that about 5 million people managed to flee the epicenter of the virus and were not likely to be tracked.

• There were serious concerns about the transparency of the information coming out of China. After all, no government would want to spread panic. It would seem to be in a government’s interest to skew the statistics to minimize the impact.

• The buy signals were being given only after a pullback of only 2% to 3%, following a massive rally.

I previously wrote that there was 90% probability that the virus would be contained but investors should not ignore the small probability of a significant spread.

 

[sengsational]

The Source?

I'm less than schooled on virus mutation, but when I read (in this thread) a reference that they don't know which animal the virus jumped from, I thought "presumes facts not in evidence." Given the realative ease that genetic manipulations can be performed using standard technology, I haven't rules that out as a possibility. Maybe I was just trying to learn about viral transmission in my lab on mice, and I was sloppy with isolation protocols. I don't want to suggest anything too nefarious, but it I'd say that it would make a pretty good movie plot where the virus making team and the vaccine making team has to scramble because the doof in the lab infected himself.

 

[brewer12345]

I found the calls to buy after a 2 to 3% pullback and the introduction of a difficult to estimate, highly idiosyncratic risk quite perplexing. At this point I am wondering is I will regret not dumping into yesterday's "dead bat" rally.

 

[NW-Bound]

I found the calls to buy after a 2 to 3% pullback and the introduction of a difficult to estimate, highly idiosyncratic risk quite perplexing. At this point I am wondering is I will regret not dumping into yesterday's "dead bat" rally.

Even if the coronavirus is not as lethal as feared, if it is highly contagious and affects a large part of the world's population and makes them bedridden for a long period, it will cause a huge economic slowdown. Sick people do not buy new "stuff", nor work to make them.

 

[Hamlet]

I found the calls to buy after a 2 to 3% pullback and the introduction of a difficult to estimate, highly idiosyncratic risk quite perplexing. At this point I am wondering is I will regret not dumping into yesterday's "dead bat" rally.

Since I thought the market was ~20% overvalued before this virus came to light, I'm certainly not bullish here. I think the most likely outcome of this virus is still a SARS-like event, which wasn't significant to the market long term. However, there is a tail risk here that probably shouldn't be completely dismissed.

 

[Hamlet]

They've confirmed that this can be passed asymptomatically--

https://www.statnews.com/2020/01/30...navirus-spread-by-person-showing-no-symptoms/

On the plus side, the people in the study appear to have recovered without serious issue.

 

[brewer12345]

Even if the coronavirus is not as lethal as feared, if it is highly contagious and affects a large part of the world's population and makes them bedridden for a long period, it will cause a huge economic slowdown. Sick people do not buy new "stuff", nor work to make them.

It is hard to see how China at least will not have a recession from this.

 

[brewer12345]

Can we please have a discussion of risks without being called idiots, etc.? I don't think anyone on this thread is saying that we should all be headed for our bunkers. We are having a fairly rational discussion about the risks related to the pandemic and the likely effect on economies, markets, etc. I am sure that very single person participating would be thrilled to death if this is all a memory in a couple months.

 

[NW-Bound]

Brewer, I now understand why some posters were sent packing.

 

[Born2Fish]

I am holding for now.

I looked at a 5-day trend of the SP500, Nasdaq, Dow and the correlation is incredibly strong. Does this imply that much of the trading is index funds/mutual funds?

Some individual holdings in my acct are not well-correlated but these are stocks that see a lot of active trading.

Who is controlling moves of this magnitude?

I would not be surprised to see a 10-15% selloff at some point and assuming we get through this virus threat without a black swan event, I expect the market to resume its path upward. It may take some time to play out.

I am prepared to buy additional SP500 at 10%, 20%, etc levels of decline. I don't see a reason to buy in at ~ 2% off. That is not really a bargain to me.

 

[NW-Bound]

They've confirmed that this can be passed asymptomatically--

https://www.statnews.com/2020/01/30...navirus-spread-by-person-showing-no-symptoms/

On the plus side, the people in the study appear to have recovered without serious issue.

Very interesting that they have found several Germans who appear healthy so far, yet are virus carriers.

If they don't come down sick in the next week or two, then the next question is how. What factors make an infected person sick, while the next one not? Could there be some genetic factors?

By the way, the German originally infected by the visiting Chinese woman has recovered and doing well. However, he still has the virus.

 

[brewer12345]

Brewer, I now understand why some posters were sent packing.

Must, resist, taking, the bait...

 

[NW-Bound]

It is not the first time this poster acted in a belligerent manner. I happened to see the same behavior in several other threads.

 

[audreyh1]

The market momentum has been incredibly strong. S&P earnings have been dropping since Feb 2019, yet the index keeps climbing. Or sure lower inflation and subsequent lowering of interest rates helped, but still. So I’m not surprised to see resistance to negative news at this point, it’s going to take a lot to turn the momentum.

 

[NW-Bound]

Some China provinces have extended the New Year shutdown by another week. They usually shut down for 2 weeks.

China produces a lot of parts used by other countries, the US included. If their industrial production is affected, that has to impact the world's economy.

 

[brewer12345]

The market momentum has been incredibly strong. S&P earnings have been dropping since Feb 2019, yet the index keeps climbing. Or sure lower inflation and subsequent lowering of interest rates helped, but still. So I’m not surprised to see resistance to negative news.

In a world where the 30 year treasury is flirting with a 1 handle yield and bunds are around -50BP for 10 years, I think the motivation to chase junk, equities, etc. even into the teeth of a pandemic is quite clear. In fact, it is one of the reasons I am reluctant to further reduce my equity exposure.

 

[Gumby]

Well, so far the delay occasioned by my troubles in resetting my basis at Oakmark (discussed here http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f28/clunky-system-at-oakmark-101930.html) has worked in my favor, since it resulted in moving 5% of my portfolio to cash at the close on Tuesday and Wednesday.