Using that number is like using the worst case scenario for the virus that 10 million people would die. Other people have projected around 9%. There will be a quick spike and drop because of restaurants and other entertainment, but those jobs will come back fast. Estimates say up to 7 million restaurant employees could file for unemployment alone, that would be between 4-5% increase to unemployment just with that. When restaurants are allowed to open back up, they will need waiters, servers, and bartenders back. The real key will be how many jobs the major corporations cut to try to make the bottom line and their stock price look good. Let’s hope they don’t get too greedy.
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Fair enough. You did bold that point. I was responding to your last point of:
“Again, look the graph above and the trajectory of the United States versus all of those other countries.”
Yes, it would be much worse if they had waited later than they did. Both did not respond to the virus well. China’s reputation will be damaged for a long time and they are attempting to repair it by assisting Italy.
Italy appears to be a special case with their death rates at 9.5%. They were slow to respond. Had soccer games continue after the outbreak. Others have pointed to their effectionate culture and close body to body contact, their air pollution, to their high smoking rate. The fact that other Latin cultures in France and Spain have been hit harder than other geographically close countries in Europe should be telling us something. The death rates are much lower in Switzerland (1.3%), Austria (0.5%), Germany (0.42%), Czechia (0.155%), Slovenia (0.83%), Croatia (0.26) versus Spain (7.07%) and France (4.33%). There must be explainable set of reasons for these wide swings in death rates.
man Georgia is doing awful 
For sure, the death toll will soon start to become shocking to people.
But, not necessarily that shocking. Not yet. We’re still early in the curve. But expect to see that curve steepen rapidly.
We will see numbers like that at the peak of the curve but, unfortunately, we’re not even close to that right now.
True, those are the highest in the countries history. The Great Depresession hit the low 20s and stuck there for 3 to 4 years.
But he is the President of the St. Louis Federal Reserve and one of their charters are employment.
Nice to see you again Ultra. Hope all is well. Its been a few years.
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Not doubting there is a model out there which shows that. I haven’t looked into it, but it said 2nd quarter so I would bet it is 15% or more of temporary unemployment claims from restaurant and entertainment employees. I think it was the CDC who said millions could die from the virus if not controlled which was probably the high end of a model they had.
The way I see it, there are 3 ways to deal with this. 1, go all out on shutting things down for 2-3 weeks to let infected people not spread it. 2, Ignore it and let hundreds of thousands die. 3, Do half measures which drags this out months and tens of thousands die.
All will hurt the economy. Getting it over quicker is better for the economy.
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So maybe the mortality will be closer to 1% early on as the hospitals have more capacity? That would put the number closer to 30K. Is that what you’re saying?
We’re currently executing #1 for the most part. #2 won’t happen, not practical or feasible. Not sure what you mean by #3.
Nothing has been set yet on the go forward path. To be determined by the end of the first 15 day periold or later depending on the decision at the end of the first 15 day period. Based upon how gov leaders are talking, I do expect the actions to control the virus and allow the economy to come back to some extent near term will be different in different parts of the country based upon how hot the spot is and that is exactly what Cuomo was speaking to this morning in his daily briefing when he spoke about not having one kill the other but be complimentary to each other. We’ll see where this goes, but as I said above, I expect each state will be different and it will be taken down to the county and city level.
For one, I see no reason to bring school back at the K-12 or university levels this school year except execute from online and home studies. Why bring kids from the home to the school and allow those non-social distancing environments to occur regardless of how clean a county or school district is with their infections when we have the valid option for home schooling online? Some parts of the economy can be done remote for extended periods of time. Other parts can’t and either mitigations need to be thought of or the risk is acceptable. If you look at S. Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, they are not shut down but are living with it and appear to be making it work. Nobody has all the answers, but we need to be working towards them.
This is a good question.
Answer: Yes, that’s exactly right.
When all is said and done (i.e. at least 2 flu cycles from now), we do expect the mortality here to be less than the 3.4% that has been documented, repeatedly, in case study literature on COVID-19; primarily because of demographic factors in the U.S. that are distinct from China, Italy, S. Korea, etc
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If we continue to do “half-measures”, the numbers will push 7 figures, not “tens of thousands”.
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Here is a high-level article about how Singapore has dealt with the virus successfully and many lessons learned from the SARS outbreak in early 2000s.
Since Singapore was my home for 3 years 20 years ago I can relate to how they implemented. A major city in a very small space with high population density. Possibly NYC can learn from their experience with the population density.
They certainly have balanced their medical attack with an economic attack like SK.
I think we may just be getting to #1 which is why it is scary when you hear talks about trying to relaxing restrictions in a week or so. That is what I meant by half measures. Slow to get started, too many places were left open up too long, and now talks about trying to get back to normal too soon. We were picking random numbers for group sizes and allowing events to go on which shouldn’t have. That will drag it out longer. Now if we were ready with widespread testing from the beginning, it would have been much easier to balance everything.
Each state, county, city can have different approaches, but have to work together. It has been a mess the last couple weeks up here because Tarrant and Dallas counties along with the individual cities have not been on the same page. We finally got our “stay at home” orders from the county today and it is set to last for 2 weeks which I think is a good decision.
Look at China. We are higher than they were at the same point. And it’s not even so much the total number as the alarming rate of increase. Ours is the WORST. So the graph is an excellent indicator of how dangerous this situation is and how seriously we need to respond to it.
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The 11th Commandment:
Thou shall sacrifice Meemaw so that the entitled may maintain their status of pretentiousness.
Please pray for the greedy to be healed and the ignorant to be enlightened, and for those that have any medical problems.
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Well Sam, its hard to beleive the numbers out of China. Very few do and for good reason for how they have conducted themselves. You were not believing the numbers out of Russia just a few days ago for you thought they were lying under Putin’s regime. Possibly and probably that is the case in Russia. I posted a CNN article that appeared to take a more holistic view of Russia versus the view of the doctor you had posted. No proof of who is right and who is lying, or whether its somewhere inbetween.
After a two to three month outbreak in China, they are claiming they are flat now and are back to work. They do appear to be operating their economy again, but I don’t trust their current reporting either. I truly hope China has solved their outbreak problem and they are rebuilding and are comfortable they are under control for that should give us and the rest of the world hope. But I have a hard time trusting China. I much perfer to follow the numbers out of S. Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong and others versus China. I have done business in everyone of those countries and have a feel for how they operate and communicate to the world.
I think the better comparisons are compare US state by state to Euro countries, or if you want to, compare the USA to all of Europe but I believe comparable US state by population and density to comparable Euro state by population and density is a better comparison to see how some of our states are doing versus others in Europe or Asia. Total infected by country when the sizes of the countries are so much different doesn’t make a lot of sense. Minimally compare by othe metrics from population density and so forth. Death rates by countries are meaningful.
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I do trust the numbers from USA reporting by state and from European countries under some variance and timing and some hidden under reporting due to people possibly not reporting or knowing they are infected.
Close friend lives in China, teaches English there… says while China is not trustworthy on a lot of things, it seems that what they are reporting now, worldwide is more or less accurate.
Their quarantine was far worse than ours. Being an authoritarian government, they can force you to stay inside.
China is a strange place, totalitarian governement with a market economy. I don’t know how that works.
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Good job everyone on this discussion.
Yes, I agree Portland. It is a very strange place and their govt has a strong arm. Compared to us, most of Asia have strong arm governments, but nobody compares to China.
I hope they are reporting accurately now. I don’t trust their numbers over the past several months. If they are reporting the state of the Coronavirus accurately now that should give the rest of the world hope for they are saying no new to few additional infections and no more deaths (except for the ones they execute for non-compliance and don’t report).
Thanks for the insights from your friend.
With having an Asia wife, and many Asian friends, many that grew up there do not speak foundly of that country and especially of their government.
One final thing, they live off our our market and Europe and to some extent the rest of Asia.
Yeah the whole world shut down their economies and put their citizens health and economic well-being at risk just to scare Americans!
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