2019 - nCoV (novel coronavirus originating in Wuhan, China)

[Gator]

Speaking of drugs,  the giant pharma company Merck (MRK) today announced progress on developing three new drugs.  Two are vaccines, and the third is an antiviral therapeutic. 

The Phase 1 human trials are expected to start soon for the vaccines, meaning they would not be ready until well into 2021  if the clinical tests had successful results.  Both vaccines are based on prior approved platforms. 

The therapeutic could happen sooner, and its purpose would be to prevent the COV from replicating. 

There are many other vaccines being developed besides these and the two I mentioned earlier.   Observers feel fairly confident that  at least one will eventually prove effective and safe.   

[BillyB]

  At Billy's age, IMO he should have no more than 10% of his stock portfolio invested in speculative stocks, and biotech is only one choice.   

The last time I dealt with a portfolio was in school! Here's what I'm investing in now. Although construction is slow, my other business sells computers on the internet and sales are up a whopping 857% from the same period a year ago. In the last couple of months, most of my product was sent to NY. They must've been really locked down and bored. Michigan and Florida are two other States I ship a lot to. The last two weeks I've seen orders jump bigly from American territories  Puerto Rico, Guam and America Samoa. Did they just recently get their stimulus check because when those living in the USA got their, sales took off so I'm assuming they got their late. So right now all my money is going into buying more product because I can sell them as fast as I build them. Most of the parts I need to build comes from China. China tries to imply business and life is back to normal but not true. There's only 15% of the product available to me right now compared to what they had available in January. That tells me a lot of factories still aren't functioning. But my biggest investment is my wife. Paying for her education so she can grow her mind will make her a better person and bring in the big bucks.

[ML]

Billy, now can you compete with giants like Dell ?

[BillyB]

Who's Dell? I'm still a long way off from the big boys.

[Gator]

Update on Development of Vaccines

The pandemic will likely continue to threaten public health  until a vaccine is developed and administered around the globe.  Many pharmaceutical companies are planning if not already conducting clinical trials to determine the safety and efficacy of a number of promising vaccine candidates.  Trump administration's Operation Warp Speed will announce its selection of five vaccines for major government funding under Operation Warp Speed. 

The companies named by the NY Times include:

  -  Moderna (MRNA)

  -  partnership between Oxford University and AstraZeneca (AZ)

  -  Johnson & Johnson (JNJ)

  -  Merck (MRK) 

  -  Pfizer (PFE)


The speed at which this is advancing is remarkable and shows the importance of the administration's focused effort to address the pandemic.   What normally takes years and years could have a vaccine ready for the public in less than a year. 

Part of the funding will support manufacturing millions of doses before final determination of the safety and efficacy of the drugs.   

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), Sanofi (SNY) and other companies currently researching vaccines did not receive Operation Warp Speed support, yet may continue research programs.

[Gator]

One question about a new vaccine is how long will the immunity last. 

A NIH Director's blog yesterday examined that question, citing  Dr. Norman “Ned” Sharpless, Director of NIH’s National Cancer Institute (NCI).  Dr. Sharpless is an expert on antibody testing for COVID-19.

There have been some reports of people getting reinfected with covid-19, but Sharpless said that's still a topic generating questions in the health community. It's possible that those people never fully recovered the first time, he said, “or it may be that they got reinfected.”   In either case, Sharpless said it's “a pretty rare event, if it happens at all.”

[Gator]

IMPORTANT NEWS ABOUT COVID TRANSMISSION PATHWAYS

WHO announced new findings yesterday about COVID-19.  The US and world in large have been combating the disease under the assumption that asymptomatic cases are infectious.    Yesterday, WHO announced its research findings that asymptomatic transmission is rare. 

Maria D. Van Kerkhove  is an infectious disease epidemiologist.  She heads WHO's emerging diseases and zoonosis unit.  More important, she is the technical lead of WHO's COVID-19 response.   Yesterday, she said:

From the data we have, it still seems to be rare that an asymptomatic person actually transmits onward to a secondary individual.

We have a number of reports from countries who are doing very detailed contact tracing. They're following asymptomatic cases, they're following contacts and they're not finding secondary transmission onward. It is very rare....

This changes much.  Lockdowns were important at the start to focus the public thinking.  However, they were continued because of the belief of asymptomatic transmission.  The new finding shows that continued that lockdowns are not as important as we first thought. 

We now know what to do next time.  Instead of long lockdowns, we need to 1) ban travel, 2) implement a brief lockdown, 3) make masks mandatory,  4) implement a massive program of measuring in public body temperature of everyone, and 5) detain elevated cases for isolation, testing and observation.   Yes, the program seen in China. 

Would Americans accept Number 5 above?     

[BC]

Gator,

is 'brief lockdown' defined?

Lets take into consideration that asymptomatic transmission is 'rare'.  Does 'asymptomatic' also mean the period before the infection symptoms appear of is it those that do not have any symptoms at all?

Even if we disregard either of the above, we're still talking a period of around 45 days considering 3 'generations'.

By generation, one would have to calculate the days a person is infective to others, take 15 days which could have already infected the next generation of 15 days.  Adding a third-generation should allow both prior to dwindle and if lockdown is effective the virus should subside.

Despite a rather severe lockdown, some new infections are being reported daily here, now down to a couple hundred or less daily, but which I believe is a manageable level.  Our travel restrictions have eased now but we're talking 90 days from our national lockdown on 10 April.

That's about as 'brief' as I could imagine the scenario.  And lockdowns remain a very important part of the plan.

[Gator]

Gator,

is 'brief lockdown' defined?

No, that's my Monday morning quarterback thought .

A lockdown must be long enough to 1) convince the public to take precautions and 2) muster the resources for mass measurement of body temperature.  Measuring body temperature is moot without detention of apparent cases.  And detention could be long without full-scale laboratory testing for the virus (such was the situation for the US).

Maybe in the future we are more preemptive about banning travel and having rolling lockdowns as a new virus spreads.     

... we're talking 90 days from our national lockdown on 10 April.

That's about as 'brief' as I could imagine the scenario.  And lockdowns remain a very important part of the plan.

It seems too long because of the disruption of the economy and the adverse health side effects of a lockdown.  Isolation of the infected rather than the healthy should be the goal. 

People much smarter than us (or at least me)  will be jawing about this over the coming months.  You and I both agree we must be better prepared for the next one.   

[BillyB]

  Instead of long lockdowns, we need to 1) ban travel, 2) implement a brief lockdown, 3) make masks mandatory,  4) implement a massive program of measuring in public body temperature of everyone, and 5) detain elevated cases for isolation, testing and observation.   Yes, the program seen in China. 

Would Americans accept Number 5 above?   

 asymptomatic transmission is probably rare since those people don't sneeze, cough, and wipe runny noses often which spreads the virus on everything they touch.

American's are already accepting Number 5. Hotels in my area have been bought and are housing those people. Nobody complaining since they qualify for unemployment insurance. I disagree with the travel ban. Once the virus in in country, it can't be stopped. Just ban travel to countries experiencing outbreaks. If Italy has as much percentage of their population infected as America, it shouldn't matter if citizens travel between nations. There will always be a risk of getting infected at home or elsewhere.

[GQBlues]

IMPORTANT NEWS ABOUT COVID TRANSMISSION PATHWAYS

WHO announced new findings yesterday about COVID-19.  The US and world in large have been combating the disease under the assumption that asymptomatic cases are infectious.    Yesterday, WHO announced its research findings that asymptomatic transmission is rare....

OY! Here we go again...whatever happened to all those r-naught calculation/projection?

You have to wonder how much of the things we've been inundated with on TV these past two weeks influenced this *new findings* report? I mean, can they really claim anything contrary to what they just came out with?

[GQBlues]

Nuts! I’m on the fence about this situation. At this point and time, I’m not sure of the validity of this report. I am posting two videos. First, an interview with Erin, a traveling nurse from Florida turned journalist, who turned in some pretty damning video implicating NY’s Elmhurst Hospital of wrong-doings during the darkest days of COVID.

Next video is by someone demonizing Erin for fraud.

Internet is starting to be flooded with negative reporting about this nurse. You be the judge. Erin said in her video towards the end, “I’ve nothing to gain, and everything to lose by doing this”.

[BillyB]

Erin,

How many of the tens of thousands of medical workers in NY agree with her? I didn't have time to watch the video but I did see part of the short video criticizing her. She's a journalist. She left Florida to get a story in NY. It would be a shame is she came back and didn't have a story to tell.

[calmissile]

Nuts! I’m on the fence about this situation. At this point and time, I’m not sure of the validity of this report. I am posting two videos. First, an interview with Erin, a traveling nurse from Florida turned journalist, who turned in some pretty damning video implicating NY’s Elmhurst Hospital of wrong-doings during the darkest days of COVID.

Next video is by someone demonizing Erin for fraud.

Internet is starting to be flooded with negative reporting about this nurse. You be the judge. Erin said in her video towards the end, “I’ve nothing to gain, and everything to lose by doing this”.

This nurses story is compelling.  With an open mind I tried to evaluate her story and those she recorded.  I also tried to evaluate this blogger that is trying to discredit her.  Wasn't very successful in being able to evaluate the material from her detractors.

I was hoping to find a friend that is an RN to get an opinion from, but none of them have the level of experience or training that Erin has.  So, not being a doctor or nurse myself I have to form an opinion based on the reports themselves, suspected motives, and personal experience with doctors over my lifetime as well as having a live in girlfriend nurse for over 10 years.

1.  I never put much credibility in anonymous sources.  It is easy to push agendas and lie when you cannot be identified!
2.  My personal experience with doctors as well as stories from my former girlfriend does not suggest that Erin's story is not credible.
3.  This doctor/blogger character seems to me more like someone that is pushing an agenda that is either covering up actions taken at this hospital and it's staff, or perhaps supporting the position of the official positions of the medical profession. 
4.  Erin's statements about the use of HCQ for early treatment no doubt created a lot of enemies within the medical community.  Her personal experience at her former hospital in Florida cited actual statistics in the number of successful treatments and not a single death.  That is compelling to me.  She also quoted other doctors worldwide as well as some preliminary studies that have indicated that HCQ and Zinc have shown to be successful.  Some of the doctors she recorded rejected the use of HCQ flippantly without any reasoning behind their opinion.  I suspect that if Trump had not mentioned the use of it, there would not be the opposition we are seeing.  There is enough anecdotal evidence from doctors using it to at least have a more open mind about it.
5.  I could not find anything in the rebuttal that actually refutes the medical terms and procedures she reported on.

So, not being a medical professional it is impossible for me to make a technical evaluation of the report(s).  As a result, I have to form an opinion based on the cast of characters.  My initial inclination is to believe Erin's story but am open to see if her story is mostly BS.

[GQBlues]

I’m lean more on Erin’s side. After all, she does have both audio and video proofs to support her charges.

There have been noises before that deaths being counted as covid are actually not because of covid. This even goes deeper into that matter.

[BillyB]

Western nations tend to be more honest than other nations. The counting of deaths due to the coronavirus is more of a mess due to under reporting and manipulation of the numbers keeping deaths artificially low. Many people who died in their homes may have not been counted.

When this is over, if it'll ever be over, those in charge of counting will figure out the average deaths the World has endured the past few years and predict what the average deaths of the World should be in 2020 without Covid-19. Then they can estimate how many deaths we should've expected. India and China account for a third of the world's population but hardly have any deaths. Case fatality rate of Western numbers are closer to reality.

[fathertime]

Western nations tend to be more honest than other nations. 

Western nations like the US used to be good at creating excuses and narratives.  Nowadays very few believe us outside the country and even within.

Fathertime! 

[2tallbill]

Western nations like the US used to be good at creating excuses and narratives.  Nowadays very few believe us outside the country and even within.

Fathertime!

America hater broken record, you have become a total bore

[2tallbill]

[Gator]

US NURSING HOMES ACCOUNT FOR 50,000 COVID DEATHS

115,000 Americans have died from COVID-19.  43% of those occurred in long-term care facilities (nursing homes, assisted living), even though the total number of people housed there represents only about 1% of the nation's population. 

http://www.wsj.com/articles/coronavirus-deaths-in-u-s-nursing-long-term-care-facilities-top-50-000-11592306919

Just five states account for 40% of the 50,000 deaths:  NY, NJ, CA, PA, and MI.  It seems these states did not follow fully the CMS (medicare) COVID guidance.   NY State, for example, required nursing home residents testing positive but not needing hospitalization to be returned to their nursing homes even though capacity for isolation and care was lacking. 

The nursing home population is obviously vulnerable, and the elderly are deemed the most susceptible to fatal levels of infection.   Nursing homes deaths were likely high in all 50 states, yet it seems 45 states did their best.
 Litigation attorneys must be very busy in these states. 

[GQBlues]

You would think both Florida and Arizona would be on top of that list since those two are at the top of the list of preference for retired folks and affordable care homes.

However, I'm mystified about California being on the list. So far the death count is at 5,100. With nearly 3 million tested, a little over 5% tested positive, 153K. Of that number 9,500 (dead + currently hospitalized) represents 6.2%, of which (currently) 1,272 is in Intensive Care.

http://covidtracking.com/data

If, for the exercise, I used WSJ's estimate of '43%' (57% for the greater population) across the board - nearly a month (3 weeks) since the strict lockdown lifting - with all the social protests going about the entire state - COVID doesn't seem as virulent to the greater population as initially declared. In hindsight, it hardly justifies total shutdown of our state.

[BillyB]

115,000 Americans have died from COVID-19.  43% of those occurred in long-term care facilities (nursing homes, assisted living), even though the total number of people housed there represents only about 1% of the nation's population. 

We will all get old eventually with weakened immune systems. Early reports say the coronavirus reduces the average human lifespan by 11-12 years which is what the Spanish flu achieved. Lets hope we get lifetime immunity or a vaccine is created.

[Gator]

You would think both Florida and Arizona would be on top of that list since those two are at the top of the list of preference for retired folks and affordable care homes.

The top 5 sates came in an interview with Congressman Steve Scalise (R-La.).   

However, I'm mystified about California being on the list. So far the death count is at 5,100. With nearly 3 million tested, a little over 5% tested positive, 153K. Of that number 9,500 (dead + currently hospitalized) represents 6.2%, of which (currently) 1,272 is in Intensive Care.

The types of information reported varies by each state.     AARP lists what each state is reporting.   http://www.aarp.org/caregiving/health/info-2020/coronavirus-nursing-home-cases-deaths.html

[You don't know about websites for seniors.    ]

California reports its stats here:

http://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CID/DCDC/Pages/COVID-19/SNFsCOVID_19.aspx

The source reports 2,154 "COVID-related resident deaths" for 1,223 "skilled nursing facilities."  Another site says California has a cumulative total of 5,089 COVID deaths.    Thus nursing facilities account for 42% of the deaths, virtually the same as the national average.  Thus, California makes the list merely because of its large population. 

COVID doesn't seem as virulent to the greater population as initially declared.

Same here.  Florida is experiencing fewer deaths even though the rate of new cases is increasing. 

In hindsight, it hardly justifies total shutdown of our state.

The shutdown was to assure the pandemic would not exceed the capacity of the healthcare system.  We erred on the side of caution.

Today is different.   The US has abundant reserves of PPE and a surplus of ventilators.  We also know the ICU of hospitals will most likely suffice, and if exceeded, we can set up temporary hospitals quickly.   Testing capacity has been increased, so we can monitor closely the trajectory of the infection.   

The risk of infection is about the same as it was last April.   However, there is no need to shutdown again.   It is now in the hands of the public to take proper mitigation measures.  If not, they increase the risk of becoming infection.   

I don't know when I will get on an airplane again.  Certainly not this summer.   We have one trip planned to the North Carolina mountains, driving there and staying at an Airbnb rental.   

[msmob]

The risk of infection is about the same as it was last April.   However, there is no need to shutdown again.   It is now in the hands of the public to take proper mitigation measures.  If not, they increase the risk of becoming infection.   

The 'public' can't be trusted ..

1/ They gather in Church and most of the congregation are surprised when they get ill

2/ The go to an Irish bar - the first night it re-opens and ( 'surprise') a group of 15 friends find 10 are ill and a sizeable proportion of the 49 staff

The ONLY reason your hospitals ( mostly) coped is BECAUSE you locked down

Beijing has an 'issue' and draconian remedies were enacted ..

Let's see how 'wise' your words sound in a couple of months time .. I hope you're right, but the main issue is opening up, too soon.

[Gator]

'PONDERINGS' ABOUT RE-OPENING THE ECONOMY AMID GROWING CASES OF COVID

I read Jim Jubak, a financial journalist.  Today he penned his thoughts about the unknown territory we venture into as we reopen the economy.   I pass it along.

________________________________________________________________________

"I’m as much in favor of reality as the next guy. Maybe more so. And during the coronavirus pandemic and the current economic re-opening I’ve been scarfing up every bit of data that I can. I begin my day by digging into the latest news of cases n Arizona, Texas, and Florida. And then dive deep down the rabbit hole to see how the data is being collected and what the “process” might mean.

But I increasingly question the utility of that effort when it comes to figuring out how the re-opening of the economy might be going and what the effect on stock prices might be.

Instead I’ve started to try to adapt a version of “early adopter” analysis from the tech world to the re-opening dynamic.

So today, for example, I got data on cases from Oklahoma–which registered another record for single-day new cases–California–which set another record in its rolling average–and North Carolina–where the average dropped by one case to break a streak of 15 new highs in a row.

I dug up anecdotal information from Facebook on the temporary closure of the R&J Saloon in San Antonio for a deep clean after a customer tested positive for the coronavirus. Another Facebook post from Taste of Texas in Houston announced that it had closed temporarily “out of an abundance of caution due to a positive Covid-19 test by a team member.”

Most interesting to me–and my new way of thinking about the re-opening economy–was news out of Jacksonville Beach that Lynch’s Irish Pub had closed after 16 friends who had visited the pub on June 6 became infected with the virus and that the pub had then tested employees and seven tests came back positive. The pub then closed for a deep clean. But it’s the next part that really intrigued me: The pub re-opened on Tuesday after that deep clean. And this pub wasn’t an isolated instance–other restaurants in the area had also closed for cleaning and then re-opened. (What I don’t know is how business has been at the pub since the infections and the re-opening.)

Any attempt to fit this last anecdote into a model of the re-opening that assumes that behaviors are driven by data is likely to lead us far astray.

A better fit is something like the “early adopter” model from technology that organizes consumer behavior into tiers. There’s a tier of consumers that will rush out to buy the latest smartphone just to have the latest phone. There’s another tier of consumers that will seek out information and then decide to buy. Near the end of the buying line stands the vast mass of consumers who will decide to buy or not depending on what they’ve heard; what they’ve read; their own experience with friends who bought; and their own feeling, developed over time, about whether they have to have it or not. It’s this last big group of consumers that ultimately determines how successful a product is in the longer run.

Looking at the re-opening economy so far what we can see is the behavior of an early adopter group. They’re headed to bars and restaurants, to beaches, to church services, based on a range of factors that includes political ideology, age (and the conviction I’ve heard from some that the odds of getting the virus are really low because they are young), fatigue with the local version of lock down, etc.

It’s pretty clear that this group of early adopters doesn’t represent everyone in the population–although we don’t know how big or little this group might be. It doesn’t take a huge percentage of the bar-going cohort in New York City, for example, to produce jammed streets outside popular bars.

What the technology early adopter model tells us is the the next stage in re-opening the economy will come from “reviews” of that early adopter experience. Was Disney World fun with the new rules or not? Was going out to a beach restaurant scary?

And possibly most important of all, at this stage, do you know anyone who got infected? The evidence suggests that more than any official public health data and even more than political conviction, the key factor n determining how you react to the re-opening is whether or not you know anyone who got sick (and maybe had to be hospitalized.) Consider that the ultimate “user” review.

What we don’t know right now about the re-opening economy is how many people will read those “reviews” and decide to eat out, fly, visit a resort, book a hotel room. And what “reviews” they might need to see to decide to adopt a new consumer behavior. What, for example, do you need to see in terms of reviews to decide to fly?

At the moment, we’re in the middle of a war of reviews where the state of opinion is exceedingly mixed. Politicians like Governor Glen Abbott of Texas and Vice-President Mike Pence are saying Go out because everything’s fine. Other governors and public health officials are saying “Hey, it’s not all that safe out there. And we really need you to continue to damp the curve.”

It’s good to dig deep into the data to see what the numbers might really mean–“reality” does ultimately count and if people get sick at some point, in reality, they overwhelm hospitals–but I think it’s important to realize that behavior at this point in the re-opening economy depends on what the next wave of consumers decide on the basis of reviews from those early adopters.

Here’s what some of those Jacksonville Beach friends who got sick told Cuomo Prime Time on CNN:  The pub was packed with other celebrants who weren’t wearing masks, Erika Crisp told CNN’s Chris Cuomo on “Cuomo Prime Time” on Tuesday. “At the time, it was more out of sight, out of mind. We hadn’t known anybody who had it personally. Governor, mayor, everybody says it’s fine,” she said , adding that her friends showed symptoms within days of the outing. “It was a mistake. I feel foolish. It’s too soon.” Another friend, Kat Layton, who lost her sense of smell, said she knew she and her friends “were pushing it” by being out that night. She warned viewers that the current state of the pandemic is not ready for such gatherings and that the coronavirus is still very much present.

It’s important to realize that those are just two reviews from early adopters and that they are be no means determinant.

But I think that the next stage in the re-opening economy will be set by reviewers like those. Very few of us (and lots of reporters and Wall Street analysts are) are spending our days wallowing in the ins and outs of Florida’s screwy coronavirus reporting system, for example. But we do hear reviewers like those and the closer they are to us personally the more power they will have.

All of which doesn’t make it exactly easy to tell which way the re-opening is going and how fast. We’re trying to figure out not what the data says but what the reaction to that data as consumed by individuals might be. But it at least tells us what to look at."