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On July 29 2020 14:09 xM(Z wrote:
dude ... you're starring at a second wave that looks to hit everyone except Sweden, as hard as it did the first time.
and then, you'll have a third wave come autumn that will hit everyone except Sweden, as hard as the first wave did.
and then, ... do you see the pattern?.
AN THEN, ... no one is proud of anything.
but apart from that obvious thing, Kwarkie, being the numbers guy, is failing. he should do the maths on covid vs the massive global economic recession that was expected to hit early this year(worse than the '08 some would say).
where did the recession go?.
Are you saying the recession isnt there? Between 5% and 10% decline of the real economy and high unemployement this year,thats falling of a cliff. Its a depression by all economic parameters.
Sweden its difficult to say what will happen,the epidemic went from south to north in europe so they are lagging behind in the whole process. Sweden depends on long lasting immunity beeing possible in the first place,which is highly doubtfull.
I dont think their appoach was bad neccessarily,they have not done worse from a medical point of vieuw then almost all of continental europe and they havent done better from an economic point of vieuw either.
Which makes sense. Sweden has an open and connected economy,specially when compared to their nabours. Even if their own economy wouldnt have been hit all that hard,they are still effected by the impact abroad.
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UK was also one of the countries late to react as Boris didn't recognize the seriousness early on, feel that when u don't lockdown a giant metro system like London has early then u get pandemic.
Italy was kind of the first country to get struck outside of China and was late to react because the internal systems wasn't gear to do it. Many of the deaths was also due to lack of medical equipment and tests. They did make a colossal mistake that they deserve massive kick in the butt about, when they allowed the Atalanta vs Valencia football match to play with spectators.
On the other side Sweden had plenty of time to react, ignored the advice from WHO and the rest of the world. They chose to stand alone with there strategy against the rest of the world. To be honest at one point i wish Denmark chose the same path as Sweden. But turns out we did the right thing.
I feel like the only reason we get a second wave of convid is that so many people can't go with out a vacation one year and need to travel i don't get that. What is the fun in going on an vacation with al sorts of restrictions and the risk of getting infected or spreading an pandemic to others,
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On July 29 2020 18:16 maybenexttime wrote:Show nested quote +On July 29 2020 17:53 iPlaY.NettleS wrote:On July 29 2020 03:51 LegalLord wrote:On July 29 2020 03:29 Erasme wrote:On July 29 2020 00:11 xM(Z wrote:
who was bashing on Sweden a while back? ... In relation to ? My several mentions of Sweden's consistently subpar results in handling the corvid problem. Solicited some excellent follow-up responses here, so that's great. Yes.Clearly Sweden should have gone into lockdown. How are UK deaths per million compared to Sweden? Let's not forget a Swedish research team claimed a best scenario of 15,000 deaths by May 1 if Sweden adopted a UK style lockdown by mid April.96,000 deaths by July 1 with no lockdown there. Paper : https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.11.20062133v1.full.pdfShould be noted this was based on Ferguson's Imperial college scenario predictions which sound ludicrous now.Ferguson himself became an outcast after breaking UK lockdown restrictions (seeing his married mistress) that he recommended implementing.You can't even make it up it's so batshit insane.Everyones forgotten about that though so back to Sweden. And what's supposed to be wrong with Ferguson's predictions?
He predicted 2.2 million deaths in USA sans lockdown and 510,000 in UK without lockdown.
Swedish researchers modelled Swedish coronavirus deaths on his code and came up with 105,000 Swedish deaths by July 1 without lockdown.Total so far 5700.
Ferguson and his models were one of the drivers that brought about the harsh lockdowns.Why anyone was still listening to him after his previous fearmongering (2002 Predicted 50,000 UK deaths from BSE, total UK deaths 177) remains a mystery.
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On July 29 2020 18:21 Sapaio wrote:
UK was also one of the countries late to react as Boris didn't recognize the seriousness early on, feel that when u don't lockdown a giant metro system like London has early then u get pandemic.
Italy was kind of the first country to get struck outside of China and was late to react because the internal systems wasn't gear to do it. Many of the deaths was also due to lack of medical equipment and tests. They did make a colossal mistake that they deserve massive kick in the butt about, when they allowed the Atalanta vs Valencia football match to play with spectators.
On the other side Sweden had plenty of time to react, ignored the advice from WHO and the rest of the world. They chose to stand alone with there strategy against the rest of the world. To be honest at one point i wish Denmark chose the same path as Sweden. But turns out we did the right thing.
I feel like the only reason we get a second wave of convid is that so many people can't go with out a vacation one year and need to travel i don't get that. What is the fun in going on an vacation with al sorts of restrictions and the risk of getting infected or spreading an pandemic to others,
The UK was still holding events like European football matches in March ffs, with people travelling from all over Europe to come and sit in extremely close proximity to each other.
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On July 29 2020 18:29 iPlaY.NettleS wrote:Show nested quote +On July 29 2020 18:16 maybenexttime wrote:On July 29 2020 17:53 iPlaY.NettleS wrote:On July 29 2020 03:51 LegalLord wrote:On July 29 2020 03:29 Erasme wrote:On July 29 2020 00:11 xM(Z wrote:
who was bashing on Sweden a while back? ... In relation to ? My several mentions of Sweden's consistently subpar results in handling the corvid problem. Solicited some excellent follow-up responses here, so that's great. Yes.Clearly Sweden should have gone into lockdown. How are UK deaths per million compared to Sweden? Let's not forget a Swedish research team claimed a best scenario of 15,000 deaths by May 1 if Sweden adopted a UK style lockdown by mid April.96,000 deaths by July 1 with no lockdown there. Paper : https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.11.20062133v1.full.pdfShould be noted this was based on Ferguson's Imperial college scenario predictions which sound ludicrous now.Ferguson himself became an outcast after breaking UK lockdown restrictions (seeing his married mistress) that he recommended implementing.You can't even make it up it's so batshit insane.Everyones forgotten about that though so back to Sweden. And what's supposed to be wrong with Ferguson's predictions? He predicted 2.2 million deaths in USA sans lockdown and 510,000 in UK without lockdown. Swedish researchers modelled Swedish coronavirus deaths on his code and came up with 105,000 Swedish deaths without lockdown.Total so far 5700. Ferguson and his models were one of the drivers that brought about the harsh lockdowns.Why anyone was still listening to him after his previous fearmongering (2002 Predicted 50,000 UK deaths from BSE, total UK deaths 177) remains a mystery.
There are numerous studies that show the IFR to be around 1% (mass-scale antibody studies in Spain, France and the UK all giving roughly the same result). There are studies that estimate the herd immunity to be reached at about 60-80% of the population. Also not disputed, as far as I know. IFR*(herd immunity threshold)*population is how you estimate the number of deaths over the course of several waves (however many it takes to reach herd immunity) if no measures are taken. Do you dispute that?
Then you bring up his earlier predictions, also assuming no measures being taken, and compare them with the actual deaths after very harsh measures were taken. That is beyond stupid. You are absolutely clueless. Hard to take you seriously.
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On July 29 2020 18:00 Elroi wrote:Show nested quote +On July 29 2020 15:34 Acrofales wrote:On July 29 2020 14:09 xM(Z wrote:
dude ... you're starring at a second wave that looks to hit everyone except Sweden, as hard as it did the first time.
and then, you'll have a third wave come autumn that will hit everyone except Sweden, as hard as the first wave did.
and then, ... do you see the pattern?.
AN THEN, ... no one is proud of anything.
but apart from that obvious thing, Kwarkie, being the numbers guy, is failing. he should do the maths on covid vs the massive global economic recession that was expected to hit early this year(worse than the '08 some would say).
where did the recession go?.
Why do you think Sweden is safe from a second wave? The theory is that the second wave hits when you open up a society with low immunity and the disease comes back (Israel, australia, for example). Sweden's strategy was to never close down to begin with but to try to protect people at risk while keeping society open at a sustainable level. Now we are almost completely back to normal while we dont see any increase in cases so hopefully we have found a stable development. But if this is the correct way of handling Corona depends om a number of factors that we dont know yet, in my opinion.
Well, my point was more that there is no way Sweden is even close to herd immunity, so if there is a second wave they are equally likely to get hit by it as everybody else. That said, Sweden is obviously mostly protected from pandemics by their geography. No doubt cities are getting hammered, but even taking those into account, population density is one of the lowest in Europe, and if there aren't that many people around it is just plain easier to keep enough distance, and quarantine people if they do get sick before they spread it to everybody around them.
Regarding the whole idea of a second wave, the WHO currently doesn't think there is any such thing, and we are just in one ongoing wave. They say there is no evidence of any kind of seasonal variation in this virus: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/29/one-big-wave-why-the-covid-19-second-wave-may-not-exist-coronavirus
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On July 29 2020 23:36 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On July 29 2020 18:00 Elroi wrote:On July 29 2020 15:34 Acrofales wrote:On July 29 2020 14:09 xM(Z wrote:
dude ... you're starring at a second wave that looks to hit everyone except Sweden, as hard as it did the first time.
and then, you'll have a third wave come autumn that will hit everyone except Sweden, as hard as the first wave did.
and then, ... do you see the pattern?.
AN THEN, ... no one is proud of anything.
but apart from that obvious thing, Kwarkie, being the numbers guy, is failing. he should do the maths on covid vs the massive global economic recession that was expected to hit early this year(worse than the '08 some would say).
where did the recession go?.
Why do you think Sweden is safe from a second wave? The theory is that the second wave hits when you open up a society with low immunity and the disease comes back (Israel, australia, for example). Sweden's strategy was to never close down to begin with but to try to protect people at risk while keeping society open at a sustainable level. Now we are almost completely back to normal while we dont see any increase in cases so hopefully we have found a stable development. But if this is the correct way of handling Corona depends om a number of factors that we dont know yet, in my opinion. Well, my point was more that there is no way Sweden is even close to herd immunity, so if there is a second wave they are equally likely to get hit by it as everybody else. That said, Sweden is obviously mostly protected from pandemics by their geography. No doubt cities are getting hammered, but even taking those into account, population density is one of the lowest in Europe, and if there aren't that many people around it is just plain easier to keep enough distance, and quarantine people if they do get sick before they spread it to everybody around them. Regarding the whole idea of a second wave, the WHO currently doesn't think there is any such thing, and we are just in one ongoing wave. They say there is no evidence of any kind of seasonal variation in this virus: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/29/one-big-wave-why-the-covid-19-second-wave-may-not-exist-coronavirus Covid doesn't have waves because of seasons, by the looks of it, indeed but I would still talk about waves in the context of viral spread because of lockdown measures.
The fall as more measures are piled on, the rise as measures are lifted and repeat. The resulting graph will likely be the same and it can already be seen in many places in Europe where cases are climbing back up.
As for Sweden, yes they are not starting a second wave currently but looking at worldometer that is simply because they are currently at the very tail end of their first wave, a spot other countries in Europe like the Netherlands, Spain or France reached back in May, Sweden's curve is simply much longer.
Give it 2 months and see if cases will be climbing back up before proclaiming victory.
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The measures Sweden took against the Covid-19 mirrors what Norway did, with exception of Norway closing schools for kids below 16 which I doubt made much difference for the current outcome. The only major difference between them is when they decided to apply new measures against the virus, where Sweden always were slower to act.
Now make no mistake, I find that the Norwegian government acted way too late at the start. Letting people travel to countries with covid-19 during the week of winter vacation (a lot of us prefer to travel south during it in order to get some sun during the winter) and the late followup to travelers coming from hot-spots were fare from optimal. Neither were the late home office recommendation. Luckily the company I work for sent everyone to home office one week before it was recommended by our government so we didn't get any infections (while some of our clients had half their workforce sick/quarantined). They however improved after the initial slow response and became proactive, while Sweden were always slower with same measures, which as we all know makes a big difference when it comes to exponential spread.
It gets extra interesting when you look at the fraction of dead in elder homes in Sweden compared to Norway, where Norway have a higher fraction. So clearly the lack of instructions to the elder homes are not the whole reason for why they have more dead.
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That is simply false, it in no way mirrors Norway. Sweden didn't close any bushiness, they allowed lot bigger gatherings (think it was up to 500 people together) of people. Not just schools but society as a whole was not shutdown.
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On July 29 2020 14:53 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On July 29 2020 14:09 xM(Z wrote:
dude ... you're starring at a second wave that looks to hit everyone except Sweden, as hard as it did the first time.
and then, you'll have a third wave come autumn that will hit everyone except Sweden, as hard as the first wave did.
and then, ... do you see the pattern?.
AN THEN, ... no one is proud of anything.
but apart from that obvious thing, Kwarkie, being the numbers guy, is failing. he should do the maths on covid vs the massive global economic recession that was expected to hit early this year(worse than the '08 some would say).
where did the recession go?.
? The recession is here, economic output and activity has declined for two consecutive quarters. The stock market is not the economy. Also why am I responsible for this? it's here alright, but it's blamed on the covid not on <the capitalism excesses>; those bubble inflating fuckers got off scot-free.
you're not responsible for it but you could do something about explaining/making sense of what is happening to these here peoplez.
some snippets for context(article from april):Over the past three weeks, governments around the world have embarked on one of the greatest peacetime borrowing binges in history. ...policy makers have launched massive stimulus programs to help sustain economies under attack from the novel coronavirus. ... to fund more than US$5-trillion in relief packages, governments are issuing epic amounts of debt. ... can the world afford this avalanche of new borrowing? For now, the answer is yes. So long as interest rates remain low and economies return to something approaching normality within a few months, developed countries should find the additional burden to be tolerable. ... one big uncertainty hovers over these calculations, however: What happens if the world does not return to normalcy within, say, six months? If so, governments will find themselves writing enormous cheques every month to sustain comatose economies. If that happens, all bets are off .
i mean, in a non-covidated world, but still under the aforementioned recession, you'd probably still have government borrowings but, and this is the key part, you'd also have nationalizations of failed businesses, bankruptcy fillings, assets seizures etc. all those, i'm guessing, would punish bad actors/investors, speculators, greedy bubble exploiters and so on.
as it stands, sure some businessmen will lose their businesses but what i'm seeing is that the whole weight of the recession is put on the backs of the tax paying, debt repaying working peasants.
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United States42823 Posts
The US gov has backstopped the stock market.
There are two forms of financing for companies, equity financing and debt financing. Equity financing is selling ownership of the company which is low risk (no obligation to pay back the stockholders what they paid for the shares, no fixed payments) but low reward (you have to share your profits with them because they're also owners). Debt financing is borrowing money which is higher risk (you have to make interest payments and repay the principal on the due date or be forced into bankruptcy/liquidation) but all your profits belong to you after you've paid the interest.
I'll give a micro company example because it's much simpler to explain and understand.
A guy wants to open up a food truck but he doesn't have any money so he wants to take on a partner. He'll do the cooking etc., you just provide the money. You give him $10k for a 50% stake. This is relatively low risk for him, if the food truck fails then he's only lost the work and whatever money he put in. If it's profitable but it takes a while to get up to speed then he has the benefit of having no fixed repayments, he doesn't have to make crazy profits on day 1. But if it does make crazy profits on day 1 and every day then he's stuck giving you 50% profits for life, even though he's doing all the work.
Now let's say he borrows the $10k from a bank at 10% interest. If it goes badly then they might come in and repossess his truck and he'll nothing and is still on the hook for some of the debt. If it's profitable but takes a while to get up to speed then they might still repossess it when he fails to make a repayment on time, even though he's making money and sales are increasing daily. But if it's super profitable then he gets to keep all of the profits other than the interest payment which is a fixed amount regardless of how much he makes.
This is a concept called leverage, essentially investing with debt to multiply upside and downside. All public companies employ leverage to some extent because it is rational to do so, for profitable companies it multiplies the return on equity. The cash needed to operate the company can be provided in part by debt which reduces the investment needed from the owners which reduces the number of owners which increases the share of profits each other is entitled to. But too much leverage becomes risky, at which point the note holders start charging higher rates of interest and additional marginal leverage is no longer worthwhile.
All companies have an ideal WACC (weighted average cost of capital) which dictates the ratio of equity financing to debt financing. This is affected by how much it costs to borrow additional debt (marginal interest rates) and how much it costs to issue additional stock (stockholder expected dividend yield), as well as other factors such as tax planning incentives. The company achieves its ideal ratio by issuing new stock/doing a stock buyback and issuing new bonds/paying off existing bonds.
What the US government has done is offer largecap US entities subsidized debt. The Fed is buying highly rated corporate bond ETFs and it doesn't care about interest because it's buying them not to make a profit but instead just to provide cash flow to those companies. Where the market might say "you're dangerously overleveraged, if you want an additional loan it'll be 15% interest" and the company might say "15% is too high, I'll issue additional stock" the Fed is saying "2%, who cares, have as much cash as you want" and the company is saying "at 2% I'll take all the cash you'll give me and do a stock buyback to reduce the number of owners we share profits with".
With government subsidized debt the ideal WACC changes drastically, it doesn't make sense for companies to have all these extra shareholders giving them money to fund their operation when the Fed is willing to be a silent partner for dirt cheap. They can increase their leverage without being penalized by additional interest because the Fed is not acting as a rational market actor. The companies are rational and so they take advantage of the subsidy by reducing their equity financing which in turn increases the ownership stake of the remaining owners and therefore the stock price.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
Was Australia in a high state of concern over coronavirus right before this happened? If not, I might wonder if it's just an unlucky turn of events rather than the standard "pandemic negligence" that these stories usually are.
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I don't think you need to be negligent or unlucky to get the disease back into the country if there has been an early and very strict lockdown. It's like pricking a balloon. That's why the NBA, for example, goes to such extremes with their own "bubble" project. If the bubble is as big as an entire country, problems will arise sooner or later. The billion dollar question, I guess, is if a vaccine is ready before that happens.
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I'll add a bit of detail here, since Australia is rapidly shifting from an exemplar to a cautionary tale.
Many smaller Australian states eliminated covid entirely by closing their internal borders via mandatory quarantine. The two largest states had enough cases that this wasn't feasible, but did bring it down to what they thought were traceable levels. Queensland was in an awkward middleground, where it was big enough to be put under massive federal pressure to reopen but small enough that it managed elimination.
The result was that the state leader got wedged into a strange little dance, holding border closures long past the tail of the first wave before caving directly into the teeth of the second. She is now grimly maintaining an open border she never wanted, as it becomes clearer and clearer that this was a bad idea.
The slow walkback has been a process of adding "hotspots" to a restricted list piecemeal, but with otherwise unrestricted travel this depends on voluntary declarations from the travellers themselves. Moreover, the cost of the quarantine that results from this declaration is now charged directly to the traveller.
Obviously, this creates a situation where making an accurate statement on one of these forms costs not just two weeks of your life, but three thousand dollarydoos as well. This is disposable income the average 20yo plaguespreader does not have. Pretending you were in NSW all along starts to look pretty attractive at that point.
A final issue is the habit of announcing closures in advance. The whole of Sydney was declared a hotspot yesterday, but this is only effective from late tomorrow night. I know several people planning to run the border legally before it comes into effect. The same thing occurred with the earlier closure for Victoria.
I'm honestly not sure what else we expected to happen.
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Its just more evidence that plan lockdown and quarantine was never a plan at all.
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My wife does daycare for very young children (24 months and younger), and just found out that one of the children in a room she opened for (but wasn't in that much) had parent's who have tested positive for COVID. Child is no longer permitted in the center, but still a little scary (they do take lots of precautions and masks, etc.)
The daycare wants to go back to normal ratio as of next week, btw (as does the governor, I think? I'm not really clear on what is happening with them). Right now it is at about half size class rooms.
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EPT
