I think this is one situation where we should value the lesswrong maxim of being aware when your level of knowledge is very limited. Hold onto your uncertainty.
As a long term investor I am very aware that statistics out of China are particularly unreliable. Even the hierarchy in China seems to have trouble getting a true picture. I saw an interview with one of the doctors in Wuhan where he related the extreme difficulties of getting people to report the bad news about what was happening up the management tree. Perhaps reflecting this, President Xi sent his man, Shanghai Mayor Ying Yong, to Wuhan, to get a first hand view.
Even on the official statistics it appears Covid-19 is an order of magnitude more contagious than influenza and has a fatality rate also an order of magnitude worse. The fact that over 10% of the passengers on the Diamond Princess contacted the virus in a few weeks testifies to the contagiousness of the disease. There are troubling hints from China that deaths are far higher than admitted. The admitted deaths from covid-19 in Wuhan are no more than 10% of normal deaths in the city, yet, cremation houses are said to be having trouble keeping up, and are bringing in supplies and staff from outside to manage the workload.
I’ve also been following COVID-19 for investment reasons. Every study I’ve read of the disease indicates it is extremely contagious relative to the flu. This recent retrospective study indicates that prior to Feb 5th, R0 in China were between 4.7 and 6.6. Time to double was 2.4 days:
However since then China has made herculean efforts to stop the spread of the disease. R0 has certainly plummeted. So I’m not sure what to think. I would imagine officially reported numbers from any country are going to be limited by testing. How many people going to the doctor with flu-like symptoms get a COVID-2019 test? It sounds like no one except Korea and maybe China are testing for community acquired CoV.
What I believe is that if other countries do not take similar measures to China, this thing is going to rapidly spread. From an investment perspective this has created the perfect setup for a short: if a sizable portion of the world’s population gets infected, the global economy will greatly suffer. If countries take China-esque measures, the global economy will also suffer.
The rosiest outcome I can imagine is warm weather halts the spread of the disease, and then we get a vaccine ready by the time fall rolls around. It’s worth noting I’ve been the “chicken little” among my investing peers.
One point of optimism is everyone on the Diamond Princess was tested, and “only” 5% of passengers required serious medical care. This number is quite a bit lower than the 10-15% figure I often see thrown around.
Can you link to your source on cremation houses not being able to keep up? That’s something I hadn’t heard before. Thanks.
First, it is not clear that the current testing is even catching all the cases. I think one of the Chinese CDC equivalent researchers has said the test they have available is only identifying 30 to 50 percent of the cases but is essentially 100% accurate when identifying an infection. So I’m not sure we get too much by just testing everyone with potential symptoms (community acquired). I suspect that depends on how plentiful the supply of test kits might be.
The other thing, it sounds like this might be a virus that vaccine will ever be available for. There is not one for SARS nor for HIV and COVID-19 seems to be similar to both (clearly same family as SARS).
I think this is one situation where we should value the lesswrong maxim of being aware when your level of knowledge is very limited. Hold onto your uncertainty.
As a long term investor I am very aware that statistics out of China are particularly unreliable. Even the hierarchy in China seems to have trouble getting a true picture. I saw an interview with one of the doctors in Wuhan where he related the extreme difficulties of getting people to report the bad news about what was happening up the management tree. Perhaps reflecting this, President Xi sent his man, Shanghai Mayor Ying Yong, to Wuhan, to get a first hand view.
https://fortune.com/2020/02/14/china-coronavirus-wuhan-hubei-province-ying-yong-tesla/
Even on the official statistics it appears Covid-19 is an order of magnitude more contagious than influenza and has a fatality rate also an order of magnitude worse. The fact that over 10% of the passengers on the Diamond Princess contacted the virus in a few weeks testifies to the contagiousness of the disease. There are troubling hints from China that deaths are far higher than admitted. The admitted deaths from covid-19 in Wuhan are no more than 10% of normal deaths in the city, yet, cremation houses are said to be having trouble keeping up, and are bringing in supplies and staff from outside to manage the workload.
I’ve also been following COVID-19 for investment reasons. Every study I’ve read of the disease indicates it is extremely contagious relative to the flu. This recent retrospective study indicates that prior to Feb 5th, R0 in China were between 4.7 and 6.6. Time to double was 2.4 days:
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.07.20021154v1.full.pdf
However since then China has made herculean efforts to stop the spread of the disease. R0 has certainly plummeted. So I’m not sure what to think. I would imagine officially reported numbers from any country are going to be limited by testing. How many people going to the doctor with flu-like symptoms get a COVID-2019 test? It sounds like no one except Korea and maybe China are testing for community acquired CoV.
What I believe is that if other countries do not take similar measures to China, this thing is going to rapidly spread. From an investment perspective this has created the perfect setup for a short: if a sizable portion of the world’s population gets infected, the global economy will greatly suffer. If countries take China-esque measures, the global economy will also suffer.
The rosiest outcome I can imagine is warm weather halts the spread of the disease, and then we get a vaccine ready by the time fall rolls around. It’s worth noting I’ve been the “chicken little” among my investing peers.
One point of optimism is everyone on the Diamond Princess was tested, and “only” 5% of passengers required serious medical care. This number is quite a bit lower than the 10-15% figure I often see thrown around.
Can you link to your source on cremation houses not being able to keep up? That’s something I hadn’t heard before. Thanks.
Two things to keep in mind here though.
First, it is not clear that the current testing is even catching all the cases. I think one of the Chinese CDC equivalent researchers has said the test they have available is only identifying 30 to 50 percent of the cases but is essentially 100% accurate when identifying an infection. So I’m not sure we get too much by just testing everyone with potential symptoms (community acquired). I suspect that depends on how plentiful the supply of test kits might be.
The other thing, it sounds like this might be a virus that vaccine will ever be available for. There is not one for SARS nor for HIV and COVID-19 seems to be similar to both (clearly same family as SARS).
Would you say the measures taken in Italy and South Korea (particularly the lockdown of towns in Norther Italy) are sufficiently similar to China?
I find that rather unlikely considering the virus’ spread in warm regions like Singapore.