Baltic Dry Index. 549 +10 Brent Crude 52.42 Spot Gold 1644
Covid-19 Pandemic
underway, but not according to the WHO.
Coronavirus Cases 4/3/20
China 93,186 Deaths 3,203
(Maybe.)
This
great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So,
first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear
is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed
efforts to convert retreat into advance.
Franklin
Delano Roosevelt, March 4, 1933.
Despite a panicky
half a percent interest rate cut yesterday by the Trump re-election Fed, US
stocks fell ill from the rising global pandemic from SARS-CoV-2, the official
name for the new dangerous coronavirus now sweeping the planet and wreaking
havoc in the global economy.
Sadly, things are
expected to get much worse before eventually, the Covid-19 disease caused by
the SARS-CoV2 infection, gets better. Barring a miracle, a great disruption is descending on
the heavily integrated, “just-in-time,” 2020 global economy.
While a half
percent interest rate cut by the Fed doesn’t hurt, except to suggest that the
Fed has inside knowledge of the true state of the US economy it’s not sharing
with the rest of us, it in no way addresses the new problem now facing the
global economy, and over priced stocks, now left gasping for air and greater
fool buyers.
Below, how our
modern media finally woke up to a growing coronavirus crisis that’s been all
too apparent since the third week of January. Better late than never I suppose.
My guess is that
the official coronavirus cases and death figures are understated by a factor of
10. There is simply not enough testing taking place globally, and far too much
wiggle room for countries to cheat to protect their national interest in things
like the Olympic games.
Until the science
of the SARS-CoV-2 crisis is better established and understood, expect many more
event cancellations, airline, cruise ship, hotel, travel cancellations, school
and university closings, rising unemployment, rising government deficits, and a
general slowdown in the velocity of money.
Everywhere,
government reaction is always going to be a dollar short and a day late. Governments everywhere, thanks to a Chinese
cover up in December, missed the chance at containment, all that’s left now is
a chance at management or mismanagement.
WHO warns of global shortage of medical equipment to fight coronavirus
March 3, 2020 /
10:12 AM
WASHINGTON/GENEVA (Reuters) - The World
Health Organization (WHO) on Tuesday warned of a global shortage and price
gouging for protective equipment to fight the fast-spreading coronavirus and
asked companies and governments to increase production by 40% as the death toll
from the respiratory illness mounted.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Federal Reserve cut interest rates on Tuesday in an
emergency move to try to prevent a global recession and the World Bank
announced $12 billion to help countries fight the coronavirus, which has taken
a heavy toll on air travel, tourism and other industries, threatening global
economic growth prospects.
The virus continued to spread in South Korea, Japan, Europe, Iran and
the United States, and several countries reported their first confirmed cases,
taking the total to some 80 nations hit with the flu-like illness that can lead
to pneumonia.
Despite the Fed’s attempt to stem the economic fallout from the
coronavirus, U.S. stock indexes closed down about 3%, safe-haven gold rose 3%
and analysts and investors questioned whether the rate cut will be enough if
the virus continues to spread.
U.S. lawmakers were considering spending as much as $9 billion to
contain local spread of the virus.
In Iran, doctors and nurses lack supplies and 77 people have died, one
of the highest numbers outside China. The United Arab Emirates announced it was
closing all schools for four weeks.
The death toll in Italy, Europe’s hardest-hit country, jumped to 79 on
Tuesday and Italian officials are considering expanding the area under
quarantine. France reported its fourth coronavirus death, while Indonesia,
Ukraine, Argentina and Chile reported their first coronavirus cases.
About 3.4% of confirmed cases of COVID-19
have died, far above seasonal flu’s fatality rate of under 1%, but the virus
can be contained, the WHO chief said on Tuesday.
---- Health officials have said the death rate is 2% to 4% depending on the country and may be much lower if there are thousands of unreported mild cases of the disease.
Since the coronavirus outbreak, prices of surgical masks have increased
sixfold, N95 respirators have tripled in cost and protective gowns cost twice
as much, the WHO said.
It estimates healthcare workers each month will need 89 million masks,
76 million gloves and 1.6 million pairs of goggles.
---- New York state reported its second case, a man in his 50s who works in Manhattan and has been hospitalized.
The public transportation agency in New York, the most densely populated
major U.S. city of more than 8 million, said on Twitter it was deploying
“enhanced sanitising procedures” for stations, train cars, buses and certain
vehicles.
China has seen coronavirus cases fall sharply, with 129 in the last 24
hours the lowest reported since Jan. 20.
With the world’s second largest economy struggling to get back on track,
China is increasingly concerned about the virus being brought back into the
country by citizens returning from new hotspots elsewhere.
Travellers entering Beijing from South Korea, Japan, Iran and Italy
would have to be quarantined for 14 days, a city official said. Shanghai has
introduced a similar order.
The worst outbreak outside China is in South Korea, where President Moon
Jae-in declared war on the virus, ordering additional hospital beds and more
masks as cases rose by 600 to nearly 5,000, with 34 deaths.
More
Thousands wait for hospital beds in South Korea as coronavirus cases surge
March 4, 2020 /
1:34 AM
SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea reported 516
new coronavirus cases on Wednesday as thousands of sick people waited for
hospital beds in Daegu, the city at the center of the worst outbreak outside
mainland China.
The new cases bring South Korea’s total to 5,328, with at least 32
deaths, the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) said. Most
cases were in and around Daegu, the country’s fourth largest city, where the
flu-like virus has spread rapidly through members of a fringe Christian group.
Health officials expect the number of new cases to be high for the near
future as they complete the testing of more than 200,000 members of the
Christian sect, as well as thousands of other suspected cases from smaller
clusters.
---- COVID-19 is the illness caused by the new coronavirus which emerged from central China late last year and has spread around the world.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in has canceled his planned trip to the
UAE, Egypt and Turkey in mid-March, due to the alarming spread of the disease
at home, according to the presidential Blue House.
Hospitals in South Korea’s hardest hit areas were scrambling to
accommodate the surge in new patients.
More
A Guide to What to Know About COVID-19
As COVID-19 spreads around the globe, so does misinformation. Here, you can find facts about the virus and infection it causes
By Katherine J. Wu smithsonianmag.com March
2, 2020 5:00PM
---- Although the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) maintain that the immediate health risk posed by COVID-19 remains low for the general American public, Nancy Messonnier, director of the organization’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, has warned that the disease’s spread throughout the country is “not so much a question of if this will happen anymore, but rather more a question of exactly when this will happen.”
As the coronavirus—now officially named SARS-CoV-2—spreads, so too has misinformation, stymieing efforts to educate and protect the global community. Many questions about the virus and the disease remain unanswered. Thanks in part to a solid understanding of other types of coronaviruses that have plagued us in the past, researchers are quickly homing in on COVID-19’s potential impacts and identifying some of the most important preventative measures people can take.
Here’s a quick rundown of what we have learned so far.
What exactly is COVID-19?
First, let’s get some terms straight. SARS-CoV-2 is the name of the virus that’s spreading; COVID-19 is the disease it causes. Although most media reports have used the term “coronavirus” to describe SARS-CoV-2, the term is, by itself, not very informative.Coronaviruses comprise an entire branch of the virus family tree that includes the disease-causing pathogens behind SARS, MERS and several variants of the common cold. Using “coronavirus” to refer to a potentially dangerous viral strain is a little bit like saying “mammal” when you mean “lion,” technically accurate, but not specific.
---- What are the symptoms of COVID-19, and how is it transmitted?
Like other coronaviruses, the COVID-19 virus infiltrates the airways of its hosts. At worst, these pathogens can cause severe forms of viral pneumonia, which in some cases leads to death. Though researchers caution that numbers could shift as the outbreak progresses, the new coronavirus’s fatality rate appears to be around 2 percent. That’s a small fraction of the 10 and 35 percent figures reported for SARS and MERS, respectively.The vast majority of COVID-19 cases—about 80 percent—appear to be mild, causing a spate of cold-like symptoms like coughing, shortness of breath and fever. Many people are suspected to carry the virus without presenting any symptoms. As physicians continue to identify more of these less-severe cases, which are more difficult to detect, the COVID-19 death rate may drop closer to 1 percent or even below it, reports Denise Grady for the New York Times.
That said, in the few months since it was first reported in China’s Hubei province, COVID-19 has killed about 3,000 people. That’s more than SARS (about 770 deaths) and MERS (about 850 deaths) combined. COVID-19’s death rate suggests the virus is more contagious than these predecessors, as well as most strains of the distantly related influenza virus, according to the Times. (According to the CDC, severe cases of the flu lead to at least 140,000 hospitalizations in the United States each year out of a total of more than 9 million cases of influenza documented annually. With an average of 12,000 deaths each year, influenza’s death rate is about 0.1 percent.)
A reported 2,873 deaths have occurred in Hubei province alone. According to the World Health Organization, COVID-19’s death rate increases with age, with the highest mortality rate of 21.9 percent occurring among people over 80 years of age. Those with underlying medical issues including respiratory and heart conditions, as well as smokers, are among those at highest risk, reports Allison Aubrey at NPR. Despite some reports to the contrary, children can be infected, but appear less vulnerable. Importantly, a multitude of factors—including many that scientists don’t yet understand—can affect how a given person tolerates an infection.
The virus is capable of moving directly from person to person through droplets produced by coughs or sneezes that travel through the air to settle directly on skin or frequently touched surfaces, like doorknobs or cell phones. After a person is exposed, symptoms can take weeks to appear, if they do at all. Those who carry the virus without showing signs of illness can still spread the disease.
More
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/everything-you-need-know-about-covid-19-180974313/?utm_source=smithsoniandaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20200302-daily-responsive&spMailingID=41916148&spUserID=NjUwNDIzNTUzNDE0S0&spJobID=1720162288&spReportId=MTcyMDE2MjI4OAS29
Ex-CDC head Tom Frieden says kids may be secret coronavirus carriers
By Jackie Salo March 2, 2020 |
4:50pm
The ex-director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Monday that the deadly coronavirus may be “impossible” to contain — and that kids may be secret carriers of the disease.
“We think it will be very difficult if not impossible to contain it … but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try,” Dr. Tom Frieden told reporters.
Frieden, who ran the agency under President Obama and was the New York City health commissioner under Mayor Mike Bloomberg, said the spread of the virus to more than 89,000 people across the world has been an “unprecedented situation.”
“Never before have we seen a pathogen emerge and have global spread like this. That is scary,” Frieden said.
Frieden pointed to evidence that people with mild or no symptoms, including children, may be secret carriers of the virus.
He cited a report of a 10-year-old boy who visited the outbreak’s epicenter in China and didn’t show any symptoms of the virus. But when the boy’s parents insisted doctors test him, he was diagnosed with the virus, according to the Lancet medical journal.
“The fact that children may get infected but not show symptoms poses a
risk to pediatricians,” Frieden said.
The virus, known as COVID-19, has been most deadly with patients who are
older or have underlying health problems, he said.
The disease, which has now reached 65 countries, has caused more than
3,000 deaths since December’s outbreak in Wuhan, China.
“I
sometimes get the impression that many U.S. media outlets work according to a
principle which was common in the Soviet Union. Back then, people used to joke
that the newspaper Pravda [Truth] had no truth in it, and the Izvestia [News]
paper has no news in it. I get the impression that many U.S. media operate in
the same way.”
Russian
Foreign Minister Lavrov. May 2017.
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled
over.
Below, how will central
banksters cutting interest rates help?
Attractions closed and events canceled amid coronavirus outbreak
(CNN)It started with the shuttering of Shanghai Disney Resort, but it wouldn't be long before all
of Asia's Disney-themed parks closed due to coronavirus concerns.
As
the virus spreads around the world, infecting more than 89,000 people globally,
major tourist attractions and events that draw visitors from all over the globe
are feeling its effects.
On
March 1, the Louvre in Paris said it would not
open that day or in the coming days following more than
100 confirmed cases of coronavirus in France. Staff from the world's largest
art museum met with the Exceptional Health, Safety and Working Conditions
Committee on March 2 to discuss reopening.
As
new coronavirus cases are confirmed daily, more closures and cancellations are
expected. For the most up-to-date information on the status of an attraction or
event, check the institution's or event's main web page.
One of South
Korea's most popular tourist attractions, Gyeongbokgung
Palace, has suspended all official guided tours "until
further notice," according to the palace's website. Self-guided tours,
however, are permitted.
In
Milan, where travel in recent days has been restricted, the Milan Duomo
reopened to tourists on March 2 "with programmed and
organized access to avoid crowds of people."
But
the Teatro alla Scala, a
popular opera house in the city, has decided to extend its closure amid
coronavirus concerns.
The
Tokyo Skytree, a popular spot for first-time visitors to Japan's capital city,
closed on March 1, with plans to reopen March 15 "out of
consideration for the health and safety of our guests and associates,"
according to the attraction's website.
When Shanghai
Disney closed on January 24, it did not offer any information on its plans to
reopen. With the number of confirmed coronavirus cases -- and deaths -- higher
in China than anywhere else, it's unclear when Shanghai Disney will resume
operations.
The resort's website states
the theme park is in close contact with health officials and the local
government and will announce the reopening date once they've been advised it's
safe to do so.
Hong
Kong Disneyland is also temporarily closed with no reopening date scheduled, as
is the Ocean Park theme park and aquarium.
Meanwhile, in
Japan, where the outbreak has escalated in recent weeks, both Tokyo
Disneyland and DisneySea are closed and set to reopen March
16, and Universal
Studios has announced it too will close its doors through
March 15.
Disney-themed
parks aren't the only ones impacting tourists' travel plans. In Thailand, major
theme park Legend Siam announced its closure starting March 3 due to a drop
in visitors.
Several museums in
Milan, Venice and other areas in northern Italy were closed temporarily and
will reopen with new safety measures.
The
Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, for example, will limit large group
gatherings and is asking that visitors "respect the
distance of at least one meter between one another."
Museums
around China have been forced to temporarily close their doors due to the
outbreak. In response, China's National Cultural Heritage Administration (NCHA)
has asked them to stay active on social media and offer
their services digitally. These include Beijing's Palace Museum in the
Forbidden City, which has been closed since January 25.
Several
museums in Japan have temporarily shuttered amid the virus outbreak. The Mori
Art Museum, National Museum of Modern Art and the Kyoto National Museum are
among the closures, reports ARTnews.
In
South Korea, the National Museum of Korea and the National Museum of Modern and
Contemporary Art are among the country's national institutions closed until
further notice.
More
Qatar defence exhibition cancelled as coronavirus spreads in Gulf
March 3, 2020 /
9:54 AM
DUBAI (Reuters) - Qatar’s Dimdex defence exhibition due to be held this
month has been cancelled as the coronavirus outbreak spreads throughout the
Gulf and wider Middle East.
There have been at least 1,641 cases of the virus in the Gulf region,
mostly in Iran where 66 people have died.
The March 16-18 Doha International Maritime Defence Exhibition and
Conference (Dimdex) was scheduled to take place at the city’s exhibition centre
DECC.
It was cancelled after consultations with public health officials and
the government, according to a statement on its website.
Qatar’s Health Ministry said on Tuesday it had recorded a new case of
coronavirus, a Qatari national who was among a group evacuated from Iran on
Feb. 27. This brings the number of infections in Qatar to eight.
UK factories feel the effects of coronavirus spread - PMI
March 2, 2020 /
10:14 AM
LONDON (Reuters) -
The global impact of coronavirus is starting to weigh on a post-election
recovery in Britain’s manufacturing sector as factories reported a big jump in
delays in their supply chains, a survey showed on Monday.
The IHS Markit/CIPS purchasing managers’ index (PMI) rose to 51.7 from
the no-change level of 50.0 in January.
That was its highest since April but slightly weaker than February’s
“flash” reading of 51.9.
Rob Dobson, a director at IHS Markit, said Britain’s manufacturers were
still in recovery mode after Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s national election
win in December, which lifted some of the uncertainty hanging over the
country’s economy.
New orders grew at the fastest pace in 11 months and business optimism
hit a nine-month high.
But Dobson pointed to clouds on the horizon from the spreading coronavirus.
“Supply-chain disruptions were emerging rapidly ... as the COVID-19
outbreak led to a substantial lengthening of supplier lead times, raw material
shortages, reduced inventories of inputs, rising input costs and reduced export
orders from Asia and China in particular,” he said.
---- Companies
used up their stocks, which pushed down inventories at the fastest rate in over
seven years while shortages of some raw materials led to price increases, part
of which was passed on to clients.
More
U.S. Airlines Face Test as Epidemic Spreads
Disruptions related to coronavirus threaten a decade of profits at domestic carriers
By Alison Sider Updated March 2, 2020 5:23 pm ET
U.S. airlines retooled their businesses over the past
decade in ways they said would generate profits even during an economic shock.
The coronavirus epidemic rippling
around the world is providing the biggest test yet of those efforts,
grounding hundreds of jets overseas as consumers and businesses scrap travel
plans.The most significant operational impact for U.S. carriers has been mass cancellations into April of flights to and from Asia. American Airlines Group Inc. and Delta Air Lines Inc. suspended flights to Milan after the U.S. State Department issued its highest-level warning against travel there on
Saturday. Delta is also delaying the start of summer flights to Venice by a month.
Now there are mounting signs of softening travel demand in the U.S., as people skip trips and businesses instruct employees to stay put.
American Airlines, JetBlue Airways Corp. and Alaska Air Group Inc. have all suspended flight-change and cancellation fees for a limited period to accommodate travelers anxious about making firm plans. Delta is waiving change fees for international flights booked this month. The fees are one of the airlines’ biggest moneymakers, generating around $700 million a quarter across the U.S. industry last year, according to government figures.
---- The financial toll from the epidemic is already expected to far surpass the $7 billion sales hit to the global airline industry during the SARS outbreak in 2003. Some analysts have estimated $100 billion in lost revenue to airlines and related industries if traffic growth that was already slowing turns negative for the first time in a decade.
“I’ve never seen anything like this. It’s unprecedented,” said John Grant, an analyst at OAG, which publishes airline schedules and data.
More
Foxconn to resume normal production in virus-hit China by end of March
March 3, 2020 /
7:33 AM
TAIPEI
(Reuters) - Apple supplier Foxconn said it would resume normal production in
China by the end of the month and that more than half its seasonal workforce in
the country had restarted work following the coronavirus outbreak.
The Taiwanese firm, which assembles Apple’s iPhones, however, said it
was unable to predict the virus’ actual impact on its full-year results.
“Prevention of outbreak, resumption of work and production are our top
priority,” Chairman Liu Young-Way told an online investor conference on
Tuesday.
The flu-like virus, which originated in China late last year and can be
transmitted from person to person, has spread to more than 60 countries. It has
infected over 86,000 people and killed more than 3,000 people, the majority in
China.
Foxconn is among manufacturers worldwide who are grappling with
virus-related curbs that have upended supply chains and hurt demand. This week,
Hyundai Motor reported its worst monthly sales in a decade after earlier
highlighting problems in parts supply from China.
Apple, Foxconn’s top client, rescinded its March quarter sales guidance
due to a slower-than-expected ramp up of manufacturing sites in China amid
travel restrictions and an extended Lunar New Year break.
But on Tuesday, Young sought to reassure investors and said there were
no big problems with the supply chain and that Foxconn was helping suppliers
resume work.
Foxconn, the world No. 1 contract manufacturer, said late last month
that it had started cautiously restarting production at its main plants in
China but that the epidemic would take a toll on its revenue for the year.
More
Logitech cuts outlook due to coronavirus
By Mauro
Orru Published: Mar 3, 2020 5:34
a.m. ET
Logitech International SA reduced its operating profit outlook for
fiscal 2020 citing supply chain uncertainties because of the coronavirus
epidemic, the Swiss company said on Tuesday.
Lausanne-headquartered Logitech, which is listed on the SIX Swiss
Exchange and on the Nasdaq Global Select Market, said it now expects non-GAAP
operating income--a measure which strips out one-time gains or impairments--for
fiscal 2020 in the range of $365 million to $375 million, down from previous
expectations of between $375 million to $385 million.
"We are encouraged by continued strong demand for our products.
That said, we are slightly adjusting our operating income outlook to account
for supply chain uncertainties related to the trajectory of the
coronavirus," said Bracken Darrell, Logitech president and chief
executive.
Logitech reiterated its sales outlook for the year, expecting mid to
high single-digit growth at constant currency.
The company, which provides software as well as hardware products such
as keyboards and wired headsets, added that it expects non-GAAP operating
income for fiscal 2021 of between $380 million and $400 million, with mid
single-digit sales growth at constant currency.
“It is hard for us, without being flippant, to even
see a scenario within any kind of realm of reason that would see us losing one
dollar in any of those [CDS] transactions.”
Joseph J. Cassano, a former A.I.G. executive,
August 2007, on Credit Default Swaps that wiped out A.I.G in 2008.
Technology Update.
With events happening
fast in the development of solar power and graphene, I’ve added this section.
Updates as they get reported. Is converting sunlight to usable cheap AC or DC
energy mankind’s future from the 21st century onwards?
Atomic vacancy as quantum bit
Date:
March 2, 2020
Source:
University of Würzburg
Summary:
Physicists have experimentally observed spin centers in two-dimensional
materials. Such centers can act as quantum bits -- even at room temperature.
Although boron nitride looks very similar to graphene in structure, it
has completely different optoelectronic properties. Its constituents, the
elements boron and nitrogen, arrange -- like carbon atoms in graphene -- a
honeycomb-like hexagonal structure. They arrange themselves in two-dimensional
layers that are only one atomic layer thick. The individual layers are only
weakly coupled to each other by so-called van der Waals forces and can therefore
be easily separated from each other.
Physicists from Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg (JMU) in
Bavaria, Germany, in cooperation with the Technical University of Sydney in
Australia have now succeeded for the first time in experimentally demonstrating
so-called spin centers in a boron nitride crystal. Professor Vladimir Dyakonov,
holder of the Chair of Experimental Physics VI at the Institute of Physics, and
his team were responsible for this on the JMU side and carried out the crucial
experiments. The results of the work have been published in the scientific
journal Nature Materials.
In the layered crystal lattice of boron nitride the physicists found a
special defect -- a missing boron atom -- which exhibits a magnetic dipole
moment, also known as a spin. Furthermore, it can also absorb and emit light
and is therefore also called color center. To study the magneto-optical
properties of the quantum emitter in detail, JMU scientists have developed a
special experimental technique that uses the combination of a static and a
high-frequency magnetic field.
---- Material design by the Lego brick principle
For the basic scientist, the 2D materials are also exciting from another
point of view. They have very special layer structure, combined with the only weak
bonding of the layers to each other, offers the possibility of constructing
different stacking sequences from different semiconductors. "If you then
place a defect in one of these layers, we call it a spin probe, this can help
to understand the properties of the adjacent layers, but also to change the
physical properties of the entire stack," says Dyakonov.
In a next step, Dyakonov and his colleagues therefore want to produce,
among other things, heterostructures made of multilayer semiconductors with a
boron nitride layer as an intermediate layer. They are convinced: "If the
atomically thin layers of boron nitride, which are 'decorated' with individual
spin centers, can be produced and incorporated into a heterostructure, it will
be possible to design artificial two-dimensional crystals based on Lego brick
principles and investigate their properties."
“When it becomes serious, you have to lie.”
Jean-Claude
Juncker. Failed former Luxembourg P.M., serial liar, ex-president of the
European Commission. Scotch
connoisseur.
The monthly Coppock Indicators finished February
DJIA: 25,409 +75 Down. NASDAQ: 8,567 +171 Up.
SP500: 2,954 +133 Up.
In current circumstances,
this is no time to be blindly following technical signals.
No comments:
Post a Comment