Baltic Dry Index. 604 -12 Brent Crude 34.04 Spot Gold 1658
Coronavirus Cases 07/4/20
World 1,349,058 Deaths 74,985
“I will tell you the secret to
getting rich on Wall Street. You try to be greedy when others are fearful. And
you try to be fearful when others are greedy.”
Are we, have we,
turned the corner in new Covid-19 infections? Wall Street seems to think so,
given yesterday’s aggressive short covering rally.
I hope so, and the
articles below are encouraging, but not conclusive. The “levelling off” might
just be the drop off in weekend number reporting, or a warmer weather effect, or
both, but hopefully also the effect of social distancing, all the lockdowns,
and the extra hand washing.
Below, for once we
can open with some good news.
Outbreak shows signs of leveling off in New York, New Jersey, but vigilance urged
April 6, 2020 /
2:28 PM / Updated 2 hours ago
NEW YORK (Reuters)
- The governors of New York, New Jersey and Louisiana pointed to tentative
signs on Monday that the coronavirus outbreak may be starting to plateau in
their states but warned against complacency as the death toll nationwide
approached 11,000.
Although coronavirus cases and deaths continued to mount, the governors
cited data suggesting the rates of growth and hospitalizations were slowing,
possibly signaling a peak was at hand in three U.S. epicenters of the pandemic.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said statewide deaths from COVID-19, the
highly contagious respiratory illness caused by the virus, were up 599 from
Sunday, on par with an increase of 594 during the previous 24 hours and 630 on
Friday.
The state’s overall tally of confirmed cases grew by 7% from the
previous day to 130,680. But hospitalizations, admissions to intensive care
units and the number of patients put on ventilator machines to keep them
breathing had all declined, Cuomo said.
“While none of this is good news, the possible flattening of the curve
is better than the increases that we have seen,” Cuomo told a daily briefing,
referring to the trend line formed when infections, deaths and other data are
plotted on a graph. “If we are plateauing, we are plateauing at a high level.”
For doctors, nurses and emergency personnel in the trenches of the unprecedented
public health crisis - many still coping with scarcities of protective garments
and other supplies - the pace of their work remained unrelenting.
“Yesterday, I worked 16 hours and I had 13 cardiac arrests, and that’s a
lot of death,” New York Fire Department Lieutenant Anthony Almojera, a
paramedic, told Reuters on Monday. “I don’t know if any of us would ever be the
same after this.”
New York City accounts for two thirds of nearly 4,800 deaths in New York
state, which in turn represents about 45% of the nation’s total loss of life to
date.
In neighboring New Jersey, the state with the second-highest number of
cases and deaths, Governor Phil Murphy cited a 12% day-to-day growth rate in
confirmed positive cases on Monday, half the rate from March 30.
More
Italy starts to look ahead to 'phase two' as COVID-19 death toll slows
April 5, 2020 /
1:09 PM
MILAN (Reuters) -
Italy reported its lowest daily COVID-19 death toll for more than two weeks on
Sunday as authorities began to look ahead to a second phase of the battle
against the new coronavirus once the lockdown imposed almost a month ago is
eventually eased.
The toll from the world’s deadliest outbreak reached 15,887, almost a
quarter of the global death total, but the rise of 525 from a day earlier was
the smallest daily increase since March 19, while the number of patients in
badly stretched intensive care units fell for a second day running.
“The curve has reached a plateau and begun to descend,” said Silvio
Brusaferro, head of the Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Italy’s top health
institute. “It is a result that we have to achieve day after day.”
“If this is confirmed, we need to start thinking about the second phase
and keep down the spread of this disease.”
The total number of confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus rose by
4,316 to 128,948, the lowest increase in five days, which added to signs the
epidemic has reached a plateau, about six weeks after it broke out in northern
Italy on Feb. 21.
Sunday’s figures added to growing signs the tough restrictions on
movement and public gatherings imposed across the country on March 9 were
having an effect in containing the epidemic, but officials have been desperate
to avoid a letup.
More
Australian government's coronavirus modelling shows 'we are flattening the curve'
7 April, 2020
Australia's Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy says the federal
government's coronavirus modelling shows social distancing and hygiene measures
are "flattening the curve".
"The early indications are positive, but we can't be complacent. We
must not be complacent, we must hold the line," he said.
He says the measures of social distancing and hygiene will remain after
the pandemic.
"We're not starting to see the true impact of the wonderful impact
of the uptake of social distancing and hygiene measures. Some of these will
stay with us forever."
He said herd immunity - where a large portion of the population is
immune to a disease - is not something health officials are working towards as
a goal at the moment.
"We are [not] pursuing a path of herd immunity. We're pursuing a
path of control and suppression," he said saying there are no examples of
communities in the world that "has very high immunity as of yet".
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the modelling data to be released
later today is highly theoretical, and does not predict what will happen with
cases in Australia.
"You will have what we have... it is the full complement of what we
have available to us," he told reporters in Canberra.
"It does not predict what will happen in Australia...it does not
tell you how many will succumb to the virus, or how long it [the pandemic] will
last in the country.
"...It proves up the theory of flattening the curve."
Mr Murphy says the national cabinet - of state and territory leaders -
will be presented with various scenarios of how this pandemic will unfold,
including keeping the borders closed until a vaccine is formulated.
---- The prime minister confirmed that a mandatory code of conduct for commercial tenancies will be legislated across all states and territories.
Under the measures, small businesses shut down because of coronavirus
will soon have their rent reduced in line with their revenue falls.
It does not apply to residential tenants.
More
Czechs to start easing restrictions as coronavirus infections slow
April 6, 2020 /
1:42 PM
The country was among the first in Europe to declare a state of
emergency in March, imposing some of the strictest curbs on public life to
prevent the spread of the coronavirus when the proven number of cases was still
below 200.
Data for the past few days have shown a single-digit percentage daily
rise in new cases, to 4,735 on Monday.
Industry Minister Karel Havlicek said that as of Thursday, the
government would allow reopening of shops selling hobby goods and building
materials, and also relax rules on open-air sports activities where people do
not congregate, such as running and cycling. More shops may be opened after the
Easter weekend.
Strict hygiene rules will apply, such as distances between customers,
disinfection requirements and health checks on staff, Health Minister Adam
Vojtech said earlier on Monday.
“We are clearly saying now that we are able to relatively well manage
the pandemic here, it is not the pandemic managing us,” Vojtech told a news
conference.
“We are not facing massive increases in the numbers of patients -
identified or hospitalised.”
The government also approved, as of April 14, easing restrictions on
leaving the country, currently permitted only for commuting workers. People
will have to present “reasonable grounds” to go, and observe two-week
quarantine upon return.
Neigbouring Austria also outlined plans to ease some restrictions, and
Germany has prepared list of measures which may allow a phased return to normal
life after April 19..
More
Now back to the new
harsh reality of our much altered world.
Investors should prepare for a coronavirus-induced ‘vicious spiral’ more than twice as bad as the financial crisis, says J.P. Morgan
Published: April 6, 2020 at 11:25 a.m. ET
There is a widespread view on Wall Street that the stock
market hit its lowest level of the bear market last month, and that a
combination of an ebbing of the coronavirus in late spring and unprecedented
fiscal and monetary stimulus will set the stage for a sharp rebound in corporate
profits later this year.On Monday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +7.73%, the S&P 500 index SPX, +7.03% and the Nasdaq Composite Index COMP, +7.32% were each rallying more than 4% on these hopes.
However, Mislav Matejka, head of global equity strategy at J.P. Morgan warned investors in a Monday research note that there is a significant chance the global economy experiences “a vicious spiral, which is typical of recessions, between weak final demand, weaker labor markets, falling profits, weak credits markets and low oil prices.”
What’s particularly troubling to Matejka is that the current recession has been triggered by a shock to the consumer — which makes up 70% of GDP in Western economies — as workers around the globe are prevented from earning a living by the closures of nonessential business. This dynamic has led J.P. Morgan economists to predict “only a gradual bottoming out in activity, such as seen after the Great Financial Crisis, and not a V-shaped one that we see, for example, after natural disasters.” A so-called V-shaped economic recession is typically defined as one characterized by a sharp, but brief, slowdown in business activity that is followed by a powerful rebound.
The bank’s house view is that the unemployment rate will remain elevated at 8.5% during the second of the year, while the peak-to-trough decline in real U.S. GDP will be 10%, versus the 4% decline during the financial crisis. “And this is all assuming that the virus is history by June, which might prove significantly optimistic,” Matejka wrote.
Therefore, he advised clients to ignore technical signals indicating stocks are oversold, or to be reassured by the massive fiscal and monetary support provided by global governments. To do so would be “missing the elephant in the room, that is the first consumer and labor market downcycle in 11 years.”
“While consensus view still appears to be a quick recovery, recessions tend to linger,” Matejka added. “It took equities on average 18 months to record the final low in the past.”
Economic data thus far show the beginnings of a negative feedback loop, he argued, where lower consumer spending leads to lower corporate profits, lower corporate investment, more job losses and further declines in consumer spending. This cycle can continue even when the reason for initial weakness has been removed, he said.
More
Opinion: Global Trade Is in Sharp Decline. Open Supply Lines Will Be Vital to Fighting the Pandemic.
Published: April 6, 2020 at 5:00 a.m. ET
The Covid-19 pandemic has, in the space of weeks, sent a
steady if unspectacular global economy into a tailspin, delivering new misery
and anxiety to millions of people already fearful for the health and safety of
their loved ones. Complex supply chains have been disrupted by widespread factory closures and problems moving components through ports and across borders. Emergency social distancing measures have sharply reduced demand, as people stay home and cancel spending, while nonessential businesses close their doors.
In the United States, we are already seeing job losses more severe than those at the peak of the global financial crisis of 2008-09. Incomes are drying up for vulnerable workers in developing countries with weak social safety nets.
Wall Street projections for the ongoing fall in economic output range from dismal to alarming. A few days from now, the World Trade Organization will release its trade forecast for the year. It is probable that even in the best-case scenario, trade will decline more sharply than it did in 2009, when trade volumes contracted by 12%.
Governments have already unveiled fiscal and monetary stimulus to counter the economic effects of the pandemic—and to prevent the sudden blow to businesses and households from becoming a new banking crisis. G20 governments have extended trillions of dollars worth of support to shore up consumers, hospitals, workers, and businesses of all sizes. Central banks across the globe have slashed interest rates and made vast amounts of liquidity available to banks so they can continue lending.
A rare segment of the economy in which demand is rising is medical goods and services. Governments and companies are working to ramp up production for everything from masks and other personal protective equipment to ventilators, test kits, medicines, and—soon, we hope, treatments and vaccines.
On the trade-policy front, WTO members including the United States, China, Colombia, Canada, and Brazil have introduced dozens of measures to facilitate trade in Covid-related medical products, cutting import duties, curbing customs-clearance burdens and paring back red tape in licensing and approval. Such actions help make these goods more affordable for domestic consumers.
On the other hand, other measures—including by some of the same countries—will slow trade, notably export restrictions that governments have introduced on drugs, protective gear, and ventilators in an attempt to bolster domestic availability. WTO rules allow for such restrictions in the event of shortages or health threats. But restricting exports from potential suppliers can disrupt supply chains and cause serious problems in the poorer and more vulnerable countries that typically rely heavily on imports for medical equipment. That’s why it was important when leaders from the G20 major economies agreed last week that pandemic-related trade measures should be “targeted, proportionate, transparent, and temporary.”
The fact is that trade will have to be part of any rapid, cost-effective supply response to the Covid-19 epidemic. Research by WTO economists indicates that the existing trade in medical products crucial for treating COVID-19 is substantial: In 2019, countries traded $597 billion worth of products like face masks and gloves, hand soap and sanitizer, protective gear, oxygen masks, ventilators, and pulse oximeters.
As the world tries to ramp up the production of medical supplies, building on existing cross-border production and distribution networks makes sense. We want ventilator manufacturers to be focusing on making as many as they can, not figuring out how to source components domestically, or wondering whether imported parts will get stuck at the border. We want to get medical personnel as much protective gear as they need as soon as possible—where it comes from is beside the point.
More
Ships Are Moving, but Exhausted Sailors Are Stuck at Sea Under Coronavirus Restrictions
Travel restrictions and tight virus controls leave thousands of weary seafarers at sea, fearing they might get infected
Costas Paris April 5, 2020 7:00 am ET
Oceangoing shipping companies, already hit by crumbling demand and
fractured supply chains from the coronavirus pandemic, are facing another
problem on their vessels.
Thousands of seafarers can’t travel to man ships, leaving growing
numbers of crews around the world exhausted and facing illness at sea.
Replacing crews is a complicated operation that involves flying a total
of more than 100,000 sailors industrywide around the world every month to
connect with ships at far-flung ports. The seafarers often replace crew members
who have been at sea for months at a time, with occasional brief breaks on land
while containers, iron ore, grains and other goods are loaded and unloaded.
But the widespread travel restrictions countries have imposed to rein
back the spread of the coronavirus have made such movement nearly impossible.
“I was supposed to be in Singapore 20 days ago for a three-month journey
on a German tanker,” said Alejo Ocampo, a first mechanic from the Philippines
who is stuck at his home on Luzon island. “I’ve got a family of seven and I’ve
run out of money.”
About a quarter of the world’s 1.6 million seafarers are from the
Philippines. Other countries such as China, Vietnam, India and Myanmar also
have thousands of seafarers.
Operators of container ships, tankers and bulk vessels have been pushing
back crew changes since February, when the epidemic engulfed China and dozens
of ships were stuck in the waters off ports such as Shanghai and Ningbo, China.
The
virus has spread on the idled vessels, and shipping executives fear hundreds of
sailors may have been infected. Ship captains are waiting for guidance on what
to do with their sick crew members. There have been no reports sailors at sea
have died of Covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.
“There are currently 1.2 million seafarers out at sea,” said Guy
Platten, secretary-general of the International Chamber of Shipping, a body
representing national maritime associations. “Limitations on crew change have
the potential to cause serious disruption to the flow of trade.”
Mr. Platten said several big operators have suspended crew changes
through the middle of April.
More
'Escape from Tokyo' hot topic in Japan as state of emergency looms
April 7, 2020 /
5:03 AM
TOKYO (Reuters) -
With just hours left on Tuesday before Japan imposes a state of emergency on
Tokyo and six other prefectures to contain the coronavirus, the idea of leaving
the capital, or “Escape from Tokyo,” swirled on social media.
Though Japan’s outbreak remains small compared with some overseas, alarm
over the steady rise of cases in Tokyo to more than 1,000 - roughly a quarter
of the country’s total - along with an increase in other urban centres, is
prompting the state of emergency, which will last until May 6 and call on
people to stay home and businesses to close.
Karuizawa, a mountainous area long known as a fashionable weekend
retreat, has already seen a rise in cars with Tokyo-area number plates,
according to local media, particularly on the two weekends since Tokyo’s
governor asked people to stay home.
Officials have warned against leaving, saying it could burden
already-strained local medical systems.
“That will just scatter it (the virus) everywhere,” said Nobuhiko Okabe,
member of a government panel of coronavirus experts, told reporters on Tuesday.
“I call on people to endure inconvenience. We should not be hasty about
leaving.”
Several of Japan’s 47 prefectures have not reported a single case. One,
the northeastern prefecture of Iwate, asked last week that anybody from Tokyo
or two surrounding prefectures self-quarantine for two weeks.
The hashtag “Escape from Tokyo” was one of the top trending Twitter
topics on Tuesday morning, with most commenters urging people in Tokyo and
other big cities to stay put.
“I understand your feelings, but please exercise restraint,” wrote
“Hayato,” from central and largely rural Yamanashi prefecture. “Your actions
could, in a worst-case scenario, cause the death of scores, maybe even
hundreds.”
More
As the depths of Spain’s pandemic period appear to pass, fear emerges that the ensuing economic downturn will be nearly as traumatic
Published: April
6, 2020 at 8:42 p.m. ET
MADRID — Over the weekend, more than 2,100 people died in Spain as a
result of the coronavirus, yet here we are, allowing ourselves to feel hopeful.
The neighbors looked weary Monday evening but clapped and cheered
enthusiastically from their Madrid balconies. The weekend’s tally — tabulating
the lives lost between midmorning Friday and midmorning Monday — was lower than
the previous weekend’s death toll of 2,500.
Recuperations are rising, and the number of those requiring intensive
care is stabilizing, a trend that overwhelmed hospitals here have desperately
needed to see materialize.
A doctor at Hospital Clínico San Carlos in Madrid sent this tweet on
Sunday, celebrating an empty emergency-room waiting area for the first time
since the pandemic reached this hard-hit capital. “Yes, I’m crying. We are
close ... we can do it,” reads his tweet.
Even Wall Street saw fit to rally on Monday, inspired by signs that Spain and Italy could be “bending the curve” of what had been an unrelentingly upward trajectory of new cases. But getting to this moment, after Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez warned two-plus weeks ago that the “worst” was yet to come, has been soul-destroying. Since his March 21 address to the nation, the death toll has climbed tenfold from 1,300 to 13,055.
How does the brain even take in, let alone process, the constant bad news? Many in the U.S. are likely asking themselves the same thing after the U.S. surgeon general on Sunday spoke of the “hardest and saddest week” that lay ahead. Scenes of ambulances lining up outside of hospitals, of makeshift morgues and of exhausted medical personnel are something New York and other cities are growing grimly familiar with.
And while Spanish and Italian citizens are locked down tight, some anecdotes from the U.S. are worrying. This reporter’s sister was laughed at for wearing a mask at a Midwest grocery store where no one was respecting social-distancing standards — even as infections have cropped up in that town.
Talk of a possible peak for New York, the epicenter of the U.S. outbreak, is encouraging, but that’s just one locale in an enormous country with varying commitments to the notion of staying at home to slow the spread.
More
Finally, thanks largely to the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation, some Covid-19 stats generally correct.
COVID-19 projections assuming full social distancing through May 2020
Last updated April 6, 2020.
“But land is land, and it's safer than the stocks and bonds of
Wall Street swindlers.”
Long
Day's Journey into Night
Crooks and Scoundrels Corner
The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled over.
Hmm?
China sees rises in new coronavirus cases, asymptomatic patients
April 6, 2020 /
1:56 AM
BEIJING (Reuters) - Mainland China reported 39 new coronavirus cases as
of Sunday, up from 30 a day earlier, and the number of asymptomatic cases also
surged, as Beijing continued to struggle to extinguish the outbreak despite
drastic containment efforts.
The National Health Commission said in a statement on Monday that 78 new
asymptomatic cases had been identified as of the end of the day on Sunday,
compared with 47 the day before.
Imported cases and asymptomatic patients, who have the virus and can
give it to others but show no symptoms, have become China’s chief concern in
recent weeks after draconian containment measures succeeded in slashing the
infection rate.
Of the new cases showing symptoms, 38 were people who had entered China
from abroad, compared with 25 a day earlier. One new locally transmitted
infection was reported, in the southern province of Guangdong, down from five a
day earlier in the same province.
The new locally transmitted case, in the city of Shenzhen, was a person
who had travelled from Hubei province, the original epicentre of the outbreak,
Guangdong provincial authorities said.
The Guangdong health commission raised the risk level for a total of
four districts in the cities of Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Jieyang from low to
medium late on Sunday.
Mainland China has now reported a total of 81,708 cases, with 3,331
deaths.
Daily infections have fallen dramatically from the peak of the epidemic
in February, when hundreds were reported daily, but new infections continue to
appear daily.
The country has closed off its borders to foreigners as the virus
spreads globally, though most imported cases involve Chinese nationals
returning from overseas.
The central government also has pushed local authorities to identify and
isolate the asymptomatic patients.
“Sometimes your best
investments are the ones you don't make."
Donald Trump
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.
New mathematical model can more effectively track epidemics
Date:
March 25, 2020
Source:
Princeton University, Engineering School
Summary:
As COVID-19 spreads worldwide, leaders are relying on mathematical models to
make public health and economic decisions. A new model improves tracking of
epidemics by accounting for mutations in diseases. Now, the researchers are
working to apply their model to allow leaders to evaluate the effects of
countermeasures to epidemics before they deploy them.
As COVID-19 spreads worldwide, leaders are relying on mathematical
models to make public health and economic decisions.
A new model developed by Princeton and Carnegie Mellon researchers
improves tracking of epidemics by accounting for mutations in diseases. Now,
the researchers are working to apply their model to allow leaders to evaluate
the effects of countermeasures to epidemics before they deploy them.
"We want to be able to consider interventions like quarantines,
isolating people, etc., and then see how they affect an epidemic's spread when
the pathogen is mutating as it spreads," said H. Vincent Poor, one of the
researchers on this study and Princeton's interim dean of engineering.
The models currently used to track epidemics use data from doctors and
health workers to make predictions about a disease's progression. Poor, the
Michael Henry Strater University Professor of Electrical Engineering, said the
model most widely used today is not designed to account for changes in the
disease being tracked. This inability to account for changes in the disease can
make it more difficult for leaders to counter a disease's spread. Knowing how a
mutation could affect transmission or virulence could help leaders decide when
to institute isolation orders or dispatch additional resources to an area.
"In reality, these are physical things, but in this model, they are
abstracted into parameters that can help us more easily understand the effects
of policies and of mutations," Poor said.
If the researchers can correctly account for measures to counter the
spread of disease, they could give leaders critical insights into the best
steps they could take in the face of pandemics. The researchers are building on
work published March 17 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences. In that article, they describe how their model is able to track
changes in epidemic spread caused by mutation of a disease organism. The
researchers are now working to adapt the model to account for public health
measures taken to stem an epidemic as well.
The researchers' work stems from their examination of the movement of
information through social networks, which has remarkable similarities to the
spread of biological infections. Notably, the spread of information is affected
by slight changes in the information itself. If something becomes slightly more
exciting to recipients, for example, they might be more likely to pass it along
or to pass it along to a wider group of people. By modeling such variations,
one can see how changes in the message change its target audience.
"The spread of a rumor or of information through a network is very
similar to the spread of a virus through a population," Poor said.
"Different pieces of information have different transmission rates. Our
model allows us to consider changes to information as it spreads through the
network and how those changes affect the spread."
"Our model is agnostic with regard to the physical network of
connectivity among individuals," said Poor, an expert in the field of
information theory whose work has helped establish modern cellphone networks.
"The information is being abstracted into graphs of connected nodes; the
nodes might be information sources or they might be potential sources of
infection."
Obtaining accurate information is extremely difficult during an ongoing
pandemic when circumstances shift daily, as we have seen with the COVID-19
virus. "It's like a wildfire. You can't always wait until you collect data
to make decisions -- having a model can help fill this void," Poor said.
"Hopefully, this model could give leaders another tool to better
understand the reasons why, for example, the COVID-19 virus is spreading so
much more rapidly than predicted, and thereby help them deploy more effective
and timely countermeasures," Poor said.
"The
United States have developed a new weapon that destroys people but it leaves
buildings standing. It's called the stock market."
Jay Leno.
The Monthly Coppock Indicators finished March
DJIA: 21,917 +45 Down. NASDAQ: 7,700 +149 Down.
SP500: 2,585 +38 Down.
The NASDAQ and S&P have
joined the DJIA in down. All three monthly slow indexes have collapsed.
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