Special Update 7/11/2020 E-Day Plus 4. A New Danish Pandemic?

 Baltic Dry Index. 1196 +02  Brent Crude 39.45

Spot Gold 1951

Covid-19 cases 31/10/20 World 45,701,498

Deaths 1,189,776

Covid-19 cases 07/11/20 World 49,347,642

Deaths 1,244,305

People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war or before an election.

Count Otto von Bismarck

Day four of the great slow motion train wreck, aka the US presidential election.

What we know so far. The pollsters got it wrong. Democrat Socialists Biden Harris were largely repudiated on election day itself, but now appear to be winning by the count of some very suspicious, dubious postal voting.

How fair and transparent postal voting is, no one knows. Did Republican voting counties get treated the same as Democrat voting cities, no one knows.

Was the USPS monitored for fairness in delivering postal votes and in collecting the same, no one knows.

Are Republican and Democrat postal votes counted the same way, no one knows. I could go on, but you get the idea.

However, I suspect that the courts will be very reluctant to get involved. The eventual outcome will probably be President elect Biden in a very suspect election that won’t be overturned.

Why this matters.  Because in Georgia on January 5^th, the voters must decide two Senate runoff elections, where both seat are held by Republicans. If postal voting can turn the seats Democrat, Democrat socialists will control all three branches of government.

In short order a packed Supreme Court. The Electoral College gone. The USA back in the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. Trillions more Magic Money Tree money for left wing causes. Silly Con Valley regulation and taxation. A wobbly Dollar at best.

With the USA staying in NATO, the rump-EU members will go back to freeloading again.

But none of this matters compared to today’s Covid-19 section on Denmark. There a new potential mutated SARS-CoV-2 strain has broken out, with the potential of generating a new but different global pandemic. At the very least, Denmark should be isolated from the rest of the world.

No air links to anywhere for now. No bridge traffic into Sweden. No rail or traffic links to Germany.

Yet none of this is happening as I write. Are we yet again reacting too slowly?

'We're going to win this race': Biden predicts victory as his lead over Trump grows

November 7, 2020 5:58 AM

By Trevor Hunnicutt, Andy Sullivan, Makini Brice

WILMINGTON, Del./WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrat Joe Biden said he was going to win the U.S. presidency as his lead grew over President Donald Trump in battleground states, although television networks held off from declaring him the victor as officials continued to count votes.

“The numbers tell us ... it’s a clear and convincing story: We’re going to win this race,” Biden said late on Friday, adding that he and his running mate Kamala Harris were already meeting with experts as they prepare for the White House.

Americans have been waiting longer than in any presidential election since 2000 to learn the winner, as officials methodically count a record number of mail-in ballots in Tuesday’s contest. The COVID-19 pandemic prompted many to avoid large groups of voters on Election Day.

With thousands of votes still to count, it was not clear when the bitter contest would conclude.

Biden backers danced in Philadelphia’s streets, while armed Trump supporters in Phoenix and Detroit said the election was being stolen, despite any evidence of irregularities. Under the banner of “Stop the Steal,” Trump supporters planned dozens of rallies for Saturday.

Biden’s speech in his home state of Delaware was originally planned as a victory celebration, but he changed his approach in the absence of an official call from television networks and other election forecasters.

Still, it amounted to a blunt challenge to Trump. The Republican incumbent kept out of view in the White House on Friday as Biden’s lead grew in the four states that will decide the outcome: Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada.

More

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-usa-election/were-going-to-win-this-race-biden-predicts-victory-as-his-lead-over-trump-grows-idUKKBN27N08S?il=0

Why the U.S. economy could use a $4.4 trillion rescue package from Washington

Published: Nov. 5, 2020 at 5:49 p.m. ET  By Joy Wiltermuth

Recovery in high-wage jobs is stalling, stoking worries of a double-dip recession

Congress would need to spend about $4.4 trillion to help shore up struggling businesses and households during the pandemic to help stave off a floundering U.S. economic recovery.

That is Torsten Sløk, chief economist at Apollo Global Management, about the size of a hole in the American economy some seven months since the pandemic first gripped the nation, causing businesses to temporarily shutter and upheaval to daily life in a bid to slow its spread.

The Federal Reserve has been doing its part, namely by holding rates near zero and keeping up its purchase of government, mortgage and corporate debt to make sure credit flows, perhaps until an effective vaccine for COVID-19 can be developed and distributed.

But only Congress has the power to put money directly into the pockets of unemployed workers or to rescue individual industries hard-hit by the crisis, a point Fed Chairman Jerome Powell stressed again on Thursday, following a two-day meeting of Fed officials.

And while new U.S. COVID-19 cases soar to daily records and the vote counting for the White House and Senate races draws to a close, Congress might want to consider this chart from Sløk, showing the hole still left in the economy by the virus.

---- The graphic shows how much fiscal aid the U.S. economy likely needs, per Sløk’s estimation, when considering there plunge in gross domestic product and the more than 10 million jobs still lost since the pandemic began.

What’s more, Powell has been focused on recovering lower-wage jobs, including within the devastated restaurant, services and hospitality sectors. But a look at data from this summer also shows a worrisome trend where the return of higher wage jobs has sputtered.

“This gives us some idea,” Sløk said, of the hit to the U.S. economy from the virus and what is needed “if you want to fill that hole,” while speaking at a virtual conference hosted by Princeton University about the U.S. economic and financial markets outlook after the election.

Sløk perhaps is best known for his roughly 15-year stint as Deutsche Bank’s chief economist and for breaking down complex economic trends into visual charts that are easy to digest. He joined Apollo, a global asset management firm, in August.

Despite the postelection rally in riskier assets, Sløk warned that “the economic outlook is still really constrained by what’s going on with the virus.”

More

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-the-u-s-economy-could-use-a-4-4-trillion-rescue-package-from-washington-11604616568?mod=home-page

Finally, so you think Bitcoin is safe?  Think again.

Chainalysis in Action: US Government Agencies Seize More Than $1 Billion in Cryptocurrency Connected to Infamous Darknet Market Silk Road

Published  November 5, 2020

Today, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a civil forfeiture complaint against the largest ever seizure of digital assets: approximately 69,370.22491543 Bitcoin (BTC), 69,370.10730857 Bitcoin Gold (BTG), 69,370.10710518 Bitcoin SV (BSV), and 69,370.12818037 Bitcoin Cash (BCH), collectively worth more than $1 billion USD. Law enforcement agents used Chainalysis tools and investigative assistance to identify the largest cryptocurrency wallets with connections to Silk Road, the first modern darknet market, enabling them to generate this lead from evidence on the blockchain. This Bitcoin was seamlessly transferred to a government-controlled wallet, which, if forfeited, will be moved to the Treasury Forfeiture Fund (TFF). The TFF finances innovative law enforcement programs, like blockchain analysis tools and training, which will help agents identify and seize more illicit funds. 

Earlier this year, law enforcement agencies filed similar civil forfeiture actions against cryptoassets related to terrorism financing and North Korean hacking activities with the help of Chainalysis tools and investigative assistance. 

On November 3, the Twitter bot @Whale_alert flagged a large transaction of 69,369 BTC, leading many to speculate whether the long-dormant wallet connected to Silk Road had been hacked or if the owner executed the transaction.  In fact, this was law enforcement’s seizure of the funds as they moved the Bitcoin to the government-controlled wallet. This wallet is now labeled in Chainalysis products as “Silk Road Marketplace Seized Funds 2020-11-03.”

Background on Silk Road

Silk Road was the first major digital darknet market where illicit goods and services, including illegal drugs, were bought and sold by the site’s users. In 2013, law enforcement shut Silk Road down and arrested its owner and operator, Ross Ulbricht, who was also known as “Dread Pirate Roberts.” 

According to Chainalysis data, Silk Road accounted for nearly 20% of total Bitcoin economic activity at its peak in 2013. Silk Road’s economic activity reached $435 million total (calculated based on the price of Bitcoin at the time) with a peak of just under $40 million in monthly volume in September of 2013.

How Law Enforcement Identified and Seized the Funds

Earlier this year, IRS-CI agents used Chainalysis to analyze bitcoin transactions executed by Silk Road and identified 54 previously undetected bitcoin transactions representing the proceeds of unlawful activity. They also found that a hacker, known as Individual X, stole those funds from Silk Road. 

More

https://blog.chainalysis.com/reports/silk-road-doj-seizure-november-2020

Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you.

Joseph Heller, Catch-22

Covid-19 Corner                    

This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.

Denmark finds covid strain that might hamper vaccine effort

Morten Buttler, Bloomberg Nov. 4, 2020 Updated: Nov. 4, 2020 10:39 a.m.

Denmark says it's found a new strain of covid-19 that might hamper efforts to develop a vaccine, after an outbreak in the country's mink population triggered a mutation of the virus.

Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen told reporters that, because of developments in Denmark, there is now "a risk that the effect of a future vaccine will be weakened or, in a worst case scenario, be undermined," during a virtual press briefing on Wednesday.

Her government has passed on the information to the World Health Organization, and now plans to cull Denmark's entire mink population. According to Kopenhagen Fur, an auction house owned by Denmark's mink breeders, some 16 million animals are raised each year.

As the new coronavirus has spread from person to person, it has changed thousands of times. The vast majority of these changes are incremental, without what's known as a functionally significant mutation, though there's been previous debate over research showing that it may have evolved to become more contagious.

The mutation of the virus that's now been identified in Denmark "can have serious negative consequences for the global handling of the pandemic," Frederiksen said. There are 12 known cases in which humans have contracted the new form of the virus from mink, she said.

Denmark has already culled thousands of mink in recent months due to outbreaks of the virus. According to Wednesday's briefing, cases of Covid-19 were found in 217 out of 1,139 Danish mink farms.

Speaking at the same briefing, Kare Molbak, Denmark's top epidemiologist, said that in a "worst-case scenario, the pandemic will restart, this time in Denmark." He said the WHO would have to make the final call on whether the mutation found in Danish mink farms warrants a new classification.

More

https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Denmark-finds-covid-strain-that-might-hamper-15701598.php

Covid Outbreak in Mink That Was Dismissed Now Has World Worried

By Tim Loh and Morten Buttler

November 7, 2020, 5:00 AM GMT

Denmark moves to cull 17 million animals after outbreak

Mink-related strain of virus detected in more than 200 people

Back in September, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen laughed off a reporter’s question about coronavirus infections in mink farms.

Fast-forward to November, and Frederiksen’s stance has radically changed. She’s announced plans to kill Denmark’s entire mink population -- which, at 17 million, outnumbers humans in the country by a factor of three. The news has caught the attention of health officials across the world after Frederiksen warned that certain strains of the coronavirus -- having apparently jumped from mink back into humans -- developed mutations that could undermine the efficacy of any vaccines.

Scientists reacted with plenty of head scratching at first, along with calls to see some supporting evidence from the Danes backing drastic measures that will cripple the country’s fur industry. On Friday, officials said they’d shared the entire genome sequence of at least one mink-related strain of the coronavirus. That was enough to convince some outside researchers that Frederiksen wasn’t overreacting.

“It would be nice if it could be confirmed first in another laboratory,” Eskild Petersen, an infectious diseases professor at Aarhus University in Denmark, said in an interview. “But this is an evolving public health emergency. You have to act, and that’s what the government has done.”

In total, Danish officials have detected 214 cases of people infected with a mink-related strain of the virus. That’s after scientists completely sequenced a pool of 5,000 Danish patient samples from recent months. Officials expect confirmed linked to the outbreak in the animals to rise in coming weeks as they fully analyze more than 30,000 other samples from that period.

The mink-related virus strains fit in five different clusters, Danish authorities said. Within those groups, seven different mutations have occurred to the virus’s spike protein, the portion that sticks out of the pathogen’s shell and allows it to infect healthy host cells. That’s significant because most of the leading Covid vaccine candidates target the coronavirus’s spike. The aim is to induce the body to raise protective antibodies against the spike that block infection.

One mink-related strain of the coronavirus has four different alterations in the spike protein genes, officials said. That virus was detected on five different mink farms in Denmark’s north and in the samples of 12 people, only four of whom were directly connected with a farm, authorities said. That’s one reason to believe that some mink-related virus strains are transmitting from people to people, the officials said.

The decision to kill all of Denmark’s mink has been a long time coming. In June, Denmark registered the first case of coronavirus at a farm where the animals are raised, in the country’s northwestern region. Early tests suggested that humans and animals were spreading the virus to each other. The virus initially spread to two other farms and herds at all three were culled.

More

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-07/covid-outbreak-in-mink-that-was-dismissed-now-has-world-worried?srnd=premium-europe

U.S. daily coronavirus cases exceed 129,000, third day over 100,000

November 7, 2020 4:23 AM  By Anurag Maan

(Reuters) - U.S. coronavirus infections surged by at least 129,606 on Friday, according to a Reuters tally, the third consecutive daily rise of more than 100,000 cases as a third wave of COVID-19 sweeps the United States.

In the midst of the presidential election, the spike marks the fourth time that more than 100,000 cases of the new coronavirus have been reported in the world’s worst-hit country, which is reporting about 95,000 daily cases on a seven-day average.

Twenty of the 50 states reported record increases on Friday, the same as Thursday when the national daily total crossed 120,000 for the first time.

The Midwest remains the hardest-hit region based on daily new cases per capita.

Illinois, marking the highest total, reported more than 10,000 daily cases for the first time, while record increases were reported in Indiana, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio and Wisconsin.

Also setting daily records were Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Maine, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.

More

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-usa-records/u-s-daily-coronavirus-cases-exceed-129000-third-day-over-100000-idUKKBN27N06G?il=0

Aspirin to be tested as potential COVID-19 drug in UK study

November 6, 2020 11:03 AM

(Reuters) - Aspirin, a drug commonly used as a blood thinner, will now be evaluated as a possible treatment for COVID-19 in one of UK’s biggest trials looking into a range of potential treatments for the illness.

Patients infected by the novel coronavirus are at a higher risk of blood clots because of hyper-reactive platelets, the cell fragments that help stop bleeding. Aspirin is an antiplatelet agent and can reduce the risk of clots, the RECOVERY trial’s website said on Friday.

"There is a clear rationale for believing that it (aspirin) might be beneficial, and it is safe, inexpensive and widely available," said Peter Horby, co-chief investigator of the trial. (bit.ly/3mVr56o)

At least 2,000 patients are expected to randomly get 150 mg of aspirin daily along with the usual regimen. Data from those patients will be compared with at least 2,000 other patients who receive the standard-of-care on its own, the website showed.

Other treatments being tested in the RECOVERY trial include common antibiotic azithromycin and Regeneron's REGN.O antibody cocktail that was used to treat U.S. President Donald Trump's COVID-19 symptoms.

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-recovery-aspirin/aspirin-to-be-tested-as-potential-covid-19-drug-in-uk-study-idUKKBN27M1C2?il=0

Next, some very useful vaccine links kindly sent along from a LIR reader in Canada. The links come from a most informative update from Stanford Hospital in California.

World Health Organization - Landscape of COVID-19 candidate vaccines. https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/draft-landscape-of-covid-19-candidate-vaccines

NY Times Coronavirus Vaccine Tracker. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/science/coronavirus-vaccine-tracker.html

Stanford Website. https://racetoacure.stanford.edu/clinical-trials/132

FDA information. https://www.fda.gov/media/139638/download

Regulatory Focus COVID-19 vaccine tracker. https://www.raps.org/news-and-articles/news-articles/2020/3/covid-19-vaccine-tracker

Some more useful Covid links.

Johns Hopkins Coronavirus resource centre

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

Rt Covid-19

https://rt.live/

Covid19info.live

https://wuflu.live/

I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this – who will count the votes, and how.

Joseph Stalin

Winter Watch.

The Arctic winter sea-ice expansion and northern hemisphere snow cover. From around mid-October, the northern hemisphere snow cover usually rapidly expands, while the Arctic ice gradually expands back towards its winter maximum.

Over simplified, a rapid expansion of both, especially if early, can be a sign of a harsher than normal arriving northern hemisphere winter. Perhaps more so in 2020-2021 as we’re in the low of the ending sunspot cycle, which possibly also influenced this year’s record Atlantic hurricane season.

Adding to this year’s winter concerns, a developing La Nina weather pattern in the Pacific. While the La Nina effect on the winter weather of western Europe is weaker than that of an El Nino pattern, which tends to make for a milder winter, a La Nina pattern tends to make for a colder winter.

The early take, Eur-Asia turned snowy fast in mid-October.  The Arctic sea ice expansion was slow, and from a very low level at the end of September, but with the vastly expanded snow cover, sea ice formation will probably now speed up. Which now seems to be happening in the Kara and Laptev Seas.

It is still too early to suggest a mild western European winter ahead, but it is the way I was leaning given the slowish recovery of the Arctic sea ice. But with the Kara and Laptev sea ice speeding up fast now, in the first week of November, I’m starting to think that might be wrong.

After a record breaking, or near record breaking hot summer across much of northern Eur-Asia, both seas might just have needed a little longer to get into winter mode.

US National Ice Center.

https://www.natice.noaa.gov/ims/

This weekend’s musical diversion.  Rameau, but arranged as never before.

J.-PH. RAMEAU: «Les sauvages» [arr. Y. Rechsteiner], Ensemble Les Surprises

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bt2l0QZkeE

Jean-Philippe Rameau

Jean-Philippe Rameau (French: [ʒɑ̃filip ʁamo]; 25 September 1683 – 12 September 1764) was one of the most important French composers and music theorists of the 18th century.^[1] He replaced Jean-Baptiste Lully as the dominant composer of French opera and is also considered the leading French composer for the harpsichord of his time, alongside François Couperin.^[2]

More

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Philippe_Rameau

This weekend’s great chess game.

Stafford Gambit Accepted

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcE_gqKJD6U

Domino computers. Make your own, if you’ve got the patience. Me, I’d rather watch snails race.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNuPy-r1GuQ

To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who most want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it.
To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.”

Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe