Thursday 11 March 2021

US Hits Ruinous Trifecta! Pandemic 1Year Old.

 Baltic Dry Index. 1980 +79 Brent Crude 68.36

Spot Gold 1734

Coronavirus Cases 02/04/20 World 1,000,000

Deaths 53,100

Coronavirus Cases 11/03/21 World 118,638,190

Deaths 2,632,074

11 March 2020 An Unhappy Anniversary.

Good afternoon.

In the past two weeks, the number of cases of COVID-19 outside China has increased 13-fold, and the number of affected countries has tripled.  

There are now more than 118,000 cases in 114 countries, and 4,291 people have lost their lives. 

Thousands more are fighting for their lives in hospitals.

In the days and weeks ahead, we expect to see the number of cases, the number of deaths, and the number of affected countries climb even higher.

WHO has been assessing this outbreak around the clock and we are deeply concerned both by the alarming levels of spread and severity, and by the alarming levels of inaction.

We have therefore made the assessment that COVID-19 can be characterized as a pandemic. 

https://www.who.int/director-general/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-opening-remarks-at-the-media-briefing-on-covid-19---11-march-2020 

As usual, in the casinos today, everyone is front running the unprecedented next USA recovery program, whose 1,400 dollar cheques will reportedly be with most Americans by month end.

Needless to say, Magic Money Tree money for all, dosen’t exactly reach all equally, as we will see below.

While the gamblers and speculators in the casino salivate over their anticipated coming new wealth from all the helicopter money, I have my doubts that this latest sugar rush will last for very long. See the first article in the Covid section.

I also wonder how long before everyone’s back begging for more free wealth? 

How long before we have too much free money, chasing supply chain restricted or disrupted goods?  

How long before serious food inflation hits even assuming no futher weather disruption in 2021.

How long do we have before the breakdown of the fiat currency system and social disorder?

Asian stocks rally after Dow hits record as inflation worries ease

March 10, 2021

(Bloomberg) -- Warren Buffett has been a fixture at the top of the world’s wealth rankings for decades, but in recent years he’s slipped down the list as tech fortunes soared and his hot hand cooled.

Now, at 90, his net worth has blown past $100 billion.

The Berkshire Hathaway Inc. chairman’s wealth jumped on Wednesday to $100.4 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. That makes Buffett the sixth member of the $100 billion club, a group including Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and his friend Bill Gates.

The clan’s combined wealth has grown rapidly, fueled by government stimulus, central-bank policy and the surging equity market. On Wednesday, President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief bill cleared its final congressional hurdle as the House voted to approve the legislation, adding to the $3 trillion or so in stimulus Washington has already disbursed in the past year.

Berkshire, the source of virtually all of Buffett’s wealth, has had a good start to 2021. The firm’s A shares are up 15% this year, outpacing the 3.8% gain of the S&P 500 Index. That’s been helped by Buffett’s recent push to spend record amounts buying back Berkshire’s own stock, a notable shift for an investor who previously preferred to use the $138 billion cash pile to buy other businesses or common shares.

Share Buybacks

Buffett’s been struggling in recent years to find sizable deals to spark Berkshire’s growth, partially due to the sheer size of the conglomerate. That’s caused the shares to underperform the S&P 500 over the past five years. But in 2020, Buffett spent a record $24.7 billion on buybacks and filings indicate he’s already bought at least $4.2 billion worth of stock through mid-February.

More

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/warren-buffett-becomes-sixth-member-214145924.html

Finally on the anniversary of the Great East Coast Blizzard of 1888, Denver is preparing for the Great Blizzard of 2021.

Denver could get one of biggest snowstorms since 1885

By Alex Sosnowski, AccuWeather senior meteorologist & Meghan Mussoline, AccuWeather meteorologist

Published Mar. 10, 2021 5:25 PM GMT | Updated Mar. 10, 2021 8:01 PM GMT

AccuWeather forecasters on Wednesday continued tracking the potential for a monster snowstorm to pound the Denver area in the coming days and possibly become one of the biggest snowstorms in the Mile High City’s history. The looming storm threatens to be a long-duration event that could result in snowfall totals that could reach 2 feet in Denver and pile as high as 3 feet in places west of Denver, such as Boulder and Fort Collins. Heavy snow will stretch north into Wyoming as well.

The wintry blast could feel all the more shocking because it is following closely behind springlike weather in some places like Denver, where temperatures have been averaging nearly 20 degrees above normal, hovering at or just under 70 degrees each day Sunday through Tuesday.

The storm, which AccuWeather meteorologists have been monitoring the development of since last week, was unloading beneficial rain and heavy mountain snow across California and Nevada on Wednesday, but it will strengthen further as it pushes inland from the Pacific coast and travels across the interior West. As it does so, it will also tap into moisture from the Gulf of Mexico, which will enhance precipitation.

"Denver is going to be in the worst location for the storm in terms of heavy snow and gusty winds,” AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Bernie Rayno said.

Snowfall will pick up in intensity across the the central and southern Rockies — and across Colorado and southeastern Wyoming in particular — on Saturday night into Sunday. Snowfall rates will reach 1-3 inches per hour, and as the storm continues, strong winds will blow as well.

Blizzard criteria — three-straight hours of sustained winds or gusts of 40 mph and visibility of a quarter of a mile or less in snow or blowing snow — will be approached in the region, according to Rayno. Gusts could reach as high as 30 mph as the snowstorm first gets underway on Saturday then increase to as high as 40 mph Saturday night and up to 50 mph on Sunday.

More

https://www.accuweather.com/en/winter-weather/denver-could-get-one-of-biggest-snowstorms-since-1885/912929 

Covid-19 Corner                       

This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.

UK COVID-19 variant has significantly higher death rate, study finds

March 10, 2021 10:51 AM

LONDON (Reuters) - A highly infectious variant of COVID-19 that has spread around the world since it was first discovered in Britain late last year is between 30% and 100% more deadly than previous strains, researchers said on Wednesday.

In a study that compared death rates among people in Britain infected with the new SARS-CoV-2 variant, known as B.1.1.7, against those infected with other strains, scientists said the new variant had “significantly higher” mortality.

The B.1.1.7 variant was first detected in Britain in September 2020, and has since been found in more than 100 countries.

It has 23 mutations in its genetic code - a relatively high number of changes - and some of these have made it far more able to spread. UK scientists say it is about 40%-70% more transmissible than previously dominant circulating coronavirus variants.

In the UK study, published in the British Medical Journal on Wednesday, infection with the new variant led to 227 deaths in a sample of 54,906 COVID-19 patients, compared with 141 among the same number of patients infected with other variants.

“Coupled with its ability to spread rapidly, this makes B.1.1.7 a threat that should be taken seriously,” said Robert Challen, a researcher at Exeter University who co-led the research.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-variant-britain/uk-covid-19-variant-has-significantly-higher-death-rate-study-finds-idUSKBN2B213E

COVID Symptoms, Symptom Clusters, and Predictors for Becoming a Long-Hauler: Looking for Clarity in the Haze of the Pandemic

Yong Huang, Melissa D. Pinto, Jessica L. Borelli, Milad Asgari Mehrabadi, Heather Abrihim, Nikil Dutt, Natalie Lambert, Erika L. Nurmi, Rana Chakraborty, Amir M. Rahmani, View ORCID ProfileCharles A. Downs

doi:

This article is a preprint and has not been peer-reviewed [what does this mean?]. It reports new medical research that has yet to be evaluated and so should not be used to guide clinical practice.

Abstract

Emerging data suggest that the effects of infection with SARS-CoV-2 are far reaching extending beyond those with severe acute disease. Specifically, the presence of persistent symptoms after apparent resolution from COVID-19 have frequently been reported throughout the pandemic by individuals labeled as “long-haulers”.

The purpose of this study was to assess for symptoms at days 0-10 and 61+ among subjects with PCR-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection. The University of California COvid Research Data Set (UC CORDS) was used to identify 1407 records that met inclusion criteria. Symptoms attributable to COVID-19 were extracted from the electronic health record.

Symptoms reported over the previous year prior to COVID-19 were excluded, using nonnegative matrix factorization (NMF) followed by graph lasso to assess relationships between symptoms. A model was developed predictive for becoming a long-hauler based on symptoms. 27% reported persistent symptoms after 60 days. Women were more likely to become long-haulers, and all age groups were represented with those aged 50 ± 20 years comprising 72% of cases. Presenting symptoms included palpitations, chronic rhinitis, dysgeusia, chills, insomnia, hyperhidrosis, anxiety, sore throat, and headache among others.

We identified 5 symptom clusters at day 61+: chest pain-cough, dyspnea-cough, anxiety-tachycardia, abdominal pain-nausea, and low back pain-joint pain. Long-haulers represent a very significant public health concern, and there are no guidelines to address their diagnosis and management. Additional studies are urgently needed that focus on the physical, mental, and emotional impact of long-term COVID-19 survivors who become long-haulers.

More

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.03.03.21252086v1?mc_source=MTEyNjQxNzM4NjMzNDg2MjM3NzEwOjo6YzVjN2E5OGQzNWQxNDllYWE2MDdjMzgyNmNkOTJlYWQ6OnY0OjoxNjE1MTMwNjcwOjox

The hunt is on for Europe’s earliest, crucial Covid-19 deaths

Tissue samples from patients who died in the early days of the pandemic are unlocking the secrets of how Covid-19 initially spread

March 9, 2021

The man’s condition was already dire when he arrived at the hospital in Belgrade, Serbia. He was coughing, short of breath, and had a high fever of 39.2°C. Doctors and nurses quickly tested the oxygen levels in his blood – they were way down. Although they intubated the man, hooking his lungs up to a mechanical ventilator, he died just a few hours later.

It is a sequence of events that, sadly, has unfolded time and time again throughout the pandemic. Except that this man died on February 5, 2020, before any Covid-19 deaths were officially confirmed in Europe. Before the name “Covid-19” even existed. Back then, the man’s doctors had no idea what had killed him. They put the fatality down to pneumonia of an unknown cause.

At the time, scientists were aware that a new coronavirus had emerged in China and was spreading to Europe via a handful of overseas travellers. The man in Belgrade, however, had no recent travel history. He was aged just 56 and did not have any chronic health conditions. Now, researchers in Serbia have published a paper detailing how they found evidence of what was later named Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, in tissue samples taken while the man was in hospital.

“Without any doubt, Covid-19 was the cause of death of this patient,” says co-author Aleksandra Barać, of the Clinical Centre of Serbia.

As spring 2020 rolled on and the pandemic raged across Europe, it was the flood of new cases that became the focus of scientific inquiry – not the first trickle of early ones. But during the ensuing months, researchers in the UK, Italy, France and other countries have occasionally had the opportunity to go back and test old tissue samples or re-examine case histories.

In some instances, as in Serbia, these investigators have uncovered previously undiagnosed Covid-19 infections, including deaths now known to be associated with the disease, revealing that the virus was having a greater impact in Europe than anyone realised back in January and February 2020.

Retrospective analysis is not always possible. Doctors don’t always take tissue samples from patients during their stay and, even when they do, such samples may not be retained for longer than a few days or weeks. But on those occasions when specimens have been stored long-term, allowing subsequent analysis months later, scientists have been able to provide closure to a handful of families left questioning whether their loved ones died of Covid-19 or not.

More broadly, identifying such cases helps us sharpen our blurry view of the pandemic’s frightening early days, potentially offering insights that could help us fight the next major outbreak of a new disease when – not if – it arrives.

---- In Italy, an even earlier case has surfaced. Researchers returned to throat swab samples obtained from 39 different patients between September 2019 and February 2020. One, from a four-year-old boy with no travel history who lived near Milan, tested positive for Sars-CoV-2. The sample was originally taken on December 5 but the boy’s illness had first emerged the previous month, November, initially with coughing and a runny nose, then respiratory symptoms and vomiting a week later. The case suggests that community transmission may have been occurring in Italy roughly three months before the country confirmed its first case of Covid-19.

More

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/first-covid-deaths-europe?utm_source=pocket&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=pockethits

 

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Next, some 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 vaccineshttps://www.who.int/publications/m/item/draft-landscape-of-covid-19-candidate-vaccines

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

Stanford Websitehttps://racetoacure.stanford.edu/clinical-trials/132

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

Some other useful Covid links.

Johns Hopkins Coronavirus resource centre

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

Rt Covid-19

https://rt.live/

Centers for Disease Control Coronavirus

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html

The Spectator Covid-19 data tracker (UK)

https://data.spectator.co.uk/city/national

Technology Update.

With events happening fast in the development of solar power and graphene, I’ve added this section. Updates as they get reported.

Sushi-like rolled 2D heterostructures may lead to new miniaturized electronics

Date:  March 9, 2021

Source:  Penn State

Summary:  The recent synthesis of one-dimensional van der Waals heterostructures, a type of heterostructure made by layering two-dimensional materials that are one atom thick, may lead to new, miniaturized electronics that are currently not possible, according to a research team.

Engineers commonly produce heterostructures to achieve new device properties that are not available in a single material. A van der Waals heterostructure is one made of 2D materials that are stacked directly on top of each other like Lego-blocks or a sandwich. The van der Waals force, which is an attractive force between uncharged molecules or atoms, holds the materials together.

According to Slava V. Rotkin, Penn State Frontier Professor of Engineering Science and Mechanics, the one-dimensional van der Waals heterostructure produced by the researchers is different from the van der Waals heterostructures engineers have produced thus far.

"It looks like a stack of 2D-layered materials that are rolled up in a perfect cylinder," Rotkin said. "In other words, if you roll up a sandwich, you keep all the good stuff in it where it should be and not moving around, but in this case you also make it a thin cylinder, very compact like a hot-dog or a long sushi roll. In this way, the 2D-materials still contact each other in a desired vertical heterostructure sequence while one needs not to worry about their lateral edges, all rolled up, which is a big deal for making super-small devices."

The team's research, published in ACS Nano, suggests that all 2D materials could be rolled into these one-dimensional heterostructure cylinders, known as hetero-nanotubes. The University of Tokyo researchers recently fabricated electrodes on a hetero-nanotube and demonstrated that it can work as an extremely small diode with high performance despite its size.

"Diodes are a major type of device used in optoelectronics -- they are in the core of photodetectors, solar cells, light emitting devices, etc.," Rotkin said. "In electronics, diodes are used in several specialized circuits; although the main element of electronics is a transistor, two diodes, connected back-to-back, may serve as a switch, too."

This opens a potential new class of materials for miniaturized electronics.

"It brings device technology of 2D materials to a new level, potentially enabling a new generation of both electronic and optoelectronic devices," Rotkin said.

---- According to Rotkin, this is the first demonstration of optical resolution of a hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) shell as a part of a hetero-nanotube. Much larger pure hBN nanotubes, consisting of many shells of hBN with no other types of material, were studied in the past with a similar microscope.

"However, imaging of those materials is quite different from what I have done before," Rotkin said. "The beneficial result is in the demonstration of our ability to measure the optical spectrum from the object, which is an inner shell of a wire that is just two nanometers thick. It's comparable to the difference between being able to see a wooden log and being able to recognize a graphite stick inside the pencil through the pencil walls."

Rotkin plans to expand his research to extend hyperspectral imaging to better resolve other materials, such as glass, various 2D materials, and protein tubules and viruses.

"It is a novel technique that will lead to, hopefully, future discoveries happening," Rotkin said.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/03/210309185708.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily%2Fmatter_energy%2Fgraphene+%28Graphene+News+--+ScienceDaily%29

March 11, 1888

The Great Blizzard of 1888, Great Blizzard of '88, or the Great White Hurricane (March 11–14, 1888) was one of the most severe recorded blizzards in American history. The storm paralyzed the East Coast from the Chesapeake Bay to Maine,[1][2] as well as the Atlantic provinces of Canada.[3] Snow fell from 10 to 58 inches (25 to 147 cm) in parts of New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, and sustained winds of more than 45 miles per hour (72 km/h) produced snowdrifts in excess of 50 feet (15 m).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Blizzard_of_1888

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