Coronavirus

[eevee-fan]

Get educated, this is the same company that has the vaccine for MERs:

San Diego Lab's Potential Coronavirus Vaccine Could Help Beyond Outbreak

Inovio CEO Joseph Kim touted the Pennsylvania-based biotech company's success with its vaccine for MERS, also caused by a coronavirus.

"Inovio is the leader in coronavirus vaccine development in the world," Kim said to the president, noting the MERS product is in the second phase of human testing.

At the center of Inovio's COVID-19 vaccine operation in San Diego is senior vice president of research and development Kate Broderick. The lead researcher sometimes begins workdays at 2 a.m. to coordinate with colleagues across time zones and drive the mission forward at a near-record pace.

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I repeat, those of you guys freaking out over Coronavirus simply just need to understand that the disease has been around, it’s nothing new. Virus mutate, the Flu virus mutates so stop freaking out. We have people on this for years, MERs for gods sake is a corona virus, and guess what? We have a vaccine for that. The DNA sequence of these diseases isn’t on the same level as Ebola, HIV, etc. We’re in the 21st century, get out there and enjoy your life. The cure is in the bag.SmH

How long ago was MERS and we are only on phase 2 human testing... don't worry?!?

 

[EVNow]

Ryan Struyk on Twitter

According to CNN

4:25 p.m: Minnesota reports first coronavirus case
5:20 p.m: First coronavirus case in Oklahoma
6:35 p.m: Connecticut reveals first coronavirus case
7:18 p.m: First coronavirus case in Kentucky reported
8:05 p.m: Nebraska reports first coronavirus case
8:46 p.m: First confirmed case of coronavirus in Hawaii​

 

[SageBrush]

One can only hope that the $8 billion funding package just passed by the U.S. Congress indicates a willingness to take this situation more seriously, and that there will be a rapid ramp-up of response, and where the tone will not be set by the grossly incompetent and sociopathic individual in the White House. We have frittered away the opportunity to contain this to a few hundred deaths in the United States.

In part. Mostly it indicates a willingness to throw money at drug and vaccine companies in hope of a magic bullet. It is an interesting question whether trump will tell his zombies that Public Health measures are paramount or advise that they cough in the face of his political opponents to unmask the hoax.

I say 50/50

 

[Singer3000]

WHO Director General: “Methane fuelled rockets are dumb”.

Chief Medical Officer: “Dry battery electrodes are dumb”.

Virology Professor: “Lidar free autonomous cars are dumb”

How much respect would we give any of these comments?

 

[KarenRei]

Daily graphs. Swapped out some of the low-rate locations for various high-rate European locations. Also modified the last graph to show only the last 10 days, as it was getting cluttered.

• No cases reported from Japan? Maybe they'll report late.
• Wow, Hubei (Wuhan) down to 74!
• Iran's almost getting into the believable range . I still think they need to get into at least a couple thousand per day for their new case rate to realistically correspond with their mortality rate, and likewise with their rate of infecting tourists. But they're getting close. 1234 new cases, 16 deaths today.
• Italy is flat today, but it's too soon to draw a trend from it.
• South Korea continues its slow downward drift. Exactly what we'd want to see.
• The numbers in numerous countries in Europe continue to skyrocketing as testing expands. Might be Italy-level bad across much of the continent, unfortunately. Switzerland, for example, with only 8,6M people, had 123 new cases today.
• Strangely, BNO doesn't show the new cases in Iceland that were identified today; I guess they'll come in tomorrow. They were domestic transfers; the country has declared a national emergency, and is considering banning public gatherings of larger than 15 people (has not done so at this time).
• US - as always, low but growing numbers is nothing more than low but growing test availability. LONG way to go. Cases popping up all over the US. But of course, it's not the cases you find that matter... it's the ones you don't find.
• There's good reason to suspect that the disease is spreading through the developing world, as discussed earlier. For example, Bhutan had its first case today - a US tourist who had arrived there after two weeks in India - so he clearly got infected in India. Given India's large population and area, it seems highly unlikely that a tourist would have the bad fortune to get infected if India only had the handful of daily cases that they're claiming.

 

[KarenRei]

WHO Director General: “Methane fuelled rockets are dumb”.

Chief Medical Officer: “Dry battery electrodes are dumb”.

Virology Professor: “Lidar free autonomous cars are dumb”

How much respect would we give any of these comments?

Elon's comment wasn't "quarantining COVID-19 is dumb". It was about panic being dumb.

And I agree. Panic does nobody any good. You don't have to be a virologist to know that.

I actually look forward to it being declared a pandemic. So that then everyone can stop reporting test results every day about "the spread" (a misleading metric at best of disease spread), and for it to leave the news - even while measures to slow community spread and develop treatments continue. We're getting to the point where a lot of the travel bans are dumb. E.g., what's the point anymore of, say, Switzerland worrying about people visiting from China?

Let's get life back to "normal", with only the adjustments to "normal" being those needed to reduce the rate of community spread. IMHO. Test as widely as you have the tests for, quarantine the infectious and monitor their close contacts, impose strict workplace health measures, etc. But otherwise, let people go about their daily lives.

 

[sundaymorning]

Did you read the article you linked? See the bolded part.

"Dr. James LeDuc, director of the Galveston National Laboratory, said work has resumed on the SARS vaccine that his researchers helped develop with Hotez's team. The laboratory, a high-security biocontainment facility on Texas' Gulf Coast, received a live sample of the new coronavirus last month and will use it to test the vaccine in mice.

But first the lab must breed a colony of mice genetically engineered to replicate the human disease, a process that LeDuc said will take months."

Yes I read the article. The point i was trying to make by m posting that article was to show that capitalism and the economics of profits determine the outcome of which vaccines get the green light to proceed by its investors. Hotze’s research on the C. virus was close to finding a vaccine in 2016 but they couldn’t proceed with human trials due to lack of funding.

like so many pharmaceutical projects that get axed, Hotze’s vaccine dreams for Corona was cut short, why? Because it doesn’t make sense to invest millions in 2016 when the threat was non-existent. Fast forward to the present, where the CV is on front page every single day in every language known to man (and yes I’m exaggerating) because we have 7 potential billion customers and guess what? It’s in the bag, the drug companies are on this like white on rice, they’re salivating and working around the clock. Governments are fast tracking funding secured tweets that Elon can only dream of.... So my bet is that a different company than Hotze’s will find a cure and likely already has something in the bag that just needs regulatory approval; pharmaceuticals are currently recruiting healthy people to test vaccines on and I can only assume those drugs will work.

Hotze’s company that you’ve quoted me about was a “has been”, he’s no longer relevant in this race as companies like INO are in the cutting edge of this and already have years of information on other corona virus strands. There’s many potential billions to be made at stake with an infinite guarantees of revenue streams for as long as this planet survives, not to mention movie deals, book deals, celebrity rock star status, etc. add all this up and what do you get? A bunch of motivated scientist and politicians to get this deal done. A president’s next term may hinge on the outcome of the timing of this vaccine, Xi wants it for saving face, Russia wants it for bragging rights, Hong Kong wants it to steer the conversation away from riots, etc.

This virus is a one in a billion virus that has the perfect conditions to spread rapidly. It’s Achille’s heal is that it’s death rate is low enough to buy us time. Do you know what spreads faster than this virus? Information... the media is simply putting out so much fear that a guy living under a rock has to wake up and buy toilet papers. People know to be careful, but some will get through the cracks and we all need to be careful. Despite this, I worry about the health of the economy more than the virus right now as there’s way too much hype around it. We know what a virus is and we get it. Stop picking up things that. WHO screwed up on, stop digging up dirt on the coverup stories in China, all that can be done after the fact that we’ve gotten over this. I feel that some are pouring gas into a fire right now with so much Negativity.

 

[kyzhk]

WHO Director General: “Methane fuelled rockets are dumb”.

Chief Medical Officer: “Dry battery electrodes are dumb”.

Virology Professor: “Lidar free autonomous cars are dumb”

How much respect would we give any of these comments?

No one should simply trust anything anyone said blindly, in the case where we take comments by "experts" without questioning would be "appeal to authority" logical fallacy.

Doctors are not known to have exceptional understanding in maths: See this paper where 75% of doctors fails to grasp false positives in the context of reading lab test results on diseases: they are prone to base rate fallacy. i.e. we should question even the supposed experts comments in their own expertise.

Probabilistic reasoning in clinical medicine: Problems and opportunities" by David M. Eddy 1982

EM's tweet about panic being dumb is right, but the tweet itself is also dumb at the same time because of the potential for misinterpretation and lack of justifications.

 

[eevee-fan]

Secret to how NOT to transmit diseases as you go about your day...

Lesson 1: Greeting

 

[KarenRei]

14 months just for the initial trial, then more trials on bigger groups, followed by the approval process. That isn’t quite the super fast vaccine you predicted in earlier posts.

This is somewhat confusing. Because earlier reporting I saw said that Phase I results were expected out by August, if I remember correctly.

 

[KarenRei]

Secret to how NOT to transmit diseases as you go about your day...

Lesson 1: Greeting

I like the Late Show's suggestions better

 

[Singer3000]

No one should simply trust anything anyone said blindly, in the case where we take comments by "experts" without questioning would be "appeal to authority" logical fallacy.

Doctors are not known to have exceptional understanding in maths: See this paper where 75% of doctors fails to grasp false positives in the context of reading lab test results on diseases: they are prone to base rate fallacy. i.e. we should question even the supposed experts comments in their own expertise.

Probabilistic reasoning in clinical medicine: Problems and opportunities" by David M. Eddy 1982

EM's tweet about panic being dumb is right, but the tweet itself is also dumb at the same time because of the potential for misinterpretation and lack of justifications.

Pretty much agree with that. All Musk had to do was elaborate a little more. “We won’t run out of toilet roll. But listen carefully to the advice on hygiene”. He could make a powerful positive difference with something like that. Instead he makes the problem worse and winds up looking like an out of touch billionaire that doesn’t care about the plight of the very many who will suffer from this.

 

[JRP3]

WHO Director General: “Methane fuelled rockets are dumb”.

Chief Medical Officer: “Dry battery electrodes are dumb”.

Virology Professor: “Lidar free autonomous cars are dumb”

How much respect would we give any of these comments?

So you think panic isn't dumb? I'll agree with Elon on this, panic is dumb.

 

[EVNow]

How will US healthcare fare when the outbreak gets bigger ?

A few dozen is all that Evergreen can handle.

Running out of room at Evergreen, moving patients to Good Sam in Puyallup : CoronavirusWA

 

[PhaseWhite]

If credit markets continue to freeze up things will get worse. This is like radiation poisoning to businesses that depend on easy access, they can get a fatal dose before they even realize it.

Credit Market Endures Worst Day in a Decade on Virus Rout
Bloomberg - Are you a robot?

My hedging strategy is to short small caps. Not an advice.

 

[Thekiwi]

Anyone a little worried about the timing of Elon’s tweet?

he has by all accounts “been sleeping on the floor” of the SpaceX factory for a lot of the last couple of months. Pure speculation on my part but maybe whoever is giving him the Tesla daily update may have mentioned a dip in orders due to Coronavirus “Panic”.

 

[S4WRXTTCS]

So you think panic isn't dumb? I'll agree with Elon on this, panic is dumb.

Why is what Elon said so important? Especially to investors? On a topic that Elon has no expertise on? Where Elon has all the reason in the world to try to convince people not to panic?

My initial attempt was to point out that Elon has had a lot history of bad tweets so there wasn't anything unusual about it, and it was best to ignore it. I used example of Elon insulting Bill Gates as an example of just how ridiculous of a tweeter Elon is even when the conversation is well within Elon's knowledge. He could have chose to say that the Taycan was a legit EV (the original poster didn't seem to realize the Taycan was an EV), and given thumbs up on the green choice Gates made. But, instead Elon decided to insult him. I dunno why. But, then someone tried to do Olympic style gymnastics style explanation that the tweet wasn't an insult, and it was just a random out of blue comment about conversations Elon had with Gates. I wasn't capable of doing the gymnastics so I was a bit confused.

Then a mod wanted to hush up the whole Elon vs. Gates thing (rightly so because it was way out of topic), but it was never supposed to be about Gates. It was simply an example of an Elon tweet being ill-conceived.

Now I don't have much issue with Elon saying "Don't panic", but it's also worthless. Like what good does that do?

Did Elon link people to really solid informative blog posts from experts in the field like people have been doing on this thread? No.

Did Elon mention what panic he was referring to? Nope.

Panic isn't a binary thing. I didn't run down to Costco to buy a 10 years supply of Toilet paper. But, I did reduce the amount of stocks I was holding in my portfolio by 25%. Was that too panic'd or not panic'd enough? I dunno. The entire point I'm following this thread is for risk assessment, and I know I'm not alone.

Elon has a lot of employees counting on him, and millions of fans. So he should have done better than a "Don't Panic" tweet.

 

[dfwatt]

In part. Mostly it indicates a willingness to throw money at drug and vaccine companies in hope of a magic bullet. It is an interesting question whether trump will tell his zombies that Public Health measures are paramount or advise that they cough in the face of his political opponents to unmask the hoax.

I say 50/50

Most of the funding is NOT for drug companies. As for that last comment . . . what in the world are you talking about???

 

[Heimdallr]

Panic isn't a binary thing. I didn't run down to Costco to buy a 10 years supply of Toilet paper. But, I did reduce the amount of stocks I was holding in my portfolio by 25%. Was that too panic'd or not panic'd enough? I dunno. The entire point I'm following this thread is for risk assessment, and I know I'm not alone.

Yep. Sold TSLA at $891 and now waiting out this crisis in order to determine when it's best to get back into the stock. Haven't pulled the trigger yet because there are a lot of indications that a majority of people have somehow not yet realized or are just realizing now that this virus will have a big impact on the world economy.

 

[Heimdallr]

Anyone a little worried about the timing of Elon’s tweet?

he has by all accounts “been sleeping on the floor” of the SpaceX factory for a lot of the last couple of months. Pure speculation on my part but maybe whoever is giving him the Tesla daily update may have mentioned a dip in orders due to Coronavirus “Panic”.

This is exactly what I thought when I read that tweet. Pure speculation, maybe, but it's definitely a suspicious tweet if not followed by explanatory tweets or links to articles and the like. It sounds like frustration for whatever reason and it could well be a dip in orders overall or in certain markets.