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RE: Generational Dynamics World View - John J. Xenakis - 03-21-2020

*** 22-Mar-20 World View -- Today's Wuhan Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic vs 1918 Spanish Flu

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
  • The history of the 1918 Spanish flu
  • Saving lives with mitigation strategies
  • Today's Wuhan Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic vs 1918 Spanish Flu
  • Alternative strategies: 'Burn Through' and 'Herd Immunity'
  • Why the Covid-19 crisis won't be over by summer
  • The most dangerous problem: Crowding and poverty
  • The search for a vaccine
****
**** The history of the 1918 Spanish flu
****


[Image: g200321b.jpg]
A man wearing a mask uses a pump to spray an unknown 'anti-flu' substance in the United Kingdom, following the Spanish flu pandemi (Getty)

I've now written several articles and almost daily reports, on my web
site and in the Generational Dynamics forum, on the Wuhan Coronavirus
(Covid-19) crisis, and unfortunately the most pessimistic of the
predictions are coming true on a daily basis.  In this article, I'm
comparing Covid-19 pandemic to the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, and
showing that there's no material difference between the two pandemics.

Using round numbers, the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 infected about
500 million people worldwide, almost one-third of the world's
population.  It killed about 2% of the world's population, or 36 million
people.

The Spanish flu (which, incidentally, originated in Kansas, not Spain)
first appeared in March 1918.  American troops carried the virus with
them when they went to war in Europe, and it spread quickly to
England, France, Spain and Italy.  However, it wasn't much more deadly
than the ordinary seasonal flu at first.

Cases of flu dropped off in the summer of 1918, and it was hoped that
the virus had run its course.  However, a second wave of the Spanish
flu began in August, and the second wave was far deadlier than the
first.  The deadliest month was October 1918.  Tens of millions of
people worldwide were killed during the next few months.

****
**** Saving lives with mitigation strategies
****


The Spanish flu death rate in America was far lower than the death
rate for the world as a whole.

The Spanish flu killed about 2% of the world population, but killed
only 675,000 Americans, or 0.7% of the American population.  Why was
the death rate for Americans so much lower?

The reason is that Americans were using the same containment and
mitigation strategies that are being recommended today.  People wore
face masks.  WW I victory parades and events were canceled.  Schools
were closed.  Theaters and businesses were closed.  There are
anecdotal stories about people who were forcibly locked into their
homes to prevent them from infecting other people.  In these stories,
the patient would lower a basket with a rope from a second story
window, and his neighbors would fill it with food.

Containment and mitigation strategies are being used today for the
same reason.  The phrase "social distancing" is on everyone's lips.
Tens of millions of Americas are in states that have been "locked
down" in the last few days, meaning that they're told to stay in their
homes.  Those people will not be getting infected with Covid-19, nor
will they be infecting other people.

****
**** Today's Wuhan Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic vs 1918 Spanish Flu
****


It's always tempting to believe that we're so far advanced and so
sophisticated today, that anything older than yesterday is ancient and
out of date and only of interest to historians and Boomers.

But in fact, it's very hard to see any material difference between the
1918 Spanish Flu and today's Wuhan Coronavirus, except that today we
have some electronic devices like ventilators for treatment.

However, everything else is the same:
  • There was no vaccine in 1918, and there's no vaccine
    today.

  • People were physically locked in their homes in 1918, and people
    are required to "self-quarantine" today.

  • Exactly the same containment and mitigation strategies that are
    being used today were being used in 1918.  Schools, events,
    restaurants, bars, etc., have been closed.

  • There's even another similarity that's really eerie: In the late
    1800s, the European "Scramble for Africa" was made possible by the
    development of the drug quinine, which could treat malaria.  In 1918,
    quinine and aspirin were the two treatments available for Spanish flu.
    Today, doctors are experimenting with chloroquine, a derivative
    related to quinine, to treat Covid-19.
So not only are the containment and mitigation strategies the same as
in 1918, even the same drug is being used.

So far, today's Covid-19 pandemic appears to be materially the same as
the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic.  The two won't really diverge until a
vaccine becomes available, and that's not expected until late in 2021.

****
**** Alternative strategies: 'Burn Through' and 'Herd Immunity'
****


I described the containment and mediation strategies in earlier
articles, and their purpose in "flattening the curve."  ( "17-Mar-20 World View -- Stock market plunges 13% on Monday, as investors begin to accept reality"
)

In the containment strategy, the country tracks and tests people and
uses contact tracing to identify infected people, and isolate them.
When that fails, the mitigation strategy is used, where schools and
stores are closed, and large gatherings are illegal, in order to
reduce the number of infections.

I'm using the phrase "burn through" to describe a strategy where
no mitigation is done, and the infections are allowed to take their
course.  A variation of this strategy that I've described in the
past is the "Herd Immunity" strategy, where all the old people and
people with existing health conditions are first locked up for safety,
and then the infection is allowed to spread through the population,
after which the old people can be let out.

There are a number of people on TV and on the internet who say that
the mitigation strategies we're using -- closing all the schools,
businesses and restaurants, for example -- are panic reactions that
are worse than the disease.  Many of these people say that they would
like to see the "burn through" strategy used, believing that it would
only kill elderly people who, as one person wrote to me, "they are
going to die anyway."

Some people in the Generational Dynamics forum expressed the
same view.  One wrote:

    <QUOTE>"I think shutting down the economy to keep drug
    addicts and elderly people alive who will all be dead within five
    years anyway is stupid. I'm an older person (70) and I am willing
    to take my chances if it means my grandchildren won't have to live
    in abject poverty for the rest of their lives."<END QUOTE>


Another person agreed:

    <QUOTE>"I think that in general terms you are quite right. We
    are doing an inordinate amount of damage to our economies in order
    to save a very small percentage of the population. ...

    We cannot cover the cost of intensive care needed for say 5% of
    the population. That would be about 15 million people in the US in
    ICU for a couple of weeks.

    Panic is causing drastic measures that we just cannot
    afford."<END QUOTE>


This is the kind of policy that might be possible today in China or
Russia, but there's no chance that any Western democracy today would
adopt a policy of letting one group of people die, even old people,
any more than it would adopt a policy of allowing all blacks or all
Jews to die.

But it's more than that.  The mitigation strategies are not just
trying "to save a very small percentage of the population."

If we look at the Spanish flu figures, we can see the difference.
Most of the world in 1918 used the "burn through" strategy, and
2% of the world population died.  But in America, only 0.7% of the
population died, and that can be attributed to the mitigation
strategies.

Using round numbers, 45 million Americans get the seasonal flu
each year.  200,000 are hospitalized, and the number of deaths
is roughly 0.1% x 45 million = 45,000.

If we use the "burn through" strategy with Covid-19, and just
let it spread without taking any remediation steps, then
there will be roughly 200 million infections.  The number of
people hospitalized will be roughly 20% x 200 million = 40 million.
The number of deaths will be 2% x 200 million or 4 million.

So just leading Covid-19 spread without mitigation would be a lot
worse than just letting a few old people die.  At the very least,
hospitals and funeral homes would be overwhelmed by a factor of
ten, and there would be dead bodies in the streets and in dump sites.
This is the not the direction that America or any Western country
wants to go.

That's not to say that remediation is an easy out.  If we assume the
0.7% figure from the Spanish flu, and apply it to the American
population of 300+ million, we still get over two million deaths.
This is a speculative figure, and with curve flattening, the number of
deaths would be spread over a long period of time.

****
**** Why the Covid-19 crisis won't be over by summer
****


A lot of people would like to believe that the Covid-19 crisis will be
over by summer, or even earlier, in April or May.  This is a total
fantasy.  Let's take a look at some of the reasons why this crisis
will last well into next year.
  • A lot of people are looking to South Korea as an example of
    how the outbreak can be contained.  The number of cases has been
    decreasing day after day, and there were fewer than 100 new infections
    for several days in a row.  However, on Thursday, there were 152 new
    cases, reversing the trend.  At least 139 cases were linked to a
    Seoul-based call center run by an insurance company, while another 64
    cases were traced to a Protestant church in Seongnam, south of Seoul.

    The point is that even when the virus appears to be contained, there
    can be a rebound at any time because of a new infection.  It's
    possible, for example, for an asymptomatic person to spread the virus
    to a dozen other people.  These new outbreaks may be contained through
    contact tracing, but they'll keep occurring.

  • Some people are looking to China to see how Covid-19 can be
    contained.  China is claiming no new infections at all for several
    days in a row.  China's claims are widely disbelieved.  That claim may
    be true for Hubei province, but there are provinces all across China
    where no testing has been done.  As I described in my previous
    article, reports from Thailand indicate that the Chinese are covering
    up Covid-19 cases in Helionjang, Xinjiang, Henan, Shanxi and other
    provinces.  These covered up cases can explode into new outbreaks at
    any time.

  • Another issue is that the public will tire of mitigation
    restrictions.  Right now, almost 100 million Americans in California,
    Illinois, New York state, and elsewhere are restricted to their homes,
    all in the fantasy hope that they'll be able to return to normal life
    by April.  How will they react when the learn that April will turn
    into May, June and July?  As soon as they start violating the
    self-quarantine and self-isolation restrictions, the number of cases
    can surge again.

  • Another issue is a "second wave" in the fall.  This is what
    happened with the Spanish flu, with most of the deaths occurring in
    the second wave.  The hope is that the summer weather will reduce the
    number of new cases, although this is uncertain.  But even if that
    happens, the weather will be cold again in the fall, and there will be
    a resurgence of cases.  And there could be a "third wave"
    in the spring of next year.

  • Another issue is reinfection.  It has not been proven, and is
    being debated, that a person who recovers from Covid-19 is immune from
    reinfaction.  This belief could turn out to be completely wrong.  Even
    if a person is immune immediately after recovery, the immunity may not
    last.  And so there may be a new wave of reinfections next
    year.
Some of these issues are more speculative than others, but the
belief that the virus crisis will end this summer is the most speculative
assumption of all.

****
**** The most dangerous problem: Crowding and poverty
****


There is one more issue, and this perhaps the most dangerous issue
at all.

There are deeply overcrowded refugee camps in Bangladesh, Greece,
Syria, Yemen, Venezuela and other countries.  Sooner or later, there
will be a Covid-19 outbreak in each of these camps.  People in these
camps are crowded together, living in filth.  There's almost no water
at all, and certainly no clean water.  If there's a Covid-19 outbreak
in one of these camps, then it will quickly burn through the entire
camp, and fleeing refugees will spread it to other countries.

In fact, any place where crowding and poverty are so great that
containment and mitigation strategies will not work represent a risk
to an entire region.  If someone lives in a small home with a large
family, and must go to work every day to feed his family that day or
they'll starve, then "self-isolation" and "self-quarantine" don't even
make sense.  He'll go to work anyway, and risk contaminating the
entire neighborhood.  This is true in many "supercities," from Mumbai
to Lagos to Mexico City.

In each of these cases, attempts will be made to blockade these
cities and refugee camps, to trap people inside and keep them
from leaving.  But this will be unsuccessful, if only because
the virus will create a massive humanitarian disaster, and outside
world will demand some kind of relief.

These situations probably will trigger regional wars, and this may be
the scenario that leads to World War III.

Finally, another major problem area is that many prisons, even in
Western countries, are overcrowded, and the spread of virus could kill
many inmates.  As a result, there are calls to release large numbers
of prisoners.  This is already a major political issue in many
countries, including the United States.

****
**** The search for a vaccine
****


It seems that hundreds of companies around the world are working to
create a Covid-19 vaccine.  There are new developments almost every
day, and a couple of new candidates have already gone into first phase
testing.

But every expert that I've heard says the same thing: these
vaccines will have to go through multiple test phases to make
sure that they're safe and effective.  You don't want to be saved
from Covid-19 by a vaccine that kills you anyway.  Every expert
I've heard says that it will be well into 2021 before any vaccine
can be widely deployed.

In this article, I've compared the Covid-19 pandemic to the 1918
Spanish flu pandemic, and I've shown that there's really no difference
at all.  The remediation techniques are the same, the medicines are
the same, and there's even no vaccine for now.  Covid-19 is being
handled in the same low-tech way as the Spanish flu.  So those who
want to understand how Covid-19 will affect the world should study the
history of the Spanish flu.

---- Sources:
Related Articles:


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Wuhan Coronavirus, Covid-19, Spanish flu,
Herd Immunity, Flattening the Curve, Burn Through,
malaria, quinine, chloroquine, containment, mitigation,
China, South Korea,
Bangladesh, Greece, Syria, Yemen, Venezuela, Mumbai, Lagos

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John J. Xenakis
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Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
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RE: Generational Dynamics World View - Warren Dew - 03-22-2020

Good to see you back, John. I got worried enough to check out your forum, and was relieved to see you posting there as recently as Friday.

While some states are doing what they call "lockdowns", they aren't really true lockdowns yet, as far as I can tell: people are still allowed to go to work.


RE: Generational Dynamics World View - John J. Xenakis - 03-22-2020

** 22-Mar-2020 World View: Posting

(03-22-2020, 12:07 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: > Good to see you back, John. I got worried enough to check out your
> forum, and was relieved to see you posting there as recently as
> Friday.

> While some states are doing what they call "lockdowns", they
> aren't really true lockdowns yet, as far as I can tell: people are
> still allowed to go to work.

Thanks for worrying about me. My time hasn't come yet, but living
near Kendall Square Cambridge with thousands of Asian students walking
around, my time may be close. And since no one is willing to pay me,
everything I write is worthless anyway, and it's hard to motivate
myself some days. But I did want to write this article on Covid-19,
since the situation is absolutely astounding. I try to predict the
future, but I never saw this coming.

A lot of businesses are required to stay closed. Theoretically,
people should only leave home to buy groceries, or perhaps to take a
short walk close to home. However, a lot of people are still working
from home.


RE: Generational Dynamics World View - John J. Xenakis - 03-22-2020

** 22-Mar-2020 World View: Advice

Advice from experts: Stay away from people.

People, people who don't need people,
Are the LUCKIEST PEOPLE in the world.
We're children, needing other children,
But then letting our grown-up experts,
Crush all the need inside,
Acting more like scared rabbits than children.

(After Barbra Streisand)


RE: Generational Dynamics World View - John J. Xenakis - 03-22-2020

** 22-Mar-2020 World View: Cost-Benefit Analysis

Navigator Wrote:> One of the big differences between now and the Spanish flu period
> is the cost of medical care. Back then, it wasn't that much. Now
> it is astronomical. The 2019 rates of health care expenditure were
> already destroying the economy. We cannot afford putting 5-10% of
> the country into an ICU. Plus these "aid" packages are just
> contributing to the global debt bomb that is already in place.

> The current health insurance setup cannot weather this. The
> insurance companies will all go bankrupt. Then no-one will have
> health insurance. Which will probably lead to health care
> nationalization, which will lead to even worse growth to debt and
> serious degradation of health care standards.

> At some point, you do have do do a cost benefit analysis. If
> someone produces a million worth of value during their lifetime,
> but uses ten million worth of health care, you can absorb that so
> long as this is an abnormality. You cannot absorb this cost if it
> is common (and 10% of the population being in a similar situation
> would make it common). What can and what should a society
> afford?

It doesn't make any difference what the cost of medical care was then
or is now. As I wrote in the article, there will be two million
deaths in America. That translates to about eight million
hospitalizations. The medical industry -- the hospitals and the
insurance companies -- will be overwhelmed. With limited resources
spread over eight million patients, the cost per patient will be close
to zero. Beyond that, a cost-benefit analysis is meaningless.


RE: Generational Dynamics World View - John J. Xenakis - 03-23-2020

** 23-Mar-2020 World View: Philippines

Xeraphim1 Wrote:> My wife gives me the news from the Philippines; Manila and many of
> the other cities are at least partially shut down. This is a big
> problem because most people don't have savings and there is no
> sick or vacation pay. Medical care is also on a pay for service
> model; no pay, no service. Crime is rapidly increasing because
> people don't have money for food. My brother-in-law luckily lives
> in a gated community but people elsewhere don't have that kind of
> security. It's better in the provinces but if this continues for a
> long time people there will also start feeling desperate.

> The virus is spreading on other islands due to people returning
> from overseas and both not admitting where they came from and not
> quarantining themselves. It's dangerous and extremely irritating
> because one of my nieces is a nurse and stupid, thoughtless people
> are putting her life at risk. Medical staff are facing
> ostracization due to people being afraid they might be infected
> through work.

In my article yesterday, I described the greatest danger as being
crowding and poverty. I mentioned Mumbai, Lagos and Mexico City, but
Manila certainly fits in the category as well.

Your posting lists all the reasons why this is extremely dangerous,
not only to the cities involved, but also to the entire world.

I hope your wife and your niece find a way to stay safe.


RE: Generational Dynamics World View - John J. Xenakis - 03-23-2020

** 23-Mar-2020 World View: Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Map - March 23, 2020

[Image: JohnsHopkins-Map-200323.jpg]
  • Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Map - March 23, 2020


https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6


RE: Generational Dynamics World View - John J. Xenakis - 03-23-2020

** 23-Mar-2020 World View: Laugh of the day - Reusable bags

Who says that you can't have fun with Wuhan Coronavirus (Covid-19)?

I've always been pissed off by the prohibition against single use
plastic bags. The whole prohibition was a crock of shit because the
packaging for the food for a typical bag of groceries contains enough
plastic for ten plastic bags.

So that left people with a choice -- carry around your own bag all the
time, in case you decide to buy something, and turn into a bag lady,
or else pay 10 cents for paper bags supplied by the store. This
REALLY pissed me off not only because of the charge, but mainly
because this is a "screw the Boomer" law. If a bag tears for a young
kid, then he won't have any trouble picking up the groceries from the
sidewalk. But if any old person (like myself) has a bag tear, then
trying to collect the groceries from the street or sidewalk is a major
project, and may be next to impossible. So this bag law is blatant
age discrimination.

So the city of Cambridge issued the following edict about an hour ago:

Quote: "In a continued collective effort to halt the spread
of COVID-19, Cambridge City Manager Louis A. DePasquale and
Commissioner of Public Health Assaad J. Sayah, MD, today issued a
temporary emergency order that restricts customers at essential
retail establishments from using reusable bags after purchasing
retail products. Neither staff at essential retail establishments
nor their customers are permitted to bag retail products using
customers’ reusable bags at checkout. During this temporary
emergency, there will be no fees associated with retail
establishment bags. This order is in effect
immediately."

https://www.cambridgema.gov/covid19/News/2020/03/temporaryemergencyorderpreventinguseofreusablebagsatretailestablishments

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!

I can hardly wait to buy groceries tomorrow so I can tell the girl at
the cash register that I want two or three bags instead of just one,
and laugh as I say it.

At my age, it's almost impossible to have any fun, but this is going
to be fun. I know that it's extremely pathetic, but a guy's gotta
have fun somehow, and this is it.

Maybe some day I'll tell you how I have fun with spam telephone
callers.


RE: Generational Dynamics World View - John J. Xenakis - 03-23-2020

** 23-Mar-2020 World View: India stock market crashes

India's stock market crashed on Monday, falling until it was
stopped by a trading halt after falling 10%.

The crash is being blamed on the Covid-19 crisis. India is virtually
under lockdown, with manufacturing companies announcing shutdowns.

India has a very high population density -- 455 people per sq km,
compared with 148 in China, 205 in Italy and 50 in Iran.

Analysts are saying that India is at a crucial point where it has to
decide whether to follow the example of China or the example of Italy.

---- Source:

-- India stock market / Sensex crashes 3,935 points: What's behind
market meltdown
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/markets/stocks/news/sensex-hits-10-lower-circuit-what-led-to-the-market-meltdown/articleshow/74768152.cms
(IndiaTimes, 23-Mar-2020)


RE: Generational Dynamics World View - Warren Dew - 03-23-2020

(03-23-2020, 08:10 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!

I can hardly wait to buy groceries tomorrow so I can tell the girl at
the cash register that I want two or three bags instead of just one,
and laugh as I say it.

At my age, it's almost impossible to have any fun, but this is going
to be fun.  I know that it's extremely pathetic, but a guy's gotta
have fun somehow, and this is it.

I totally enjoyed this today.  So much Schadenfreude.

Made the half hour wait in line to get into the store worthwhile.


RE: Generational Dynamics World View - John J. Xenakis - 03-24-2020

** 24-Mar-2020 World View: History of wild stock market swings

The DJIA increased 11.37% on Tuesday, and commentators are pointing
out that this was the largest increase since 1933.

That's true, according to my DJIA historical page:

** DJIA Historical Page
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/ww2010.i.djia.htm


The following is a list of all the days when the DJIA increased by
more than 10%:

Code:
Date              DJIA (Change)   (% of trend)    
----------------- --------------  ----------------
Wed 1929-10-30    258.47(+12.34%) (171% of 150.40)
Mon 1931-06-22    145.82(+11.90%) ( 89% of 162.13)
Tue 1931-10-06     99.34(+14.87%) ( 60% of 164.30)
Wed 1932-09-21     75.16(+11.36%) ( 43% of 171.68)
Wed 1933-03-15     62.10(+15.34%) ( 35% of 175.46)
Wed 1987-10-21   2027.85(+10.15%) ( 95% of 2128.8)
Mon 2008-10-13   9387.61(+11.08%) (169% of 5554.3)
Tue 2008-10-28   9065.12(+10.88%) (162% of 5564.8)
Tue 2020-03-24  20704.91(+11.37%) (220% of 9371.5)


And the following is a list of all the days when the DJIA decreased
by more than 10%:

Code:
Date              DJIA (Change)   (% of trend)    
----------------- --------------  ----------------
Mon 1929-10-28    260.64(-13.47%) (173% of 150.36) Black Monday
Tue 1929-10-29    230.07(-11.73%) (152% of 150.38)
Mon 1931-10-05     86.48(-10.73%) ( 52% of 164.28)
Mon 1987-10-19   1738.74(-22.61%) ( 81% of 2128.2)
Mon 2020-03-16  20188.52(-12.93%) (215% of 9362.1)


So the wild swings that we've been seeing recently are not
good news, but are harbingers of a financial crisis, and possibly
a major panic and financial crisis.

And as long-time readers are well aware, the stock market is in a
bubble. Take a look at the "% of trend" column for two days
in March 2020. The DJIA is far above its trend value of around
9370. This shows how huge the stock market bubble is.


RE: Generational Dynamics World View - John J. Xenakis - 03-24-2020

** 24-Mar-2020 World View: The Principle of Maximum Ruin


Higgenbotham Wrote:> I would add re the above story and the idea of Maximum Ruin.

> The economy and stock market have probably gone down enough that
> most people near retirement will not be able to, even if they
> thought based on 2019 end of year values that they would be able
> to.

> In the meantime, those who thought they could bet on a bad stock
> market or gold as their ticket to retirement won't be able to
> either or at least any time soon because the faux good times
> lasted so much longer than any reasonable person would have
> thought.

I had forgotten about the Principle of Maximum Ruin. It's worthwhile
quoting again the excerpt from John Kenneth Galbraith's 1954 book
The Great Crash - 1929, which seems to have a mystical quality
that makes it more and more meaningful each time you read it:

Quote:> "A common feature of all these earlier troubles
> [previous panics] was that having happened they were over. The
> worst was reasonably recognizable as such. The singular feature
> of the great crash of 1929 was that the worst continued to
> worsen. What looked one day like the end proved on the next day to
> have been only the beginning. Nothing could have been more
> ingeniously designed to maximize the suffering, and also to insure
> that as few as possible escaped the common misfortune.

> The fortunate speculator who had funds to answer the first margin
> call presently got another and equally urgent one, and if he met
> that there would still be another. In the end all the money he
> had was extracted from him and lost. The man with the smart
> money, who was safely out of the market when the first crash came,
> naturally went back in to pick up bargains. ... The bargains then
> suffered a ruinous fall. Even the man who waited out all of
> October and all of November, who saw the volume of trading return
> to normal and saw Wall Street become as placid as a produce
> market, and who then bought common stocks would see their value
> drop to a third or fourth of the purchase price in the next
> twenty-four months. ... The ruthlessness of [the stock market was]
> remarkable." (p. 108)

So millions of people are being screwed once again, by the Principle
of Maximum Ruin.


RE: Generational Dynamics World View - John J. Xenakis - 03-24-2020

*** 25-Mar-20 World View -- Trump calls for ending coronavirus lockdowns by Easter, April 12

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
  • Trump calls for ending coronavirus lockdowns by Easter, April 12
  • Pandemic and shutdown surrounded by political controversies
  • Putting the country back to work on April 12

****
**** Trump calls for ending coronavirus lockdowns by Easter, April 12
****


[Image: g200324b.jpg]
The 'Coronavirus Curve' showing how far each country is into the pandemic (ZeroHedge)

President Donald Trump and his advisors are saying: "The cure can’t be
allowed to be worse than the disease." This statement concisely
describes the conflict between the twin goals of slowing the pandemic
and prevening collapse of the economy.

The "disease," of course, is the Wuhan Coronavirus (Covid-19)
pandemic. According to the World Health Organization, the number of
cases worldwide surpassed 400,000 on Tuesday, with 18,227 deaths
(4.5%). In the United States, there have been almost 50,000 cases.
As I wrote in my previous article, the path of Covid-19 is almost
identical to the path of the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic, and millions
of Americans will die from the virus during the next two years.
( "22-Mar-20 World View -- Today's Wuhan Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic vs 1918 Spanish Flu"
)

The "cure" for the disease has been to shut down the entire economy.
Factories are closed, restaurants are closed, businesses large and
small are closed. People are told to stay in the homes, and not go to
work. This is crippling the economy, sending the economy spiraling
into a recession, and causing a major selloff in the stock market.
The same is true in countries around the world.

The graph at the beginning of this article shows the "Corona Curve,"
and the position of different countries on that curve. That chart
shows that China and South Korea are the farthest along, with a
leveling off of the number of new cases, with Italy and Iran in the
middle of the time of fastest growth of new cases.

The United States is shown just about to enter the rapid growth period
in the next couple of months. This has been widely predicted anyway,
as the amount of testing increases, and reveals new infections. The
World Health Organzation on Tuesday said that the United States is
becoming the new epicenter of the pandemic.

What the chart doesn't show is that different states are at different
positions on the curve. New York City, San Francisco and Seattle are
well into the "late accumulation" phase, while many parts of the
Midwest are still in early development. In New York state there are
21,000 cases on Tuesday, and the number is doubling every three days.
New York will soon be totally overwhelmed by Covid-19 cases.

So Donald Trump says that he'd like to end all the lockdowns by
Easter, April 12. Few people believe that's possible.

****
**** Pandemic and shutdown surrounded by political controversies
****


The United States, like many countries, is facing a stark choice:
death from the virus, or death from economic collapse.

Last week, Trump issued a set of guidelines calling for a national
shutdown for 15 days, after which the situation would be reevaluated.
The 15 days ends on March 31. He's said that, if possible, he'd like
to announce an end to the lockdowns:

<QUOTE>"America will again and soon be open for business. We
are not going to let it turn into a long-lasting financial
problem."<END QUOTE>


Speaking generally, the medical community would prefer to continue the
shutdown. This is adding to a number of political issues and
controversies.
  • Ending the shutdown could substantially increase the rate of
    infections. The shutdown at least is slowing down the rate of
    infection ("flattening the curve"), but if the rate increases, then
    hospitals will be overwhelmed. This is already occurring in Hong
    Kong, where the shutdown was called off, and there was a major
    resurgence in infections. This is the major reason why the medical
    community opposes ending the shutdown.

  • People will tire of the shutdown restrictions. Some men with
    families to feed will find ways to continue earning money. Young
    people will find ways to party. So the whole shutdown concept has an
    expiration date anyway.

  • Since not everyone can be sent back to work on April 12, some
    people are talking about being selective. This is the "herd immunity"
    concept, where young people go to work and the old people stay home.
    That will never fly, and would be a disaster if tried.

  • Privacy issues are being raised over possible implementation in
    America of the measures used by China and South Korea to slow the
    growth in the number of cases. One technique is to require people to
    install an app on their phones so they can be tracked by the
    government, to make sure they don't something illegal, such as
    gathering with other people.

  • There's talk of domestic travel restrictions within the United
    States. In the European Union, some countries have partially closed
    their internal boundaries with each other. That hasn't yet happened
    to the states in the US, but there is serious discussion of domestic
    travel restrictions by plane.

  • Extortion and price gouging are growing. Some face mask vendors
    are increasing prices by a factor of ten. Phony coronavirus "cures"
    are being sold online. At the federal level, Nancy Pelosi is
    demanding that any coronavirus relief bills include numerous piles of
    money for her Democratic party cronies, having nothing to do with the
    pandemic. All of these practices are meant to prey on desperate
    people, and are common in times of crisis.

****
**** Putting the country back to work on April 12
****


Putting the country back to work is not an on-off switch. When Trump
announces new guidelines next week, he'll probably announced a gradual
lifting of the national shutdown:
  • Loosening some of the harshest restrictions.
  • Loosening more restrictions for some sectors of the economy.
  • Perhaps removing restrictions altogether for some sections
    of the country.

I gave an example of this in a previous article: If a restaurant or
bar wants to stay open, then the owner will separate the tables and
place screens between them to create compartments, and then sanitize
each compartment after the people leave. Many restaurants are already
staying open by providing curbside service or at-home deliveries, abut
the use of screens could permit them to reopen completely.

This may seen like a fairly obscure example, but imagine if
restaurants were permitted to open again, provided that the restaurant
were made safe by the use of such screens. And now, imagine any other
kind of business, and think about how a similar change could be made
to allow the business to continue operating. This would result in new
regulations that would replace the requirement to shut down. And as
I've said before, we can imagine a different world, a new world, but a
world that's as busy and bustling as the old world was until recently.

So it's possible that within three or four months, most businesses
will be open again, but restricted by new regulations to make them
safe. Such regulations might "flatten the curve" enough so that the
number of coronavirus deaths can be reduced until a vaccine becomes
available, sometime in 2021.

Sources:

Related Articles:



KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Wuhan Coronavirus, Covid-19,
Herd Immunity, Flattening the Curve,
China, South Korea

Permanent web link to this article
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John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe


RE: Generational Dynamics World View - John J. Xenakis - 03-25-2020

** 25-Mar-2020 World View: Pandemic scenario

richard5za Wrote:> Does anyone have a view on how long this pandemic could go on for:
> A scenario cone shortest versus longest. If it mirrors the 1918
> pandemic most countries were more than a year but then it was
> allowed to burn through without isolation. Only the USA practiced
> some isolation and that looks like just less than a year.

I've written extensively on this subject in articles on my web
site and with shorter reports in the Generational Dynamics World
View News forum thread.

You should look at the web log on my web site:
http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/ww2010.weblog.htm

You should subscribe to my regular articles:

http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe

And you should subscribe to my active forum thread:

"Generational Dynamics World View News"
http://gdxforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=5168&uid=53&watch=topic


You should also subscribe to the "Financial Topics" thread:
http://gdxforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=2&uid=53&watch=topic


RE: Generational Dynamics World View - John J. Xenakis - 03-25-2020

** 25-Mar-2020 World View: Optimism

Here's an e-mail message from a reader:

Quote:> "I've been reading you daily for about a decade, and
> while I respect your opinions and predictions greatly, I usually
> place them at the "most pessimistic" end of the scale.

> After reading today's weblog post I almost did a double-take
> because it seems uncharacteristically optimistic, i.e., we might
> eventually get out of this mess while having avoided millions of
> deaths. Did I read you wrongly?"

Optimism ... pessimism ... it's all a mirage. We're all trapped in a
movie theatre watching a horror movie, and they've locked the doors so
we can't escape. The movie isn't optimistic. The movie isn't
pessimistic. The movie just IS. The movie is life.

Anyway, I didn't exactly say what you say I said. We're firmly on
the path of the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic. So there are still going
to be millions of deaths.

But what I wrote about is how the country's economy can continue as
the pandemic goes and flows, and people continue to die, even though
people are avoiding "gatherings," and are keeping a "social distance."
That's exactly the same problem that the people had in 1918 and 1919.

So that's both bad news and good news. The good news is that people
won't die of starvation. The bad news is that people will die of
coronavirus. The news is neither pessimistic nor optimistic. This
time it's not different. What's old is new again. There's nothing
new under the sun.


RE: Generational Dynamics World View - John J. Xenakis - 03-25-2020

** 25-Mar-2020 World View: Weekly jobless claims

The number of jobless claims for the preceding week is announced on
Thursday mornings. The number is usually around 200,000.

Tomorrow morning, when jobless claims for the week of March 21 are
announced, analysts are forecasting that the number will be one to
four million.


RE: Generational Dynamics World View - John J. Xenakis - 03-25-2020

** 25-Mar-2020 World View: Spanish Flu blood transfusions

One of the techniques being tested now in trials is to take the blood
from a recovered Covid-19 patient, extract the plasma which contains
the Covid-19 antibodies, and inject the plasma into another patient.

A similar technique was used in 1918 to treat Spanish Flu patients.
According to a research paper:

Quote:> "Transfusions with blood products taken from people
> who had recovered from Spanish influenza may have reduced risk for
> death and improved symptoms of hospitalized patients who
> contracted Spanish influenza complicated by pneumonia. Early
> treatment was superior to later treatment. Researchers studied
> medical literature published shortly after the 1918 Spanish flu
> pandemic and found eight relevant studies."

-- Analysis Of Spanish Flu Cases In 1918-1920 Suggests Transfusions
Might Help In Bird Flu Pandemic
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/08/060830075728.htm
(ScienceDaily, 30-Aug-2006)


RE: Generational Dynamics World View - John J. Xenakis - 03-26-2020

*** 27-Mar-20 World View -- Coronavirus pandemic threatens 3.5 million people in Syria's Idlib

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
  • Coronavirus pandemic threatens 3.5 million people in Syria's Idlib
  • Syria admits to first cases of coronavirus -- probably from Iran

****
**** Coronavirus pandemic threatens 3.5 million people in Syria's Idlib
****


[Image: g200326b.jpg]
White Helmets (Syrian Civil Defense) prepare to disinfect refugee camp in northern Idlib, on border with Turkey (Getty)

As long-time readers are aware, there are now over 3.5 million
people in Syria's Idlib province. Two million of them are refugees
from Aleppo, Ghouta, Daraa, and other regions of Syria where Syria's
Shia/Alawite president Bashar al-Assad, supported by Iran and Russia,
has been conducting genocide and ethnic cleansing, targeting his Sunni
Muslim political opponents.

In Idlib, about 40,000 of the 3.5 million people are anti-Assad
fighters, some being members of al-Qaeda linked Hayat Tahrir al-Sham
(HTS). Most of the other 3.5 million people are children. Of the
remainder, most are women. Al-Assad's barrel bombs, missiles and
chemical weapons have specifically targeted schools, markets and
hospitals, in order to kill as many women and children as possible,
which I guess is the best way to commit genocide. Just since
December, 84 hospitals and healthcare facilities were damaged, and
hundreds of healthcare personnel have been attacked in Idlib.

At this time, international humanitarian aid workers in Idlib are in a
state of dread and panic because they know that, sooner or later, the
Wuhan Coronavirus (Covid-19) will reach the crowded refugee camps,
where there's no clean water or soap or medicines or even much food.
The virus will sweep through the crowds in the refugee camps and
worsen the humanitarian disaster.

The virus outbreak in Idlib will be made much worse because the
sociopathic monster Bashar al-Assad, joined with his genocidal pals
Russia's president Vladimir Putin and Iran's crazy fanatical leader
Ali Khameini, have been bombing hospitals, so there will be few places
left where doctors can care for patients.

So the rescue agency White Helmets, along with the aid agencies and
NGOs, have been scrambling, trying to plan for the pandemic's arrival,
disinfecting camps and trying to work out how to provide medical care
and containment strategies where all the hospitals have been
distroyed. The objective will be to try to hold back the tidal wave
of illness when the pandemic arrives.

****
**** Syria admits to first cases of coronavirus -- probably from Iran
****


On Wednesday, the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria imposed a nationwide
curfew from 6 pm each evening until 6 am the next morning. During the
curfew, all trade activities and shops must shut completely, and
violators will be arrested.

On the same day, Syria admitted to confirming five cases of
coronavirus in the capital city Damascus. As in the case of China,
Iran and Russia, it's believed that al-Assad is hiding the true extent
of the problem in Syria, and that there are many more cases beneath
the surface.

Bashar al-Assad depends heavily on Iran to prop up his regime, and so
he can't be too critical about the coronavirus infections, since most
of them were inherited from Iran. Iran refused for weeks to admit
that there were coronavirus infections in Iran, because Iran was
importing the disease from China, and didn't want to anger the
Chinese. ( "14-Mar-20 World View -- Iran's army to monitor entire population for Wuhan Coronavirus"
)

So now, al-Assad's regime is importanting the disease from Iran, but
doesn't want to anger the Iranians. In the meantime, the final virus
explosion will be made much worse because al-Assad destroyed dozens of
hospitals in Idlib that might have prevented the spread of the
disease.

Iran now has 30,000 confirmed cases of the virus, resulting in the
death even of numerous government officials, and the number of
infections continues to grow. By inviting Iranians to help with his
genocide and ethnic cleansing, and by destroying dozens of hospitals
that might have helped, Bashar al-Assad is going to get what he
deserves. Think of it as Allah's divine retribution.

Sources:

Related Articles:



KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Wuhan Coronavirus, Covid-19,
Syria, Idlib, Turkey, Bashar al-Assad,
Russia, Vladimir Putin, Iran,
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, HTS,
White Helmets, China

Permanent web link to this article
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John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
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Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe


RE: Generational Dynamics World View - pbrower2a - 03-27-2020

If Iranian generals can die of COVID-19, then so can colonels, majors, lieutenants, sergeants, corporals, and privates.

Refugee camps almost as a rule are hideously crowded.


RE: Generational Dynamics World View - John J. Xenakis - 03-27-2020

** 27-Mar-2020 World View: China closes movie theaters again, fearing virus second wave

On Friday, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) ordered all movie
theaters across China to close. There are 70,000 movie theaters in
China, and they had all be ordered closed in January, to prevent the
spread of the Wuhan Coronavirus (Covid-19).

Recently, China has been reporting only a handful of new Covid-19
cases each day, and was bragging that China had been successful in
bring the pandemic under control in China. And so, two weeks ago, the
CCP began permitting movie theatres to reopen, and 600 theaters had
begun doing so.

However, on Friday evening, the CCP suddenly ordered all movie
theaters to shut down again. What this means to me is that the CCP
had been believing its own nonsense about having Covid-19 under
control, and the movie theatres were resulting in a "second wave" of
cases.

However, China has 1.4 billion people, and it simply doesn't make
sense that such a huge population should have ended the coronavirus
epidemic with only 80,000 cases. Nobody believes any numbers that
come out of China anyway, but these numbers never made any sense at
all.

In fact, there have been several reports coming out of China that
hospitals are not testing for coronavirus, or are reporting
coronavirus cases as something else, so avoid having to report new
cases. Furthermore the CCP still has brutal censorship rules in
place, where anyone who reports something that contradicts official
CCP claims can be harshly punished. So there is no incentive for
anyone to report new Covid-19 cases up the chain to the CCP, or to
even test for Covid-19.

What's interesting about the current situation is that the sudden
shutdown of the movie theaters reveals that the CCP believed its own
lies, and the lies were contradicted by the results of opening the
theaters, forcing them to be closed again.

China has particularly been bragging that the United States now has
the highest number of confirmed Covid-19 cases of any country in the
world, including China. The reason for that is that the US has
conducted far more Covid-19 tests than any other country in the world.
The number of confirmed cases does not depend on the population of a
country. It depends on the number of tests. If a country has a
million cases, but only 100 people ae tested, then you will not
confirm any more than 100 cases. That's what's happening in this
case, where the US has now become world leader in testing for
Covid-19, and therefore has the largest number of confirmed cases.

Most people on tv don't want to talk about a "second wave," because it
interferes with the hope that the entire crisis will end by May,
though these are the same people who, a month ago, were hoping that
the crisis would end by April.

There are signs that a "second wave" is growing in Hong Kong and South
Korea, as the social distancing restrictions are being relaxed, and
restaurants are reopening.

In the 1918-1919 Spanish Flu pandemic, there was a huge "second wave"
in the fall of 1918. It was much worse than the first wave that
occurred in the previous spring, and killed tens of millions of
people.

** 22-Mar-20 World View -- Today's Wuhan Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic vs 1918 Spanish Flu
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/xct.gd.e200322.htm#e200322



In fall of 1918, officials were not expecting a second wave, and they
were completely unprepared for it. In fall of this year, officials
will be quite expecting a second wave, and will do everything possible
in advance to prepare for it.

That may not be true for China, if the CCP keeps believing its own
lies, and keeps censoring people who try to tell what's really going
on.

---- Sources:

-- China Shuts Down All Cinemas, Again
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/china-shuts-down-all-cinemas-again-1287040
(HollywoodReporter, 27-Mar-2020)

-- Coronavirus Comeback? China Braces For Possible Second Wave Of
COVID-19
https://www.rferl.org/a/china-braces-for-possible-second-wave-of-covid-19/30513782.html
(RFERL, 27-Mar-2020)

-- Ren Zhiqiang / Chinese Property Tycoon's Letter Seen as 'Internal
Strife' by Chinese President
https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/tycoon-xijinping-03262020160600.html
(RFA, 26-Mar-2020)

-- The Second Virus Shockwave Is Hitting China’s Factories Already
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-26/the-second-virus-shockwave-is-hitting-china-s-factories-already
(BB, 26-Mar-2020)