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My Thoughts About the Coronavirus: Ray Dalio

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Re: My Thoughts About the Coronavirus: Ray Dalio

#71

Post by lbj »

vsareto wrote: post #68
lbj wrote: post #46

Only thing interesting about this virus is 1) It fully stopped all the PR coverage of the Hong Kong protests, and 2) We learned how poorly we are prepared for a pandemic

>We learned how poorly we are prepared for a pandemic I've heard mixed things about China's reporting on it. It's more difficult to trust authoritarian regimes by default, but even good preparation can falter if there isn't honest information. Everything sort of followed China's information in the initial stages. Everyday citizen preparation could be affected by social media manipulation (political manipulation tacti…

If you rely on the information they publish? Then no

Re: My Thoughts About the Coronavirus: Ray Dalio

#72

Post by katmannthree »

snapetom wrote: post #24
katmannthree wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read the article you linked? He inferred that the media coverage is fearmongering and an attempt to hurt him. He specifically used the word hoax. He didn't call the virus a hoax, he called the coverage and criticism of the US's handling and response to the outbreak a hoax. From the page you linked: "During a Feb. 28, 2020, campaign rally in South Carolina, President Donald Trump likened the Democrats' critici…

> He didn't call the virus a hoax, he called the coverage and criticism of the US's handling and response to the outbreak a hoax. How does this differ from the person you responded to who said, "Trump did not call COVID-19 a hoax"?

I never said he called the virus itself a hoax. He calls _reporting on COVID-19 and criticism of the US response_ a hoax intended to discredit him, and that is backed up by the quotes from the snopes article the other commenter linked.

Re: My Thoughts About the Coronavirus: Ray Dalio

#73

Post by TacoToni »

mynegation wrote: post #33
Apocryphon wrote: post #2

> this is one of those once in 100 years catastrophic events that annihilates those who provide insurance against it and those who don’t take insurance to protect themselves against it because they treat it as the exposed bet that they can take because it virtually never happens. They said 2008 was a once in a lifetime event, too. So what’s the next black swan that will unsettle the market in 2032? The Big One finall…

I work in finance. We learned a ton from 2008. The amount of new regulation and oversight that came as a result is insane. We will learn from 2020 too.

I'm in finance as well. The regulation is overwhelming. i always feel like i'm working on something for external auditors instead of driving value and savings for the company. It is tiresome.

Re: My Thoughts About the Coronavirus: Ray Dalio

#74

Post by learc83 »

lucb1e wrote: post #59
bob33212 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the death rate was 10% across the board we would know how far it has spread. But this cold may have a 0.001% hospitalization or death rate for people in great health. There could already be 100,000 people infected in the states. We may be close to the point of saying "fuck it. False alarm this is just a cold. Carry on". Hard to know for sure though until a couple weeks go by

From another comment, in Italy the numbers are worse than previously reported rather than better. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22476675 I did not check their source. Just saying that "we may be close to saying `false alarm`" seems almost certainly ill-informed.

Based on confirmed cases. There are likely far more cases that haven't been tested.

Re: My Thoughts About the Coronavirus: Ray Dalio

#75

Post by MikeHolman »

mgolawala wrote: post #67
yulaow wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Italy at the moment the data is far worse. We have a total of 2263 currently infected people of which 1000 with few symptoms, 1034 hospitalized and another 229 under emergency treatments [0] If the number of infected keeps growing (+400 today) and the percentage of hospitalized remains the same, hospitals will have serious problems very soon [0] https://www.ansa.it/sito/notizie/cronaca/2020/03/03/coronavi...

The virus is certainly quite concerning, but those numbers are misleading. Italy almost certainly has far more than 2263 infected cases of covid-19. 2263 is just the number of individuals that sought medical attention, were given the test, and tested positive. The big unknown is how many of those that are infected do not even seek medical attention (or were not administered the test). For instance, children appear to…

Don't they test close contacts of cases? So even if not all of the cases are severe, the severe cases will discover a lot of the more mild cases by proxy.

But I guess the incubation period is so long that those more mild cases may resolve before they can be tested.

Re: My Thoughts About the Coronavirus: Ray Dalio

#76

Post by yodsanklai »

dougmwne wrote: post #64
yodsanklai wrote: post #26

It's very hard to have an informed opinion on the virus. Different actors have different incentives. Medias try to sell ads, politicians want to be elected (or not held responsible), institutions like WHO are political (I don't really trust them after seeing their treatment of Taiwan) and have their own agendd, even experts have their own biases and are selected by medias. And we are all deeply biased, and tend to lo…

It would be great if you could share your reasoning and information as to why you think this is just a bad flu. I have been seeing information from China that says the death rate is 20-30 times higher than the flu and that the hospitalization rate could be up to 20%. Other than China, most countries haven't been infected long enough to do studies on the final fatality or hospitalization rate.

Mortality rate in China is overestimated because they tested primarily the most severe cases. From [1]:

"This suggests that the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza (which has a case fatality rate of approximately 0.1%) or a pandemic influenza (similar to those in 1957 and 1968) rather than a disease similar to SARS or MERS, which have had case fatality rates of 9 to 10% and 36%, respectively."

[1] https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe2002387

Also there were 3000 death in China, and new cases are declining. In France alone (20 times less people), it's common to have 10000 death annually from the flu. Of course, China enforced strict containment measures and we don't know the exact numbers, but overall the death toll seem rather small. Why should we expect much worse in the West? And finally, it's not sure, but some experts expect the virus to decline with warmer temperatures. So overall, I'd say there's room for optimism.

Re: My Thoughts About the Coronavirus: Ray Dalio

#77

Post by davidw »

mgolawala wrote: post #67
yulaow wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Italy at the moment the data is far worse. We have a total of 2263 currently infected people of which 1000 with few symptoms, 1034 hospitalized and another 229 under emergency treatments [0] If the number of infected keeps growing (+400 today) and the percentage of hospitalized remains the same, hospitals will have serious problems very soon [0] https://www.ansa.it/sito/notizie/cronaca/2020/03/03/coronavi...

The virus is certainly quite concerning, but those numbers are misleading. Italy almost certainly has far more than 2263 infected cases of covid-19. 2263 is just the number of individuals that sought medical attention, were given the test, and tested positive. The big unknown is how many of those that are infected do not even seek medical attention (or were not administered the test). For instance, children appear to…

Italy has been running a lot of tests. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/covid-19-testing/

I think that includes many tests on people who were simply exposed to it somehow, in order to try and stop the spread.

Re: My Thoughts About the Coronavirus: Ray Dalio

#78

Post by ianburrell »

danenania wrote: post #56
Angostura wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The great thing about badly fitting masks is people wearing them tend to touch their face a lot more.

Afaik the primary method of transmission is believed to be saliva droplets in the air, expelled via talking, sneezing, or coughing. I think even a badly fitting mask would cut this drastically? Washing hands, avoiding touching your face, and other measures like these mainly help with what seems to be a far less common vector of transmission via surfaces and physical contact, where the virus only remains active for a…

You have it backwards. Droplets on surfaces are the primary transmission mechanism. The virus can survive on surfaces for hours. People then touch surfaces with their hands then touch their faces.

Droplets in the air are a transmission mechanism but only for short range (3-6 feet) and only a danger from people who cough or sneeze on you. Respirators are effective at stopping that transmission but they are most useful for people treating the sick. But they aren't effective if worn improperly. For most people, avoiding the sick is enough.

Surgical masks are useful for the sick to keep cough and sneeze droplets from spreading. They are also useful to keep people from touching their face.

Re: My Thoughts About the Coronavirus: Ray Dalio

#79

Post by thisisbrians »

yodsanklai wrote: post #26

It's very hard to have an informed opinion on the virus. Different actors have different incentives. Medias try to sell ads, politicians want to be elected (or not held responsible), institutions like WHO are political (I don't really trust them after seeing their treatment of Taiwan) and have their own agendd, even experts have their own biases and are selected by medias. And we are all deeply biased, and tend to lo…

I am inclined to agree that it's difficult to form a good opinion here: the information available is horridly imperfect and even conflicting. I saw a news article a couple of days ago that said masks don't help prevent you from getting the virus, yet that very article included a WHO infographic encouraging the public to buy and wear masks. Alas...

Re: My Thoughts About the Coronavirus: Ray Dalio

#80

Post by elicash »

crystaldev wrote: post #39
elicash wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vigilant diagnosis? Isn't the biggest issue for the U.S. right now that we're not able to test nearly enough people? As far as stocking up, my understanding was that the reason for picking up an extra couple items each time you go to the store was in case eventually certain areas are rec'd to work from home and such. Maybe that won't happen, but it's not like that stuff would go to waste.

We're testing people who would ordinarily not be tested already. That doesn't mean the diagnosis is wrong, or that COVID-19 isn't widespread.

I know it's widespread. The extent to which that's the case, unfortunately, we have no idea because there hasn't been enough testing.

Not sure what you mean by "ordinarily" tested. This pandemic is quite a unique situation.

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