Fed cuts half point in emergency move amid spreading virus • Hacker News Board

Re: Fed cuts half point in emergency move amid spreading virus

#391

Post by downerending » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 6:37 PM UTC

beamatronic wrote: post #218

airstrike wrote: post #27

From what I gather after spending more time than I'm willing to admit listening to every finance talking head out there, the consensus on the street seems to be that this will result in a temporary market recovery followed by the continued deterioration of stock prices given that fiscal or monetary* policy can't really affect the real economy in the near term* i.e. if the supply chain is indeed impacted due to COVID-…

There’s one thing the virus cannot beat: social distancing.

Unclear. Can't find a link, but I recall reading that if you were within 50m (?) of a norovirus patient when they vomited, you had a noticeable chance of catching the bug yourself.

Re: Fed cuts half point in emergency move amid spreading virus

#392

Post by learc83 » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 6:37 PM UTC

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #120

rsync wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" ... I'm still slightly bearish on the whole situation due to the combination of the virus' absurdly high infection rate[0] and its ridiculous ~25-30 day incubation period ..." You're right to highlight those aspects of the virus and I find them noteworthy as well. However, the statistics I am most interested in is mortality rate and rate of asymptomatic infections. I note with interest that among the 700+ infected…

What I'm most interested in is the hospitalisation rate and if we can slow down infections enough for hospitals to be able to cope. I think the death rate will ultimately depend on whether everyone who needs hospital treatment can get it. And that's why I think the Diamond Princess may not be representative of what happens in the real world.

On the people on the Diamond Princess there are 36 critical cases + 6 dead. So 42/705 infected, so 6% likely needed to be hospitalized.

But, the demographics skewed older than the general population, and there were 3200 people on board in basically a worst case scenario for spread.

So 42/3200 is ~1% of a much older population.

Re: Fed cuts half point in emergency move amid spreading virus

#393

Post by samvher » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 6:39 PM UTC

NicoJuicy wrote: post #374

samvher wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know, Italy is doing pretty poorly with 79 dead on 160 recovered (2502 total cases). Only the numbers in China really seem to be dropping, and I wonder how that will hold up when people get back to work. This is not going to be the end of the world as we know it but I think it will take quite some more time before it's behind us.

I think it's all okay. China has the biggest cities of the world and they censored it for 2 months, while the virus was spreading. This isn't happening in the rest of the world. ( Except some dictatorships) Some minor outliers like you mentioned, eg. Italy. But these are getting handled. It will not spread anymore like it did in China. It's possible that some parts will need extra handling, but sharing information is…

I like your optimism and I hope you're right. I don't think Italy, South Korea, Iran are outliers in the sense that there is something fundamentally different going on there though - I think they are just ahead in terms of time. Overall the spread in different countries seems to follow very similar patterns but with different starting dates.

Yes, China did some weird stuff with information in the beginning, but it seems there is not really much reason to suspect they're hiding information anymore [1,2]. The responses by free-er nations have been much milder with more reliance on self-quarantine. Let's hope that that works. And let's hope there will be sufficient testing to stay on top of things.

[1] https://www.vox.com/2020/1/27/21082354/coronavirus-outbreak-...

[2] https://www.vox.com/2020/3/2/21161067/coronavirus-covid19-ch...

Re: Fed cuts half point in emergency move amid spreading virus

#394

Post by dv_dt » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 6:40 PM UTC

Acrobatic_Road wrote: post #272

coliveira wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is also moving into a demographic downturn, thanks to republican policies.

Not really. The entire first world is suffering a demographic crisis but the US is doing slightly better than Europe and Japan with population set to keep increasing for the foreseeable future.

The population is only increasing due to an immigration flow that the Trump administration is busily shutting off or disincentivising in every way possible.

Re: Fed cuts half point in emergency move amid spreading virus

#395

Post by nate_meurer » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 6:41 PM UTC

hour_glass wrote: post #341

ethbro wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not if a substantial number of them now have antibodies against it. More realistically, even if enough of them have antibodies to create herd immunity. (Via making it impractical for the virus to transmit to a vulnerable host)

people have already been getting covid twice

No, there is no solid evidence of persistent infections. The few reports of repeat infections are highly likely to be caused by testing artifacts. The imperfect sensitivity and false-positive rate of the tests means you'll always see people who tested negative at one time, and positive at a later time.

As an RNA virus, it would be extremely difficult for SARS-COV-2 to establish persistence. I'm not aware of any known mechanism by which that could happen. It's been proposed that some COV's may have neurotropic capability [1] that might allow them to achieve latency, but it's just that -- a proposal.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6212673/

Re: Fed cuts half point in emergency move amid spreading virus

#396

Post by dv_dt » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 6:42 PM UTC

bendbro wrote: post #385

coliveira wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is also moving into a demographic downturn, thanks to republican policies.

I am fine with this. Bernie Sanders once said mass immigration was a "koch brothers scheme." I agree with this sentiment. Increases in GDP don't seem to help the lower class. As GDP has risen, inflation adjusted income has flatlined. As population has increased, and as housing investment gone higher, housing prices have skyrocketed.

I think you are confusing Sanders position against fully open borders vs an allowed, but controlled immigration process.

Re: Fed cuts half point in emergency move amid spreading virus

#397

Post by learc83 » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 6:42 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #132

rsync wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" ... I'm still slightly bearish on the whole situation due to the combination of the virus' absurdly high infection rate[0] and its ridiculous ~25-30 day incubation period ..." You're right to highlight those aspects of the virus and I find them noteworthy as well. However, the statistics I am most interested in is mortality rate and rate of asymptomatic infections. I note with interest that among the 700+ infected…

The cruse ship had 135 infected on February 10th, jumping to 634 on February 20th. So, most of those 700 are recent infections. The actual long term death total for the cruse ship is unknown, but should include people who died in their home country after returning. The good news is assuming you trust China’s numbers new infections are down massively from a February 2nd peak. Deaths in China are also down significantl…

> So, most of those 700 are recent infections

But the vast majority are less recent than February 20th. Almost all of them have been showing symptoms for longer than the average time to hospitalization.

Re: Fed cuts half point in emergency move amid spreading virus

#398

Post by AnimalMuppet » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 6:43 PM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #382

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capacity dropped because China shut down. That's temporary (we trust), but it's a drop in global capacity.

That's a different question from whether capacity is available. You could have less than before and still have plenty. There is also a question of short term vs. long term. In the short term if some things are made only in China they may become temporarily scarce. In the longer term either China will come back online or capacity will be created somewhere else (or both).

True.

This is my opinion, not backed by hard data or numbers or anything else - just my opinion. I think that the world (or at least the west) became dependent on China's capacity. We outsourced and off-shored, and a bunch of factories closed and companies shut down. China didn't add capacity, it replaced capacity. So in the short term, if China shuts down, there's an actual shortage of capacity, because much of the other capacity is gone.

In the long term, as you say, sure, we can start back up here. It will take a while, but we can get there. The buildings didn't die, and the people who knew how to do it didn't all get lobotomies. In the medium to long term, we'll be fine, whether China comes back or not.

Note again: This is my guess. Anyone with real data, feel free to supply it.

Re: Fed cuts half point in emergency move amid spreading virus

#399

Post by ratfaced-guy » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 6:45 PM UTC

rolltiide wrote: post #256

ohazi wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh... maybe more like bringing a SWAT team to a brush fire.

what part of the prior analogy made you think this one was better, and so much better to actually post? cynical, but genuinely curious I like the imagery of fire hydrants spraying water on an issue that is ongoing and unresolved while the vaults become hollow and worth nothing.

Less syllables, rolls of the tongue better.

Re: Fed cuts half point in emergency move amid spreading virus

#400

Post by samvher » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 6:45 PM UTC

lancyH wrote: post #156

rsync wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" ... I'm still slightly bearish on the whole situation due to the combination of the virus' absurdly high infection rate[0] and its ridiculous ~25-30 day incubation period ..." You're right to highlight those aspects of the virus and I find them noteworthy as well. However, the statistics I am most interested in is mortality rate and rate of asymptomatic infections. I note with interest that among the 700+ infected…

> among the 700+ infected on the cruise ship, there were 6 deaths Your death count is incorrect. Several deaths occurred after cruise members returned to their home country, and are currently counted as deaths in their home country instead of the cruise ship. Take for example: 78-year-old man in Perth - got infected on the cruise ship - but counted as a death in Australia.

This seems like a very important point, thanks. Many people are pointing at differences between nations and comparisons with Diamond Princess to derive different fatality rates than are commonly mentioned in the media and to point at an "iceberg" of unsymptomatic (and uncounted) cases. It's good to be aware that some of these discrepancies might just be artifacts from the way the data is registered.