Liberty

What is the real forward total return on your portfolio? How many people working for companies you own have done something illegal in the past month? Thanks. (It's not because you can't know something with precision that you know nothing about it and should just do random things... you can look at past experience, base rates, mechanistic understanding of the situation, etc, to determine what's the best course of action based on the best available data at the time, while adjusting constantly as new data comes in and as what you're doing has an impact on the trajectory, and with probabilistic models (note the wide outcome distribution). Otherwise, if you really believe the line that you're trying to sell here, why are you investing at all? You can't know everything about what you invest in and you can't know the future, so might as well give up, right?)

You know that every other country started with just 1 case and 1 death, right?

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-news-dangerous-coronavirus-mission-accomplished-moment

Pretty slick video showing the Chinese plant:

As opposed to? As opposed to before March 22nd. Isnt the shutdown supposed to reduce cases and deaths, at least after 2 weeks? If it went down, the curve wouldn't be flattened. Their goal was to flatten it. That implies no decline in the case load. It takes more than two weeks to see an effect because no shutdown is perfect, and those who catch it then infect their families with whom they're quarantined (they stay asymptomatic for days), and it then takes weeks for those people to fight through the disease, and hopefully they don't in turn don't infect too many other people.. For India: Looks like as of 2 days ago, India did 18,000 tests a day. So even if somehow 100% of tests came back positive, they couldn't have more than a few tens of thousands of reported cases in a country of 1.35bn. People shouldn't confuse reported cases with actual cases. https://www.bloombergquint.com/coronavirus-outbreak/india-aims-to-scale-up-covid-19-testing-to-one-lakh-daily This here has even lower numbers: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1107370/india-coronavirus-covid-19-tests-per-day/ 12k at peak, and in the 1-2k range just a week before that. This official release seems to say that capacity is now 18k, and that total cumulative tests so far for India is 96k. https://www.icmr.nic.in/sites/default/files/press_realease_files/Press_Brief_6April2020.pdf

I don't think this tool does what you think it does. I think you are wrong. I referenced the part of the FAQs that explains the question I posed to try to avoid this response. You misinterpreted my reference to AIDS as well. The point of my original post was that experts recommend different actions for different threats. You said I was wrong and then repeated what I wrote in a specific instance (as opposed to general). I think you are fighting with idiots too much 8). My point isn't to suggest that the model is saying we are eradicating the disease in 2 months of social distancing. My point was that expectations have been lowered to the point that the public is going to be disappointed in the future. I didn't misinterpret your reference to AIDS, but maybe mine wasn't clear. I was also pointing out that different threats necessitate different response, reinforcing that with an illustration. And if your point was that "that expectations have been lowered to the point that the public is going to be disappointed in the future", then I didn't get that from what you wrote at all, but I agree with it if that's what people are taking from it. But I hope people are smart enough (well, futile hope, maybe) to use the model to try to get a ballpark for the peaks in deaths, resource usage, etc, but don't use it as a comprehensive model for the whole epidemic.

They could show zero on that chart if they just didn't test too. Ramping up of testing is finding infections that were undetected before, it's not caused by the shutdown. Also, whatever cases you're seeing tested are infections that happened many days before, as people usually get tested by the time they have bad enough symptoms to go to a hospital/clinic. You're like a guy who has read one investing book coming to an investing forum and trying to tell everybody why they're wrong about everything while obviously making all the newbie mistakes. It's just embarrassing.

And let us know when you cure cancer and win an Emmy, while we're making random stuff up for each other to do.

I don't think this tool does what you think it does.

Pretty sure Buffett and his friend Bill Gates don't think about this in soundbytes like you do and take very seriously all the best practices for pandemics from those who have been studying them their whole lives. In fact, logic would lead one to think that those most worried about the economic impacts of this would be the loudest voices decrying lack of preparation and competence and asking for the biggest investments in future preparations. The costs of pandemics are so high that doing things properly, and even over-reacting early on, pays for itself a zillion times over. So you are saying, as opposed to Cherzeca - that this "One size fits all" approach is the correct one. No other alternatives? What's right for NYC is right for Wyoming, etc? You are saying we know where the herd immunity may stand? The data they are stuffing in their models are known facts? They've not been offset the impact of this drastic increase in hygiene, mask wearing, social distancing prevention? We know this thing is lethal for the immune compromised and the elderly - but so will be a depression. No, I'm not saying what you're saying I'm saying.

If you could catch HIV with a handshake or by touching a doorknob, you can be sure we'd have had a shutdown. I don't think the model suggests "eradication", but certainly exponential decline if social distancing measures are maintained through may, after which you have to do "the dance" as described here to prevent a resurgence: https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-the-hammer-and-the-dance-be9337092b56 http://www.healthdata.org/covid/faqs

Pretty sure Buffett and his friend Bill Gates don't think about this in soundbytes like you do and take very seriously all the best practices for pandemics from those who have been studying them their whole lives. In fact, logic would lead one to think that those most worried about the economic impacts of this would be the loudest voices decrying lack of preparation and competence and asking for the biggest investments in future preparations. The costs of pandemics are so high that doing things properly, and even over-reacting early on, pays for itself a zillion times over.

There's always anomalies. You don't know in real time what's going on, is it luck, will they have a problem later, do they have other measures and social norms that compensated (places that don't shake hands and commonly wear masks when sick)? You certainly don't cherry pick one place and hope to be them while having very different circumstances. Wishful thinking isn't a strategy. And didn't I just see they're shutting down Tokyo somewhere else? I explained upthread some of what Italy did wrong, which is similar to the US actions. You are looking at this as if there was a single variable, but life's more complex and messy than that.

Peter Attia podcast, Q&A with his daughter about the situation from a kid's point of view: https://peterattiamd.com/covid-19-for-kids/

I dont know what that means. But is that your best answer why millions should loose their jobs? Also I am hearing yesterday briefing. They are declaring everyone irrespective of other clinical history as Covid death if they test positive for Covid. To have fair comparison, one should also test every dead person for flu and check how many die with flu. Seriously, it is known many cadavers when checked, one can find many cancers, but no one does that and declares death due to cancer. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4485977/ The High Prevalence of Undiagnosed Prostate Cancer at Autopsy: Among men aged 70-79, tumor was found in 36% of Caucasians and 51% of African-Americans. Will Dr. Fauci with straight face can say about 40% americans die of prostate cancer? So is that the best answer you can give to justify why so many millions need to loose jobs? Pay attention, look things up, you'll find answers to all your questions, you don't need me to hand-hold you.

Meanwhile, like a good narcissist, Trump brags about his TV ratings: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1247897591611682818?s=20

I think most people would also rather have a few difficult months than lose their parents/uncles/friends/coworkers/etc. It's not just the old, but those with other health issues, which includes obesity, diabetes, heart problems, compromised immune system, etc, and a lot of things that affect people of all ages. Some people act like "underlying health condition" means "not a real person who deserved to die anyway" when it's pointed out that a victim had some other illness... I guess people tend to see it all as statistics rather than think about their mom or favorite mentor. What proof actually is there that shutdowns work? Most of South East Asia countries (Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, etc) never had any shutdown and their numbers are low. Italy had lot of shutdown and their numbers are high. Empirically what proof exists that shutdowns work? What we know is we are working with imperfect and missing data. There is a ton we don't know. But many here do not have the intellectual humility to admit that. They are experts and they know their models are bulletproof. So don't rock the boat - or you too will be ridiculed endlessly. Anyone who has looked at what places like Taiwan and Singapore (and South-Korea) have done knows that they've done about 100x more than most other places and were prepared and had epidemiologists running the show from early on, with strict quanratines (they call you and the police comes to your door if your phone runs out of battery while on quarantine), contact tracing, massive testing early on, face masks, clear communications from leaders and population understood what was going on and bought in, etc. Italy is an example of what not to do. May have been a cultural thing, but population didn't respect social distancing for a long time in the early weeks, it was widely believed it wasn't a big deal, just the flu. Then they shut down small areas (red zones) and announced it in advance, so people fled from there to not get stuck and went to infect the rest of the country. Then they shut down a wider area, and things repeated. And then by the time they did the whole thing, it was too late and they had one of the worst situations in the world. Kind of like what the US has done... But if we're starting to peak in some places now, it's because these places have been shutdown for about 3 weeks, which is how long it takes because of the inertia built in the system with the incubation period. It's not rocket science that if people were still going out, infections and deaths would be much higher.

Who's leaving it out? I'm not. That's why I think Trump's handling of this was so bad. Both sides of this crisis would be better with some competence.

I think most people would also rather have a few difficult months than lose their parents/uncles/friends/coworkers/etc. It's not just the old, but those with other health issues, which includes obesity, diabetes, heart problems, compromised immune system, etc, and a lot of things that affect people of all ages. Some people act like "underlying health condition" means "not a real person who deserved to die anyway" when it's pointed out that a victim had some other illness... I guess people tend to see it all as statistics rather than think about their mom or favorite mentor.

It's a disaster either way, but the numbers are not independent of each other. There's fewer deaths because people are staying home. The way to mitigate both deaths and economic impact was to have a better response when this was small, but that ship has sailed. As Bill Gates says, this isn't as simple as "deciding" to reopen on a dime. People won't ignore that "pile of bodies in the corner" and just get back to their lives as if nothing is going on, this needs to be brought under control. This isn't just affecting those who are 80, as is quite clear when you look anywhere. Dying isn't the only thing that can go wrong. Having double pneumonia with high fever for days isn't exactly a walk in the park and can leave permanent damage to both heart and lungs, and overwhelming medical capacity means people die from other causes that could've been saved, so it compounds.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/04/07/trump-dismantled-the-very-jobs-meant-to-stop-the-covid-19-epidemic-173347 "The government agencies designed to protect us are riddled with vacancies and temporary officials. No wonder we’re facing a catastrophe."

https://radfordneal.wordpress.com/2020/04/06/body-mass-and-risk-from-covid-19-and-influenza/ "Body Mass and Risk from COVID-19 and Influenza"

Oh, and btw, Joe Biden op-ed about it in January: https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/01/27/coronavirus-donald-trump-made-us-less-prepared-joe-biden-column/4581710002/

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/04/americans-are-paying-the-price-for-trumps-failures/609532/ This is long, but for those who are sick of seeing history being rewritten before their eyes and don't like being gaslighted, here's the timeline of what actually happened: