[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by Samurai

Caronavirus is our future, it won't go away...

...

Thank you for sharing. Always useful to hear a new view.

When ever something new happens or a major change occurs there is a tendency in our minds to assume it will go on for a long time. If markets are going down every 'expert' will start prophesizing how much further it will continue down - just as an example - there could be several others. Change is the only thing assured. The biggest change will be more and more humans developing their own inner immunity to covid-19 and very soon this panic and pre-occupation with covid-19 will subside.

[mvadg]

He Has 17,700 Bottles of Hand Sanitizer and Nowhere to Sell Them

Some people did benefit from the Coronavirus economy. I'm sure there will be quite a few millionaires in India too, thanks to the current shortage of sanitizers, masks and even antivirals.

On March 1, the day after the first coronavirus death in the United States was announced, brothers Matt and Noah Colvin set out in a silver S.U.V. to pick up some hand sanitizer. Driving around Chattanooga, Tenn., they hit a Dollar Tree, then a Walmart, a Staples and a Home Depot. At each store, they cleaned out the shelves. Over the next three days, Noah Colvin took a 1,300-mile road trip across Tennessee and into Kentucky, filling a U-Haul truck with thousands of bottles of hand sanitizer and thousands of packs of antibacterial wipes, mostly from “little hole-in-the-wall dollar stores in the backwoods,” his brother said. “The major metro areas were cleaned out.”

Matt Colvin stayed home near Chattanooga, preparing for pallets of even more wipes and sanitizer he had ordered, and starting to list them on Amazon. Mr. Colvin said he had posted 300 bottles of hand sanitizer and immediately sold them all for between $8 and $70 each, multiples higher than what he had bought them for. To him, “it was crazy money.” To many others, it was profiteering from a pandemic.

...

[tsk1979]

Social distancing does work. However it hits the economy. In the end its a choice. How many points in the sensex are dead people worth.

We can now accurately predict epidemics (whether here to stay in TED talks or gone away mostly like H1N1, SARS,MERS) via mathematical modeling. Quarantines do not work. But if people who can afford to stay put (eg people who can work from home) the curve can be flattened and death count be reduced.


Those of you who paid attention in mathematics class (I know very few ) will find this very interesting.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graph...ona-simulator/

[SmartCat]

Originally Posted by mvadg

After listening to her, I think we should just drop all quarantine measures and carry on business as usual. It will save the global economy and will not make too much of a difference to the mortality rate in the long run. Human behavior is not going to change anyway.

This is called "Herd Immunity" approach and UK is considering adopting the plan -

- Isolate the vulnerable, rather than adopt social distancing
- Let the virus rage across the remaining population so that they develop immunity
- Once immunity is developed by majority, transmission of virus slows down drastically

U.K. considers herd-immunity approach — allowing more people to contract coronavirus
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/it...rus-2020-03-14

[sparameswaran]

Originally Posted by SmartCat

This is called "Herd Immunity" approach and UK is considering adopting the plan -

But it must also be recognised that the UK is being widely criticised and even ridiculed for this 'plan', among medical and scientific circles (I am a doctor).

While it is true that the older and those with pre-existing medical conditions are at higher risk of complications and death on e they have the infection, it is already quite evident that younger and healthier people are not immune to complications.

Age above 40 years and having conditions like hypertension, diabetes, asthma etc are counted as risk factors for complications.

If someone says that a country can (or will) isolate all its people at risk (which may form even 50% or more of the population depending on its demographics), I will not take it on face value.

One reason why death rate in Italy is the highest (compared to China or Korea or even Iran) is that the hospitals got flooded with sick patients. Ventilators and ICU beds had to 'rationed'. The triage strategy was that only young people with no coexistent illnesses (and hence max chance of recovery) were put on ventilators while older people or even young people with coexistent illnesses were left to fend for themselves (happens in extreme situations like war, large epidemics etc). And, obviously, people who developed other unrelated health emergency were left unattended to. If the number of cases surge, this can happen anywhere, including the most affluent countries. You can imagine what will be the scenario in India if we end up having many thousands of cases like Italy or Iran (or, now, Spain). Countries like India should adopt extreme measures to avoid reaching such a scenario. The government seems to doing exactly that (though the behaviour of some people among the lay public is nothing less than scandalous).

From the data available from Italy and South Korea, it is evident that (like most other viral illnesses), a significant proportion of patients acquiring the infection remains Asymptomatic, but are infectious (can give the virus to others and cause illness). Identifying such Asymptomatic people requires population-wide screening and most countries (including India) do not have the resources to do it. (South Korea is doing it and is probably the only country doing it).

Social distancing is the single most important measure we can do to save ourselves and our society (in India) at the current stage (early stages in India, with almost entirely imported cases) of the epidemic here. Let suggestions on the contrary (no dearth of all sorts of advice these days) not make you underestimate its importance.

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by mvadg

Thanks for recommending this video. It was recommended by YouTube, but I value TBHP opinions more.

After listening to her, I think we should just drop all quarantine measures and carry on business as usual.

Quarantine is a stop-gap solution, merely to stop the healthcare system from being overwhelmed. That means we have to build robust healthcare system worldwide to handle the infection effectively and routinely once quarantine goes away. If the quarantine stays, economy will collapse. So there is no choice. It also means covid-19 treatment has to be free, otherwise number of people dying regularly will be very high.

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

When ever something new happens or a major change occurs there is a tendency in our minds to assume it will go on for a long time. If markets are going down every 'expert' will start prophesizing how much further it will continue down - just as an example - there could be several others. Change is the only thing assured. The biggest change will be more and more humans developing their own inner immunity to covid-19 and very soon this panic and pre-occupation with covid-19 will subside.

Your prediction hinges on the hope that a vaccine will be invented soon, and once the whole world in vaccinated, we can all return back to normalcy. True, I really really hope that will happen.

That said, there are reasons why the lady on the video must be taken seriously. She did something clever in the beginning of the video, to separate herself from random person on the internet. Just because all of us are on the Internet, we tend to think all our opinions have the same weight. But deep down most of us know that is not the case.

As a global health expert, she deals with demography level data on pandemics and their spreading pattern. People like her will have very good skill in modelling in that domain. I too have 30 years experience in abstract modelling, where one learns to separate common from non-common patterns in a given domain. It takes many years of experience in a domain to learn to separate common from non-common. So when she identifies covid-19 as the non-common that will change how we live our lives in future, I would listen. I am sure she is aware of the possibility of vaccine to eliminate this scenario, her model will have accounted for that.

You also have a model based on your stock market experience. But, that domain knowledge may not be enough to separate the common from non-common factors in case of a pandemic. None of us have experience in dealing with pandemic, because it has never happened in our life times. Only the global health experts would have worked on those theoretic models repeatedly, because it is their job.

[pranavGTI]

IMHO market could go down further and there is no base to support the free falling. Indian market was already over valued by X-times. COVID-19 is just one trigger but there are other scams, banking NPAs and govt divestment at throw away prices. Despite Air India sale announcement by Govt, there was no buyer. This is a small list followed by BPCL, HPCL, ITC (govt stake). Recently Raguram Rajan said to revive the economy banking issues should be resolved. This is highly dependent on the NPAs from Power, Telecom and Steel industries. I do agree with him .

[k_kumar]

Originally Posted by mvadg

He Has 17,700 Bottles of Hand Sanitizer and Nowhere to Sell Them

...

They have donated them today.

[CarJunki]

I think it is time for people to buy a medical insurance independent of employer. If the situation really turns nasty where employment at large corporate is impacted, the ones to lose jobs and their families will be without cover. So if anyone does not have a medical cover on their own the time to buy one is now more than ever.

As of now government is conducting the tests and treatment of COVID-19 free of charge. Still better to be prepared as there are other diseases also waiting to attack and those will most certainly need personal expense.

[locusjag]

Originally Posted by bluevolt

How bad IT industry is going to affected in the current situation? This is appraisal season currently in progress and companies now have a good reason (excuse even for some) to not to give any hike this year (peanuts if at all they give).

Ratings agencies have rated Hexaware and Mindtree as being heavily exposed to billing revenues from the Travel & Hospitality vertical. As airlines and businesses that rely on tourism feel the heat or go bankrupt, such IT companies will see a cut in billed income and will possibly need to layoff employees. This is the immediate pin-pointed fallout for the IT industry.

There's no telling how much worse (or better) things will get for the IT sector.

[Mr.RaghavDhir]

Originally Posted by ValarMorghulis

PS: That said, invest only what you are ready to lose.

This is why seasoned guys remain unperturbed in downturns like this and novices (Like me) loose sleep endlessly over this

[neil.jericho]

Originally Posted by bluevolt

How bad IT industry is going to affected in the current situation? This is appraisal season currently in progress and companies now have a good reason (excuse even for some) to not to give any hike this year (peanuts if at all they give).

This will ultimately going to affect economy as people would be putting off purchases, travels and what not.

I am concerned about how bad the Indian IT industry is going to be hit in the next 3 - 4 quarters. With global and local businesses suffering from the near debilitating impact of the current scenario, how can they afford to invest in new IT projects (not talking about support and maintenance here) in the next financial year?

[SmartCat]

Originally Posted by Mr.RaghavDhir

This is why seasoned guys remain unperturbed in downturns like this and novices (Like me) loose sleep endlessly over this

You need to think like a real estate owner.

In these times, an owner of a Rs. 50 Lakh apartment won't be able to sell it for even Rs. 30 lakhs, because there are simply no buyers right now. The buyers have other things to worry about, than buying an apartment in the next 3 months.

Similarly, there is no reason why a stock market investor should worry about his Rs. 50 Lakh portfolio becoming Rs. 30 Lakhs. Remember that you lose money only when you sell. Novice stock investors worry about their portfolio value because they don't treat stocks as valuable assets. They see stocks as a bunch of numbers that go up and down. Like a casino slot machine .

[Eddy]

Someone I know is a class 12 pass person. He was always interested in body building, so worked as a trainer in gyms. At the age of 40, he finally put all of his life savings into opening his own gym about 6-7 months ago in Chandigarh.

He finally broke even last month (fixed costs ~Rs 2 lakh) only to see the footfall drop down by 50% this month. Now he fears closure and has no other source of income. This is hitting the likes of him hard.

[CarJunki]

Originally Posted by SmartCat

This is called "Herd Immunity" approach and UK is considering adopting the plan -

This strain of corona-virus or SARS-CoV-2 can infect same person multiple times. There are reported cases where someone cured (or who became free from this virus) has been reported with infection again after a week or so.
I am not sure this herd immunity theory will work.

UK is staring at similar outcome as Italy, in this case quite literally inviting it deliberately.