Me and my SO have now almost fully recovered from COVID-19 after a rough few days.
Now that I have these anti-bodies in my blood, should we not be allowed outside, spend our money and help the economy?
There are must be at least 100 000 people in my (small) country that are now immune. A number that is growing faster than published number of infected.
Let's make a plan for our return to society. Let us wear a mark or put a stamp in our passports or let's think of something clever.
I feel like I could be doing a lot more than just working from home with my newfound super-power.
What we need to be doing is envisioning what the future can look like in a world with permanently higher standards for germ control, not rushing to return to business as usual.
Historically, humans often lived in small villages surrounded by a relatively small number of the same people. Their entire lives could be mostly or entirely lived out in a five mile radius.
The drop in air pollution has measurable economic value. It can be measured in reduced need for medical care, reduced corrosion of expensive infrastructure, etc. Running around all over the place like crazy is not the only approach to life which has measurable economic value.
How we live today in developed countries is not the historical norm for humanity. There's no reason it needs to be held up as sacred and a standard we must strive to return to as promptly as possible or even at all.
People can and do live full and happy lives without galavanting all over the world. It's fine if we promote that as a value generally to enhance germ control and shrink our carbon footprint.
If you definitely had it (i.e., you actually tested positive as opposed to inferring that you had it from your symptoms), and are definitely over it and past the point that you can infect others--maybe get a temporary/part time job as a delivery driver for take out food or groceries?
How do we prove, to everyone on the street for example, that you are immune? This problem is much thornier than you wanting to go outside because you believe you have already had and are now immune to this virus.
I totally agree. I also don't really want to go outside. I've been working from home for 10 years. It's not about that. There is, however, a big opportunity here for thousands of people to contribute.
Happy to hear you've recovered. Could you share your experiences? (e.g. your earliest symptoms, later stage symptoms, tips/tricks you used that helped, etc)
No offence, and your attitude is what we need, but what are you sure it was covid. Perhaps it was flu. Saying it was a few days doesn't fit with what I've heard other people who've had covid.
No, and there have been at least three reports of reinfection cases from multiple countries.
Though it's not clear if they failed to build immunity or if the virus was never totally eliminated.
Also, because of antibody dependent enhancement (ADE), which the virus is speculated to have like SARS and MERS, a reinfection could be deadly, e.g. triggering cytokene storms. This is why vaccine trials in animals failed for SARS and I think MERS.
If you've "almost" fully recovered, i.e. still showing symptoms, you're still shedding viral particles when you go out and putting others at risk. Wait 14 days after all symptoms have totally subsided, then going out would be relatively safe. But really, you should have multiple tests to be sure.
That seems unrealistic to me. We are on the brink of a depression and I think if we go over that brink it will take a decade to fully recover. I hope I am wrong.
From Wikipedia:
"In most countries of the world, recovery from the Great Depression began in 1933. In the U.S., recovery began in early 1933, but the U.S. did not return to 1929 GNP for over a decade and still had an unemployment rate of about 15% in 1940, albeit down from the high of 25% in 1933."
I'm not sure exactly how good a measure GNP is of this, but for what it's worth the US GNP both absolute and per capita was slightly above its 2008 level by 2010, and has kept climbing ever since. https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/gnp-...
The great depression had numerous additional problems that do not exist right now, including a global tariff war that was far beyond anything that went on with the US and China.
The central bank was mostly incapable of doing anything during the great depression. Today the central bank can shove $100 billion into JP Morgan if it's about to tip over and do it in a matter of hours. The Fed can set up a national small business credit line to the tune of $2 trillion and do it in a week or two (in this case the logistics are far more difficult than the money).
The US had no social safety net at all in 1933. The US remarkably saw a decline in homelessness between 2004 and 2011, despite the great recession, due to the very successful housing first programs run by the Bush and Obama Administrations. The existence and expansion of food aid programs during the great recession helped to prevent large bread lines. The great depression had no such national effort, much less one that was rapid and effective.
If we absolutely needed to do it, we can shovel $12,000 into the pocket of every adult in the country over the coming year. $36,000 per family of four. It would have a brutal cost, something along the lines of $3 trillion for a year. We would have to force our borrowing costs lower by using the Fed to manipulate those rates low, so we can afford to deal with the long-term costs of all of this - but we can do it. The US can't afford to spend $20 trillion on this diaster, but it can spend $3 to $5 trillion (and there will be hell to pay after, in the form of interest costs and plausibly tax increases (I won't hold my breath for fiscal responsibility in DC)).
What we can't do, is allow this to happen again anytime soon, and that will require numerous large changes globally, including to international trade.
this is all self inflicted, we could go back to business today if we wanted to, unlike in the depression, many banks went down along with their account holders.
That's not to say we wont get there if we do nothing. If we are really going to do this grand experiment, we need a big stimulus to offset it. especially for small businesses. So many restaurant and bar owners will not be able to handle this. Unlike Jim Cramer who says 'we dont need to help the rich', many of restaurants and bar owners have no other source of income and lots of debt, thus will become insolvent fast and there will be no jobs to go back to if we do nothing.
On the other hand it's a straightforward economic slowdown, there's no hidden or surprising cause and effect, we understand what's going on. Before the pandemic there was no shortage of capital. We should be able to recover from it well.
Unless we fail to contain this virus, or find a treatment for those severe cases and the situation lasts for months on end. In which case we're screwed :)
If we had a planned and publicly notified and unified worldwide lockdown and curfew for 20 or 30 days, including the stock markets - the recovery would have been sooner. People and businesses can take that hit.
But with segregated efforts, some doing serious lockdowns and some not so serious lockdowns, where countries are interdependent, the timeline is unknown and hence the impact is unknown. Businesses might be able to stay healthy may be 15 days more. But beyond that is a strong possibility, and hence the economic impact is going to be much larger and uncertain.
"A major contributing factor to some of the criticisms of the management of the H1N1 pandemic was that its mortality impact was considerably less than had been predicted. "
"The documented worldwide mortality from H1N1 is 50–100 times lower than conservative pre-pandemic predictions and substantially lower than seasonal influenza deaths."
How do they make sure that the mortality rate is between 2-3%? Same goes for the hospitalization rate, based on which the entire flattening-the-curve decisions are made.
From what we know many will recover with mild symptoms. Those "many" may not even be tested and accounted for total Covid-19 cases
Edit: I'm not trying to dilute the seriousness of this situation. Just questioning the statistical models based on the source above
My (not entirely serious) plan for getting rich: Wait until the economy hits rock bottom and buy cheap stock on a wide range of economies, than forget them until my SO and i retire (round about 40 years from now), then rediscover our assets, sell and get rich
If you're in the US, just make sure you sign into your brokerage account once or twice every year, to avoid your stocks going into escheat. Here's an episode of Planet Money which tells the tale of a man who bought some Amazon stock back in the day:
You're not going to time the bottom, but you can put a floor on your profits if you assume things will get back to where they were two months ago, and start buying little by little now. Because currently you can find many companies that are at 50% discount already.
>Whether market timing is ever a viable investment strategy is controversial. Some may consider market timing to be a form of gambling based on pure chance, because they do not believe in undervalued or overvalued markets. The efficient-market hypothesis claims that financial prices always exhibit random walk behavior and thus cannot be predicted with consistency.
What you are planning seems like a good idea but buying bottoms can be really hard. Lot of info in that wiki article. I like that you are thinking about it though! That already puts you ahead of a lot of the game.
We can't really say that any individual point in time is "the" bottom, but it's obvious just looking at pricing data that we are at "a" bottom. The S&P 500 is down where it was about 3 years ago, and the Dow is similarly situated. If you buy primarily indices, this drop is a bit like time travelling 3 years in the past to buy. And, it's hard to argue that that's not a better deal than buying, say, in December.
You will never time the bottom, just dollar-cost-average over like six months. Also, focusing on how to spend the money is the easy, fun part of the 'plan'. What was the plan that ended up with this much cash today?
You would hopefully alter your risk profile and adjust your portfolio accordingly ~40 yrs from now. Stocks/index funds are great for the young, gotta diversify into bonds etc later on.
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Now that I have these anti-bodies in my blood, should we not be allowed outside, spend our money and help the economy?
There are must be at least 100 000 people in my (small) country that are now immune. A number that is growing faster than published number of infected.
Let's make a plan for our return to society. Let us wear a mark or put a stamp in our passports or let's think of something clever.
I feel like I could be doing a lot more than just working from home with my newfound super-power.
Historically, humans often lived in small villages surrounded by a relatively small number of the same people. Their entire lives could be mostly or entirely lived out in a five mile radius.
The drop in air pollution has measurable economic value. It can be measured in reduced need for medical care, reduced corrosion of expensive infrastructure, etc. Running around all over the place like crazy is not the only approach to life which has measurable economic value.
How we live today in developed countries is not the historical norm for humanity. There's no reason it needs to be held up as sacred and a standard we must strive to return to as promptly as possible or even at all.
People can and do live full and happy lives without galavanting all over the world. It's fine if we promote that as a value generally to enhance germ control and shrink our carbon footprint.
And no. Antibodies can not be used to treat other sufferers.
Though it's not clear if they failed to build immunity or if the virus was never totally eliminated.
Also, because of antibody dependent enhancement (ADE), which the virus is speculated to have like SARS and MERS, a reinfection could be deadly, e.g. triggering cytokene storms. This is why vaccine trials in animals failed for SARS and I think MERS.
From Wikipedia: "In most countries of the world, recovery from the Great Depression began in 1933. In the U.S., recovery began in early 1933, but the U.S. did not return to 1929 GNP for over a decade and still had an unemployment rate of about 15% in 1940, albeit down from the high of 25% in 1933."
By contrast the UK still hasn't come close to recovering to the same level: https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/GBR/united-kingdom/gnp...
So maybe the US at least is in a better position than it was in the 1930's to recover on that measure?
The central bank was mostly incapable of doing anything during the great depression. Today the central bank can shove $100 billion into JP Morgan if it's about to tip over and do it in a matter of hours. The Fed can set up a national small business credit line to the tune of $2 trillion and do it in a week or two (in this case the logistics are far more difficult than the money).
The US had no social safety net at all in 1933. The US remarkably saw a decline in homelessness between 2004 and 2011, despite the great recession, due to the very successful housing first programs run by the Bush and Obama Administrations. The existence and expansion of food aid programs during the great recession helped to prevent large bread lines. The great depression had no such national effort, much less one that was rapid and effective.
If we absolutely needed to do it, we can shovel $12,000 into the pocket of every adult in the country over the coming year. $36,000 per family of four. It would have a brutal cost, something along the lines of $3 trillion for a year. We would have to force our borrowing costs lower by using the Fed to manipulate those rates low, so we can afford to deal with the long-term costs of all of this - but we can do it. The US can't afford to spend $20 trillion on this diaster, but it can spend $3 to $5 trillion (and there will be hell to pay after, in the form of interest costs and plausibly tax increases (I won't hold my breath for fiscal responsibility in DC)).
What we can't do, is allow this to happen again anytime soon, and that will require numerous large changes globally, including to international trade.
That's not to say we wont get there if we do nothing. If we are really going to do this grand experiment, we need a big stimulus to offset it. especially for small businesses. So many restaurant and bar owners will not be able to handle this. Unlike Jim Cramer who says 'we dont need to help the rich', many of restaurants and bar owners have no other source of income and lots of debt, thus will become insolvent fast and there will be no jobs to go back to if we do nothing.
Suddenly shutting down north of thirty percent of all global economic activity is absolutely uncharted territory.
Unless we fail to contain this virus, or find a treatment for those severe cases and the situation lasts for months on end. In which case we're screwed :)
If we had a planned and publicly notified and unified worldwide lockdown and curfew for 20 or 30 days, including the stock markets - the recovery would have been sooner. People and businesses can take that hit.
But with segregated efforts, some doing serious lockdowns and some not so serious lockdowns, where countries are interdependent, the timeline is unknown and hence the impact is unknown. Businesses might be able to stay healthy may be 15 days more. But beyond that is a strong possibility, and hence the economic impact is going to be much larger and uncertain.
"A major contributing factor to some of the criticisms of the management of the H1N1 pandemic was that its mortality impact was considerably less than had been predicted. "
"The documented worldwide mortality from H1N1 is 50–100 times lower than conservative pre-pandemic predictions and substantially lower than seasonal influenza deaths."
Source: https://academic.oup.com/eurpub/article/22/1/7/489927
How do they make sure that the mortality rate is between 2-3%? Same goes for the hospitalization rate, based on which the entire flattening-the-curve decisions are made.
From what we know many will recover with mild symptoms. Those "many" may not even be tested and accounted for total Covid-19 cases
Edit: I'm not trying to dilute the seriousness of this situation. Just questioning the statistical models based on the source above
(21 min podcast): https://www.npr.org/2020/01/24/799345159/episode-967-escheat...
(transcript): https://www.npr.org/transcripts/799345159
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_timing
What you are planning seems like a good idea but buying bottoms can be really hard. Lot of info in that wiki article. I like that you are thinking about it though! That already puts you ahead of a lot of the game.
Boom! You failed to time the market.
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