Tracking the COVID-19-Virus in Germany, the USA, Italy and other hot spots in the world

I am not going to deal with the rest of your post; it is the kind of polemics that I consider a waste of time. But regarding the status enjoyed by the US dollar as the currency used for international trade, let me say the following. Starting with an analogy that I consider apt enough for this purpose: a drug dealer who distributes a drug into a vulnerable community already predisposed to the addiction, isn't the only culprit in the drug addiction that arises. But he has played a role too.

The US dollar became the world's reserve currency by virtue of different factors. Following the Bretton Woods Agreement in 1944, European countries and many others began to use the dollar as their reserve currency. The currency used by their central banks in lieu of gold (or some other measure or currency) to provide the necessary cushion or reserve ratio between their own paper money and something else that people could ask in return to let them know that their paper money was 'good'. To be fair, at the time, the practice at least had some correlation to the overall productiveness of the US economy relative to others. In those days, the US did produce things and much of the world's manufacturing and other production did come from the US.

As the US emerged from the ashes of WWII elsewhere as a superpower, with military bases all around the globe and various client states to do its bidding in varying degrees, the status of the US dollar was enhanced by practices that saw important international commodities pegged against the US dollar. Eventually, even when the US no longer really produced nearly as much as the paper money and bonds it was issuing, much of the international economic system had become 'hooked' on the US dollar. Not just China, most countries who hold US dollar reserves (almost all central banks) will see the value of their reserves drop significantly if the US dollar loses its value.

As almost all prominent economists, including both Milton Friedman and Paul Samuelson, have realized: the fact that the US dollar is the currency of international trade does mean that the US will be able to run huge budget deficits, pile up on its national debt, and have significant trade deficits, without the American economy and people feeling the pinch. This gives the US a very nice (but, in the longer run, dangerous) cushion. It also provides the conditions which see Americans being able to live much beyond their actual production and true means.

The same way I am not going to give much credit to some 'trust fund' kid spending feverishly and living off things he has had little to do to produce, I am not thrilled with the fact that the US has been able to profit from this, now increasingly, induced addiction to the US dollar. And, in the long run, history tells us that 'trust fund kids' will eventually not be able keep up with those who work to pull themselves up by their boot straps and such. If that is the motive behind killing off one of the suppliers of this addiction, namely China, I am all for it. But if the motive is more akin to taking out one dealer to promote another one, I am not.

 

It is extremely unlikely that your card contains anything beyond the most basic of information about you at the most.

Your account number is the primary key that enables access to the databases where your actual medical files are stored. In addition there is probably some kind of encryption feature that separates the personal from the medical data. This means that a hacker cannot search the medical files for someone called Herr Gnoib and everything will appear. Herr Gnoib's name and address are stored separately and the encryption function links the name and address to the correct medical files.

That is why the doctors need the special card reader to access your files. It probably contains part of the encryption key that allows access to your medical data but not the entire key. That would be elsewhere in the system.

One of that advantages of this strategy is that it enables researchers to scan the medical data while never compromising individual privacy. A search for rare tropical diseases would probably result in your medical data being found but there would be no way for the researcher to know the names and addresses of the individuals who have of had the tropical diseases. All the researcher would know is that N cases of a tropical disease are in the medical files.

 

What has that got to do with lifting restrictions in Michigan?

 

Oh. Before you claimed that if we didn't ignore and excuse their cheating, lying, spying, hacking, bribing and loosing of pandemics that they would sell our notes and decouple. Having completely lost that argument, now you claim that they are "hooked". You made up your last set of points, so by all means, fabricate some new ones now that your previous ones have failed.

No kidding. That's why your previous threats were empty. They hold our securities because they give them the best value for their risk appetite. Should they find a better place to store their value, they would do so.

Your endless whining is a bore.

We've gone from insignificantly grateful to China, which caused you to warn that they would leaves us. We're fine with that, don't let the door hit them in the butt on the way out.

But that threat you admit is empty because actually it's not that we are ungrateful, it's that we are drug dealers and we have hooked poor unsuspecting China on the dollar, so they are the real victim here. I guess grateful drug dealers are just more pleasant to get your fix from?

But, now we are insufficiently grateful, drug dealing, trust-fund kids. With all this spinning, are you getting dizzy?

You'd be the boot strap puller I suppose?

"Killing off"? Earlier you said they were the addict, now they are the supplier? You have completely lost your way in the discussion.

You are the one spinning crap, I'm sure you can make it come out anyway you like.

Paid Chinese Communist Party Propagandists will never post: "President Xi looks like Winnie The Pooh." Just for fun, show us that you are not a CCP propagandist and post "President Xi looks like Winnie The Pooh."

 

Good morning, PFers,

I hope you all slept well and soundly. For those in Christianity who base their calendar on the Julian instead of the Gregorian (the Orthodox), Happy Easter! I have read that at least 250,000,000 people within Christianity will celebrate it today. A Greek Orthodox Chuch just 3 houses down from where I lived in Youngstown, OH, always did a big lamb-fest for all on that Sunday. My stomach remembers it well!

So, before this morning's COVID-19 numbers, HERE the numbers for last night as I went to bed in Germany (GMT +2):



And here the numbers from EOD yesterday, GMT (Greenwich):





So, you can see that in the two hours between midnight GMT +2 and midnight GMT, we jumped from 2,323,759 to 2,330,793, +7,034 cases.

We also jumped from 159,747 to 160,643 total COVID-19 deaths, +896 total deaths.

As I went to bed, the USA was reporting 1,690 new deaths, as of GMT it was 1,867, +177 new deaths.

Japan DID eventually provide some numbers, but a very small amount of deaths.

And now to this morning, 09:45, GMT +2, about 15 minutes ago:



The excel-table:



The countries-list (all over 1,000 COVID-19 cases):





Yesterday, 04/18, we had +88,389 cases (until midnight GMT +2), with even 10,000 cases less today than yesterday, we would still come over the 2.4 million mark. So, the probability is extremely high that we see the 2.3 million mark for only one day maximum and jump to 2.4 million by tonight (my time).

Hopefully, health-care workers across the planet are having more success as stemming the spread of COVID-19. Wait and see.

And yes, totally unrelated to this thread but well worth mentioning: 25 years ago today, THIS HAPPENED. Perhaps today, when you pray for all who are combatting COVID-19, remember Oklahoma City as well.

-Stat

 

In terms of just the USA, here is how the statistics looked last night, EOD GMT (Greenwich, which is 02:00 my time in Germany):




And now, the stats for the USA as of this morning, 09:45 GMT +2 (same time as the BOD posting for the entire world from about 8 minutes ago):







If past is precedent, then the USA will easily go over 760,000 cases today and also over 40,000 deaths, possibly as high as 41,000.

 

Well wouldn't New York have been a better comparison if it has been hit harder?

 

No. I started my post on this subject stressing the opposite: that the policies to open up to China made China also a lot more dependent on the international economic system, with a substantial stake in it. I even mentioned it would require a lot of pushing for China to do what it could if pushed enough, as it would hurt them as well. But I mentioned, if pushed enough, just as some addicts when they hit rock bottom, China could find the way out of its addiction.

A lot of addicts often become suppliers to support the habit.

In any case, your attempts to nitpick notwithstanding, I am content I have said what I felt needed to be said on the issue. You go with it where you wish.

 

The Bat Cave Theory of Covid-19 - a working hypothesis.

Been thinking about this concept because there has been a great deal of speculation about why some places are hotspots while others are not and it occurred to me that if this virus did jump species from bats then it must be able to survive in the same environments that bats do. While bats can, and do, live in different environments the species that has been identified as the origination is a cave dwelling bat. FYI there is a cave in TX that is home to 20 million bats.

So what are the attributes of the caves and why do bats live in them. Primarily it is a sheltered place safe from predators but not all caves are alike and some are used for different reasons during different seasons. Cooler caves are preferred for hibernation and warmer caves for raising their young. For the virus to survive in these bats it must be able to handle the same range of temperatures and when bats hibernate their body temperatures drop significantly so as to use less of their fat stores. Bats also cluster into large groups to conserve body heat.

With that superficial primer we can identify some attributes such as a wide range of temperatures, large groups and hard impermeable surfaces like rocks.

What else has these same attributes?

Cruise ships for starters. We even had a hot spot on a cruise down to the Antarctic so that meets all 3 criteria. We have the Navy aircraft carrier as another example.

Places of worship have been identified as hot spots all around the world so they check all the boxes.

Open air festivals like Mardi Gras and Chinese New Year might not at first appear to have any hard impermeable surfaces but anyone who has attended these celebrations knows that they give away beads at Mardi Gras and chocolate coins covered in gold foil at Chinese New Year so yes, they do meet all 3 criteria.

Mass transport like subways and planes fit the criteria.

Next we have bars and nightclubs and worth noting that Spring Break involved planes, bars and nightclubs.

Nursing homes and prisons where there are people in close proximity and hard surfaces that are easy to clean.

By now a pattern is starting to emerge which indicates that this virus has made itself at home wherever people gather in large numbers and there are hard surfaces.

The outbreak at the meat packing plant in SD had hard surfaces and lower temperatures and people working in close proximity to each other. Lombardy is famous for manufacturing luxury items like footware and Spain has their own auto manufacturing plants which map to some of the highest concentrations of the virus. Note that the outbreak in Germany began in their manufacturing region too.

We have the subway systems in the UK and NY and I suspect that in a place like Belgium getting around by public transport is a given because it has a higher population density than the state of New York.

Now let's look at where the virus is not doing as well and see if the hypothesis still holds up and given that Africa is still the least affected let's begin there. There is no question that there many places where there are slums and shanty towns where one would expect the virus to have run amok but it does not seem to be happening. Is it because these tin shacks with dirt floors do not have the same cave like attributes of hard surfaces? The virus landing on a dusty surface is less likely to survive under those conditions?

What about mass transport? Africa doesn't have the same infrastructure so most public transport is via buses rather than trains. Windows remain open because of a lack of air conditioning so the virus is probably blown away by the breeze. But they still have bars and nightclubs so why not in those places? It is entirely possible that sunlight might be disinfecting these places each day because a lot of them are open air rather than indoors.

Yes, the virus is in Africa but not to the same extent as the rest of the world and it still fits the hypothesis because of the lack of hard surfaces.

At this point I am going pause and await feedback from the other members in this thread. Does this pull together the tracking data that we are seeing or is there something that I am missing? Can anyone point to anything that would falsify the hypothesis? This is still a work in progress and understanding our enemy is the first stage to defeating it. Is this an insight or a distraction? Does it enlighten or just further muddy the already murky waters of Covid19?

Your thoughts?

 

Is anyone talking about lifting restrictions in New York? I think you're missing the point. Michigan has been hit hard yet there are some people who want restrictions to be lifted. There is no such talk in other countries who have been hit just as hard as Michigan and these countries are recognised as suffering badly during this epidemic (UK)

 

Sorry I missed this! There are those I disagree with regarding Iran, and consequently, find myself accused of being a 'paid propagandist' for Iran. When I was in Iran, when I disagreed with some people there about things in the US, a few of them would claim I was somehow 'paid' for what I had to say by the US. I had never been accused of being a paid propagandist for China, but I guess there is a first for everything! I now just need to find a good 'collection' agency to collect all the money all these different countries owe me!
If it makes you feel better, or somehow more comfortable about things, here: "President Xi look like Winnie the Pooh". In fact, since I really don't know anything about the guy, or anyone else in the Chinese government, I couldn't care less what insult you might have in mind for them.

 

No. Is anyone talking about lifting restrictions in the UK?

 

You still don't get the point. No one is thinking about lifting restrictions in the UK. Everyone in the whole world has recognised that the UK have been hit really hard and would be foolish to lift restrictions. ie Michigan and the UK are in the same position (similar deaths/million) hence why it would be foolish to lift restrictions in Michigan yet you've got idiots protesting in Michigan

 

I learned a while back that real debate is still, at the heart of it all, information-exchange.

If someone only sends you repeated one-liner questions, that's probably a sign that that person is neither interested in debate nor in discourse, but rather, that person is trolling you. For if that person were really interested in something productive happening, he or she would also pony up some real information during the flow of conversation. Also, it is incredibly haughty (stuck-up) to deign to be the only person to know it all and therefore only to pose questions - often a technique used by posers who actually have nothing to offer Therefore, using a simple process of elimination, the possibilities I see, when this kind of situation happens, is that the person constantly throwing out one-liner questions but no corollary information:

a.) has no information to offer, anyway.
b.) is too afraid to offer information he or she does have, already knowing that it's crap.
c.) is trolling just for the sake of trolling.

This is why I have my "3 strikes and yer out" policy before sending someone off to, as Deri says so well, "Cyberia", where it is lonely and cold.

Just food for thought. We have enough stress in our lives, trolling is something we really don't need.

Just in case that may be happening now and again on this thread, nöööööö.

 

Dr. Birx yesterday was talking about the concentration of cases in the tri-state area (New York, New Jersey and parts of Connecticut). She put up a graph of U.S. states with a scale which had an X-axis range of 0 - 300,000. Her next graph took out New York to show the states without New York, and the X-axis high point was 30,000. She did mention issues with other large cities, like Detroit, Chicago, and Atlanta which we are sending additional resources to, but her main point was that most of the U.S. counties and cities should be able to reopen sooner than others.

Looking at this morning's numbers at Johns Hopkins, we have 735,000 cases and 39,090 deaths.

242,570 cases in New York with 17,627 deaths
81,600 cases in New Jersey with 4,249 deaths
17,550 cases in Connecticut with 1,086 deaths
In that region, I added in Pennsylvania's 31,800 cases with 1,105 deaths.

Totals for those 4 states: 373,500 with 24,000 (Rounded to nearest 100).

That represents over 50% of U.S. cases and over 60% of the U.S. deaths to date. There are hot spots in other large cities across the country, but those should be easier to manage because they aren't all a hop-skip-and-a-jump from the next large cities. The large cities along the northeast coast are all smashed into a "clump", making it relatively easy to drive between by automobile.

This disease loves a large, dense crowd.

The death count chart zoomed to the northeast coastal states.

 

Exactly, and this is why a number of cities which also have a crazy population density but have not yet gone through what NYC and environs has suffered should take heed, because they are simply earlier in the curve, but it is essentially the same curve. However, the intensity of the curve depends a great deal on human behavior.

 

Is your main point that the virus is higher when people put themselves in places like bat habitats, or that lack of bat-like habitation opportunities is the reason that the rates are low in Africa?

We do know that dense crowded and enclosed areas increase the spread. I'm not sure about the point of the hard surface theory. Every country has hard surfaces where the virus could potentially land and survive for a while, but open air, heat and sunlight reduce that time.

Anyway, Africa isn't getting off easy. Many African countries have 5% to over 10% case fatality rates. They just don't have resources to test broadly, or their governments won't spend money on testing to prevent panic. They wouldn't have hospital capacity to have alarmed citizens demanding healthcare.

This chart from Johns Hopkins shows countries by case fatality rates. If you hover over the dots, it shows the country the dot represents. At the low number of confirmed positive tests, but high rates of case fatalities you see Zimbabwe, Liberia, Congo, and others.

African countries will need outside aid to provide testing. There is no certainty that the governments will provide accurate reporting even if they get testing assistance. Many citizens in those countries are likely to rebel against being tested as they think that a higher power is protecting them from the virus, so they are immune from the plague.

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality

 

How far away from each other are Dallas and Ft Worth?

How far away from each other are the Twin Cities?

Did Dr Birx happen to mention what the IHME projection will be for the death toll when all of these other cities reopen prematurely?

The reason I am asking is because the current IHME death toll just magically flattens out around 5/8 at just under 59,000 deaths and then spreads out the remaining 1500 deaths over 3 months. That must be based upon 100% COMPLIANCE with the stipulation that "Current social distancing assumed until infections minimized and containment implemented" on the IHME website.

We already know that was never fully achieved and now by reopening that will effectively negate that assumption in the rest of the nation.

So what did Dr Birx say about that impact on the rest of the nation?

 

The "good" news:

Spain has reported +410 deaths today (they report from the day before). If this number is not adjusted way upward with an evening addedum, this number, although horrifying, is half of what Spain was reporting daily for at least 3 weeks. So, if that holds, that is real progress for our Spanish brothers and sisters.

Also, Belgium (which reports 11:00 GMT +2 for the day before) has posted +230 daily deaths, which is also considerably under the daily deaths from the last 2 weeks at least.

With 87 deaths reported, Iran is for the second day in a row under 100 deaths, also a very positive sign.

The Netherlands has reported 83 deaths today, also well under the reported deaths of the last 3 weeks.

On the other side, Mexico, with just under 7,500 cases, has reported 104 daily deaths (also, as with Spain and Belgium, from the day before). That's a 19% growth rate in deaths over the total from yesterday.

At current, the USA has only reported +131 new cases and +1 new death. Oh, how nice it would be to be able to stop the hands of time.




Also, overnight, Japan crossed over the 10,000 line, the 24th nation to do so.

 

The intensity depends mostly on whether individuals can get away from each other or not as much as whether they choose to or not. Complicating the high density in New York is the sky-high price of housing there. The number of residences with multi-generation families and number of residences where people have multiple roommates is higher if it requires more than one paycheck to cover the rent. In Texas, by comparison, the large cities tend to be sprawling across many miles and people don't have to be in the upper-middle class to afford to live single with no roommates. Those sorts of variables make social distancing easier or harder.

The most densely populated place on Earth is Manhattan, with 67,000 people per square mile. More specifically, the Upper East Side of Manhattan has 152,800 people per square mile.

No city in the country (or in the world) has people piled on top of each other, and in front, back and each side of each other like that.

More density, more opportunity.

California (Los Angeles) and Florida (Miami) so far have managed to control the virus better than New York (City) so that does say that other variables are at play, including peoples' choice to stay-at-home or not. I need to look to see how Lewisville, Kentucky is doing, as they are a top-density location. I expect they are the hot spot for the state, if KY has a hot spot.

Top 25 incorporated cities for population density:

 

Case/fatality rates are based upon a lack of testing. Granted that they lack adequate testing in Africa but we lack adequate testing right here in America too. That is why our own rate falls within the range you just mentioned for all of Africa.

However if you go this link you will see that all African nations combined amount to just over 1000 deaths.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

Have all deaths been reported yet? Probably not but the same argument applies here too.

What the hypothesis is trying to establish is what factors COMBINE to create a hotspot. Take a look at the south western states. Better yet just take a look at west Texas. Arid counties/states with sparse populations don't meet the 3 criteria just like most of Africa doesn't meet the 3 criteria either.

 

I am seriously concerned about Mexico City. It is one of the most densely populated and has a large population that lives in poverty. Going to keep an eye out and see what transpires there.

 

This is an interesting study coming from the University of Texas.

https://komonews.com/news/coronavir...s-peak-in-covid-19-deaths-is-still-weeks-away

This fits the multi peak scenario coming from the Harvard professor of epidemiology.

However it means that reopening TX prior to the peak would be a mistake if it still several weeks away.

 

The vast majority of cases/deaths are confined to two counties - Oakland and Wayne, aka Detroit. How is banning the sale of tomato seeds and allowing kayaking but not boating going to help those counties ??

 

Dr. Birx didn't say anything about opening prematurely, because they developed the 3-Phase Plan to keep that from happening.

The IHME plan is base on the assumption that citizens follow the guidelines. The social distancing guidelines do not go away as business segments start to reopen.

Regarding your Texas questions:

Dallas/Ft. Worth grew into one large metropolis years ago.

The two largest "death dots" are Dallas County (Dallas) and Tarrant County (Ft. Worth). Combined, they have a reported death rate of 90 people. Denton to the Northeast adds 15, and Collin to the Northwest adds 12. 117 deaths for that area. (That single special needs residence in Denton got hit.)

The other Texas "hot spot" is the Houston area. The three dots are they counties of Harris, Ft. Bend, and Galveston with a total of 98 deaths.

We're doing best of the top four most populous states. Like everywhere else, the cities have more density so they get hit harder with community spread, but Texas cities to tend to be sprawling outwards versus built up with people stacked up on each other in residential skyscrapers. Most of the skyscrapers are office buildings and more people live in "flatter" apartment buildings separated by a lot of green space and outwards in many residential suburbs.

The virus loves density and hates space.