2020.03.04

Official Numbers:

• 95,413 confirmed infected
• 3,285 confirmed deaths
• 53,257 confirmed recoveries
• 80,409 cases in Mainland China
• 5,766 cases in South Korea
• 3,089 cases in Italy
• 2,922 cases in Iran
• 377 cases in France
• 331 cases in Japan
• 285 cases in Germany
• 222 cases in Spain
• 158 cases in the US (I believe the real number is at least 10x this)
• 110 cases in Singapore
• 105 cases in Hong Kong
• No other countries reporting >100 cases at this time

Website and Links:

• Added About the Virus page
• Is It Cancelled Yet? Funny site to let you know at a glance what events have been cancelled.

Personal

• A friend of mine found out today that a personal contact of his in the Bay Area is confirmed infected. 60 year old man. He is currently in self-quarantine at home and seems to be doing well so far

Iran:

• Iran has mobilized the army to deal with the plague

India

• India is rapidly gaining cases. I’m honestly surprised they went this long without finding any. Given what I’ve heard of the state of public sanitation in India, this could be very bad

Korea:

• Hospital bed shortage in Korea. Pay close attention to this, it’s just a matter of weeks before the US has the same problem

Italy:

• Italy to close all schools due to coronavirus

China:

• Nothing to report

Singapore:

• Singaporean government has released an online dashboard

WHO:

• Nothing to report

Europe:

• Confirmed infection in EU offices in Brussels

Israel:

• Possible exposure at AIPAC. (Yes, I know this is technically in the US, but the US section was already too big)
• Tens of thousands under some level of quarantine or self-isolation in Israel

US:

• Pence claims we can start testing in force next week given all the rumours we see about tests being denied and tests not working, I’m pressing X to doubt this.
• People continue to claim that testing is being denied to them.
• CDC claims testing now offered with nothing but doctor’s approval. I remain baffled as to why the fuck hospitals didn’t just test and damn the consequences
• No audio or video was allowed at the recent Coronavirus briefing. This is extremely ominous
• Bay area spread increases with first case confirmed in Berkeley. I have friends who live there, I hope they will be ok.
• Emerald City Comic Con in Seattle is still on next week.
• Continued reports that screening in US airports is non-existant.
• California reports first coronavirus death
• LA County declares state of emergency
• There is a new cruise ship under quarantine off the coast of San Francisco. To be honest, it’s been what, two weeks since the Diamond Princess quarantine ended, and as far as I know only about 10% of the passengers who were infected had serious illness. This could be wrong, of course, as I imagine it’s impossible to follow up on everyone after they went home
• Miami postpones Ultra Music Festival. Thank god, we need more cancellations like this
• Virus confirmed in Houston
• Virus confirmed in New Jersey
• Anecdote from a friend: everybody in his WoW guild, most of whom live in bumfuck nowhere, USA, know of a presumptive case nearby. This seems to be everywhere
• Anecdote from Reddit: Situation in Seattle is much worse than we’re told. Google allegedly censoring Seattle Times in their search results to suppress extent of coronavirus infection. 18 confirmed cases, 6 dead, 48 schools closed, estimated 2000 undiagnosed cases. Be aware that r/CoronavirusFOS is relatively unmoderated, and judge what you read accordingly

Canada:

• Bank of Canada lowers the interest rate by 50 basis points, following the US’ lead.
• Canadian military preparing to respond to pandemic. I expect the US army to have to do similar before this is over.
• Personal eyewitness anecdote from trusted friend: “Costco had lineups before open. They’re sanitizing each cart as it comes through the doors. Costco is completely out of store-brand TP. Name brand is being cleared out literally as fast as they can drag pallets onto the floor. Lots of holes in the shelf-stable food section. Walmart is almost as bad re: TP and shelf-stable food. Pharmacy and toiletries sections are wrecked. More open shelving than full in some aisles. Walmart is definitely having supply issues. They can’t fill their Easter seasonal displays. This matches with a bunch of regular Easter seasonal stuff not being in stock anywhere. The ethnic shoppers have hit the local wholesale stores. Lots of Canadian food, but ethnic food (specific kinds of beans/lentils/rice) are wiped out.”. This matches the reports of US Costcos and Walmarts being emptied too. I am happy to say that where I live, I haven’t been to Costco in a few weeks, but Walmart was fully stocked on Saturday. My local grocery store showing a handful of missing SKUs in the pasta aisle, but for all I know they restock on Wednesdays and I went at a bad time. Otherwise, it’s good.

Tech:

• Amazon employee in Seattle office confirmed infected. I expect other tech companies to respond to this with aggressive, urgent measures.
• Indeed has mandated work-from-home for all employees worldwide. No employees are confirmed infected at this time.
• Facebook contractor in Seattle confirmed infected

Science:

• Potential successful anti-viral medical treatment
• Relapse news: the British couple that vlogged from the Diamond Princess have started testing positive again. They don’t sound particularly sick to me. Keep an eye on them. If they get sick again, that is very bad news.
• Chinese scientists claim they’ve identified two different strains: L-CoV and S-CoV. S-CoV is evolutionarily older. It is milder and more surviveable, and makes up ~30% of cases. L-CoV is much more dangerous and lethal, and makes up 70% of cases. L-type was more prevalent at the early stages of the outbreak but scientists believe it is being selected against. Good news, if true, it might mean that this disease will evolve quickly to be less lethal
• Acetyl-L-Carnitine may be useful for prevening viral infection. As always, this site is never medical advice, but ALCAR is cheap and available at your local pharmacy, so it can’t hurt if you want to try it
• Team of medical experts does AMA on reddit. I am not terribly impressed with their commentary, but overall it is good.
• Regeneron claims to have treatment ready for testing by August. Good news if true, but don’t get your hopes up; testing for safety takes a considerable amount of time on the best of projects, and anti-virals are a hard problem.

Market:

• Credit Suisse newsletter about the COVID-19 pandemic. I don’t understand nearly enough finance to make sense of this, but it sounds like they’re saying “we’re fucked”

Politics:

• Nothing to report