Mike
You have been preaching to anybody who will read your many posts that this virus is not as serious as many think
1st of all: That is your opinion and speculation. This virus has not run it's coarse so we don't know. Nobody knows and that includes yourself.
Now who are we to believe
You or Angela Merkel who thinks 70 million German citizens will become infected
Some medical professionals tell us between 1/4 and 1/2 of the population of the USA will become infected. We don't know
Do we believe you or the Drs who tell us the hospitals will not have enough room to treat the sick. One doctor said they are already making decisions on who lives or dies
Medical staff who have been working days and days, who are quite possibly weakened by over work are themselves becoming sick. Can you step in and take the place of medical staff who are sick and unable to care for sick people. Who will fill the void of sick medical staff
You have said you want your beloved chess tournament to continue. What will you think if just one player comes down sick and was a carrier who spread the disease to countless others who might not have become sick, had they stayed away and avoided contact. A rather cavalier attitude to take with other people's health
You are doing a dis-service to anybody who reads your posts, and honestly I think your posts are a bit dangerous to the health of the country. I hope more people do not follow your example. We don't know. An ounce of prevention may be wasted but on the other hand it might be prudent to be a bit cautious
Many knowlegable people are saying we have 1000's of infected carriers but the test kits arrived too late to understand the true extent of the problem. Howw many people will become infected by carriers who may show no signs of sickness until many have had contact
And finally
The economy will falter, as people do not go to work and avoid large gatherings
Do you think the NBA should continue it's schedule with large crowds. Two players are already infected with an unknown number of possible future infections in the NBA alone
People with far more experience than you, in the field of medicine are telling us, that this virus is serious
It is not your favourite whipping boy the MSM who is spreading panic
Most of the reporting is verbatim facts from press releases
Do you think the people doing the press releases are trying to cause panic
Many of these people are medical people, who are highly trained professionals, giving our leaders their best advice
Do you really think the medical profession is trying to cause a panic or are they just telling us there best assessment of what they know
As for your vaccine. A yr to a yr and a half is the best case senerio. We don't know
We will see who is correct when I said millions would become infected
Today you can say what ever you want and I really hope you are correct. The problem is medical professionals don't agree with you. Now who do you think has the best information???
I don't think Ms Merlka said those numbers, in the millions, just to get political points, or start a panic.
I just scanned through a couple of the corona threads on this forum, and I saw a large number of posts my metmike. It seems to me, almost all of them are reporting facts, or opinions offered by medical experts.. I see nothing wrong with it.
The "experts" don't know everything about this new virus. Obviously, it's more contagious than the usual flu, and has a higher mortality rate. Anything beyond that is "speculation", or should I say "educated guessing"
We are all aware of the devastation ( both in human and as well in economic terms ) in China, and now in Italy.
It is quite possible that we will face the same fate... or maybe we won't.
Thanks for the kind words and accurate assessment Gunter.
Wayne,
First of all, you were right over a month ago about how bad this was going to affect the world and the global economy. Congrats on that I didn't think it would get nearly this bad in the markets.
However, if we want to note that, you also told us that China was secretly burning(cremating) 1,500,000 bodies of Coronavirus victims and had sent many thousands to special facilities to die from the Coronavirus and some other pretty crazy stuff.............but that was good since all sorts of wild unsubstantiated speculation just like that was scaring the heck out of millions of people just like you and it afforded me the opportunity to show the facts.
I have never said this virus is not deadly. I showed all the stats(from China almost daily for awhile-yeah, I know you didn't believe them). The data tells us how deadly it is.
For the elderly and people with compromised immune systems or serious health issues its very deadly. For the young, its like getting the flu. Many don't even realize they had it.
I always let the data, science and medicine be my sources.
I have made some general predictions that are more guesses that include...... we will look back late this year and see that the amount of fatalities was much less than the fatalities of an average flu season even though we reacted over 100 times stronger and with extreme panic and sometimes irrationally(stocking up on toilet paper and face masks for instance).
I wild guessed that we will have 10,000 cases in the US by the end of March but mentioned that could go as high as 50,000..............WAG.
Your comments mischaracterize my thoughts/ideas in other ways.
Here, I'll pick this one from 2 days ago, because you made 2 comments after it and must have read it.
Re: Re: Re: Everyone forgets 2009 Swine Flu Pandemic
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/48739/
By metmike - March 10, 2020, 1:56 p.m.
Ironically, I think that very aggressive even draconian measures being taken to cancel events and close schools should reassure us vs it currently signaling that this must be really, really bad because they never did this before.
The Swine and other flu's spread rapidly because people went about their lives as usual...........not taking special precautions.
With the Coronavirus, people are already washing their hands several times a day more and in places that report cases, people will be avoiding potential contact with the virus by changing their routines. This, by itself will cut way down on the spread vs how really, really bad it could spread if everybody treated it like the flu. So this is a really, really good thing and the number of people infected with the flu will also go down.
So I am for taking most of these pretty extreme measures:
People are way over reacting based on the actual threat, including the markets for sure. The MSM is so over hyping and sensationalizing this its crazy..........and many trying to weaponize it against Trump.
Pretend this exact same thing had happened 30 years ago. No internet or social media feeding fake news. No reason to use it politically. Back when national news on tv and newspapers was communicated by professional journalists not political activists.........who were objective and told both/all sides.
Bad news sells. The Coronavirus is the bad news on steroids from hell x 10. TV and newspapers are reaping a ratings bonanza. Some sources give us perspective sometimes. Good for them. But they are not public service, non profit organizations. I was the main anchor for CBS in Evansville IN for 11 years. This is not just my opinion...........we were told every month how important ratings were.
I knock many in the MSM all the time for distorting news and interpreting it with the spin that allows them to impose their belief system on us. That would be called an opinion..........but I always try to show specific examples to compare the distorted version with the authentic version.
You are exactly correct to see me as somebody that does not trust the information coming from the MSM.
Here's another example........make that hundreds of examples of the MSM selling us fake news about the fake climate crisis(which is a climate optimum). I use hundreds of data/authentic science sources to PROVE they are selling climate snake oil.
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/27864/
As a scientist, I'm trying to look at the Coronavirus pandemic the same way.
The only other similar scientific/medical/health realm that we can compare the Coronavirus to is the flu. That is what I've been trying to do. 40,000 people die from the flu in the US in many years. How many will die from the Coronavirus?
Deaths are the most important metric to compare its impact. I will be very shocked if deaths come anywhere close to flu deaths. The Draconian measures are really going to help out and help me to look better regarding that statement.........but those same measures are good because they will drastically cut down ON FLU DEATHS TOO!
For decades, we have not recognized how deadly the flu really is. We have accepted that number of deaths and millions getting infected as a way of life(death). Maybe now people will think about it more.
But the data is the data. The Coronavirus will NOT kill nearly as many as the flu.
You can look over my stuff and point out things that I'm overlooking.............holy cow, no wonder there's no time to do anything else (-:
These are some of the main threads since late January:
Started by metmike
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/48881/
USA TODAY
http://theconversation.com/coronavirus-ten-reasons-why-you-ought-not-to-panic-132941
And the thing is. I continue to watch economic indicators. Its too soon to tell on a lot of things.. (I should probably restart week in review during this time, and I may next week)...
But.. The Redbook. a weekly measure of retail sales showed strength/growth last week..
Mortgage purchase apps, a weekly measure, showed a strong increase last week.
New Unemployment applications, a weekly measure, has not spiked, remains historically low and showed a drop of 4 k last week.
And the things is.. I'm not seeing anything that looks like bad news. Still too soon to really tell. But wouldn't you think an economy "Grinding to a halt", would at least show some growth in unemployment?