Some Chicago Boyz know each other from student days at the University of Chicago. Others are Chicago boys in spirit. The blog name is also intended as a good-humored gesture of admiration for distinguished Chicago School economists and fellow travelers.
As I mentioned on these pages a few days ago, there will be supply chain issues with the Co-Vid 19 event, whether you think it is the next Black Plague, or just another version of the flu (from reading the comments on Trent’s post on the subject, we appear to have both reading here). As a reminder, I deal in HVAC distribution, which is a subset of industrial distribution. Most equipment for my market is made close to the USA or in the USA itself, but the component parts are many times made in China.
Today I got the first letter from a vendor talking about the possible issues. They are saying that they are preparing to see product shortages due to component supply problems and are actively trying to source from other places, but the information is very general in nature. It seemed more CYA than anything and almost could be a force majeure setup, recommended by their attorneys to get ahead of contracted jobs. I have no proof of that but have seen enough legal documents in my day to know that a lawyer or ten helped write their CoVid-19 letter rather than a bunch of HVAC dorks like me.
But let’s be real for a minute. The supply chain (in my industry) is long so we aren’t likely to see any problems for the Summer, as most of those orders for inventory are already in the tank and on their way to our warehouses. Fall/Winter is my estimate for issues in industrial distribution if the problem continues. And that could be a BIG problem for you if you have a house where a furnace breaks down and it is -20 outside. Critical infrastructure will get priority I am assuming (blood banks, etc) but you don’t know when that stuff will break, do you?
As I receive more communications from my vendors I will put up an occasional post here. I have a meeting next week in DC and will personally speak with many of my vendor contacts and may get more/better information at the cocktail parties when my contacts get loosened up from the booze. It’s going to be an interesting year in industrial distribution and I imagine that the Chinese are going to lose some business over this when it is all said and done, never to come back (the main reason I don’t think this whole episode is fiction/blown out of proportion – incentives).
The themes of this update will be on issues of COVID-19 spread, World Headlines, border closings, the CDC news conference, developments with fomite spread, how American Public Health institutions build a liablity law suit proof diagnostic test and how that limits tests for community spread and a new recommended COVID-19 sites, social media and videos section.
Top line, There are currently 80,420 confirmed COVID-19 cases worldwide, including 2,710 fatalities as of the 24 February 2020 at 5:24 p.m. ET time hack on the BNO News corona virus tracking site (https://bnonews.com/index.php/2020/02/the-latest-coronavirus-cases/) There are 39 nations including China plus three “Chinese special administrative regions” (Macao, Hong Kong and Taiwan) that have reported COVID-19 infections. China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, Thailand, Singapore, Italy, Iran and R.O.K. all appear to have local, or endemic, spread of the disease. Italy has spawned further spread in Spain proper, it’s Canary Islands possession, Austria, Germany, and possibly Croatia. And now Brazil in South America and Algeria reporting a case signals North West Africa have added two new regions to the Pandemic spread list. The virus has spread from Asia to Europe, North America, Australia and Africa.
All of the above meets the pre-COVID-19 WHO standard for a “Pandemic” that requiring endemic spread in multiple nations in multiple WHO regions. However, the WHO just decided that it was time to retire the term “Pandemic” because…something…[insert reasons here]. The WHO statement for doing so was a master piece of unintelligible double talk that boils down to “Lets not scare the “Normies” and set off more “Run, Hide & Hoard” panics like seized Italy, ROK and Singapore in the last few days. Meanwhile the WHO is cheering-on China’s “Hospice-Prison system for the infected” Quarantine as a “Model” in aiding China’s restarting the World economy.
ITALY COVID-19 Confirmed Cases and Deaths 25 Feb 2020
World Headline Summary
o WHO warns the rest of the world “is not ready for the virus to spread…”
o CDC warns Americans “should prepare for possible community spread” of virus.
o San Francisco Mayor declares state of emergency
o Later, CDC says pandemic not a question of it, but when
o Brazil may have South America’s first coronavirus case
o Germany confirms 2nd case on Tuesday, brings total to 17
o Italy cases spike to 322; deaths hit 10
o Japan’s Shiseido tells 8k employees to work from home
o Trump Economic Advisor Kudlow tries to jawbone stock markets higher
o HHS Sec. Azar warns US lacks stockpiles of masks
o Italy Hotel in Lockdown After First Coronavirus Case in Liguria
o Algeria confirms 1st case
o First case in Switzerland
o Kuwait halts all flights to Singapore and Japan
o Iran confirms 95 cases, 15 deaths
o First case in Austria
o Spain reports 7 cases in under 24 hours, including in Madrid, Canary Islands, Barcelona
o Iran Deputy Health Minister infected with Covid-19
Pandemic Border Closures
Turkey, Iraq, Kuwait, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Georgia, Armenia, and UAE blocked border crossings by Iranians.
Russia, North Korea and Vietnam are blocking border crossings from China
Austria and Switzerlan are blocking border crossings from Italy.
El Salvador on Tuesday announced it would prevent entry of people from Italy and South Korea.
The themes of this update will be on issues of COVID-19 spread, public health institutional messaging credibility, and my personal analysis of same, and finally China’s honking of Pres Trump after the top line infection numbers and headlines.
Top line, There are currently 79,774 confirmed COVID-19 cases worldwide, including 2,628 fatalities as of the 24 February 2020 at 5:24 p.m. ET time hack on the BNO News corona virus traking site (https://bnonews.com/index.php/2020/02/the-latest-
coronavirus-cases/) China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, Thailand, Singapore, Italy, Iran and R.O.K. all appear to have local, or endemic, spread of the disease. Italy, ROK and probably Iran have exponential growth in progress. Singapore has it’s infections seemingly under control. The Chinese reported numbers indicate increasing control…but few believe them. The USA reports a large increase in COVID-19 cases and a pathetic number of COVID-19 tests being conducted.
South Korea COVID-19 Infection Chart
World Summary Headlines:
o Stocks slide as CDC releases new US case numbers [More later]
o Italy reports 7th death, 200+ confirmed cases [More later]
o Spain reports 3rd case
o WHO says outbreak not yet a ‘pandemic’ [More later]
o WH reportedly considering expulsion of Chinese journalists in retaliation for WSJ reporters
o US consulate in Milan temporarily halts visas
o California has 8,000 under ‘self-imposed quarantine’
o CDC warns Americans against travel to South Korea [no S–t!]
o Italian finance minister suspends tax payments in virus-hit areas
o First cases reported in Oman, Bahrain
o WHO kowtows to China in statement [more later]
o Wuhan issues order to loosen lockdown, then U-turns
o NHC says outbreak is fading, though situation remains “grim”
o 2 new cases confirmed in Canada
o China approves crackdown on wildlife trade after WHO says virus likely came from bats
o Iranian lawmaker says more than 50 deaths in Qom; officials say 12
o Hong Kong bars South Koreans [But allows Mainland Chinese in?!?]
The themes of this update will be on issues of COVID-19 spread, testing, public health institutional credibility, some e-mails evaluating the CDC and our elites, and my personal analysis of same after the top line infection numbers and headlines.
The SARS-CoV2 virus and it’s COVID-19 virgin fields infection seems to have a top line R(0) of between three and 6.7 — that is one person infects near seven people on average — because there are repeated “super spreader” events where one person slimed an institution with a lot of close contact and then the fomite contamination of that institutional setting causes everyone present to get the disease. Examples thus far include the Diamond Princess Cruise ship, a pair of prisons in China, and multiple hospitals in China and now South Korea. The rate of growth of the COVID-19 pandemic is such that we will be fighting it on a very large scale in a few weeks (no more than 10) in every nation world wide with the public and private medical institutions, societal resources, and people we have right now, with all their flaws. And not what we wish they were, but will never have. There simply isn’t going to be time and energy for blame games when issues of daily survival break upon us all.
Top line, there are currently 78,986 confirmed COVID-19 cases worldwide, including 2,468 fatalities as of 23 February 2020 at 11:52 a.m. ET on the BNO News corona virus traking site (https://bnonews.com/index.php/2020/02/the-latest-coronavirus-cases/) China, Taiwan Hong Kong, Japan, Thailand, Singapore, Italy, and Iran all appear to have local, or endemic, spread of the disease. See multiple charts attached and headline summary
Bar Chart of World COVID-19 Infections as of 23 Feb 2020Bar Chart of World Wide COVID-19 Infections Without China and the Diamond Princess Cruise Liner
World Headline Summary:
o Italy confirms 3rd death and cancels last 2 days of carnivale in Venice as cases soar above 100
o 4 more cases confirmed in UK
o 200 Israelis quarantined
o Japan confirms more cases
o Japanese Emperor expresses hope for Tokyo Games (fat chance)
o ROK Gov’t total cases above 600
o Trump says US has everything ‘under control’ as he asks Congress for more money (I call B.S. below)
o EU’s Gentiloni says he has ‘full confidence’ In Italian health officials
o Turkey, Pakistan close borders with Iran as confirmed cases soar
o Global Times (Chinese Gov’t news source) says virus may not have originated at Hunan seafood market
o Axios reports shortages of 150 essential drugs likely. (Most source in China)
Wednesday the world got the worst possible news about COVID-19 from China, and it explained all the strange things China was hiding since this disease first appeared. We are in the midst of China’ Biological Chernobyl. But first, the numbers. As of 20 February 2020 at 7:04 p.m. ET there were 76,192 confirmed COVID-19 cases worldwide, including 2,245 fatalities. China 74,988 cases, 2,234 fatalities and International 1,205 cases, 11 fatalities. See the latest disease numbers here:
A quiet Chinese announcement Wednesday has changed the world.
It appears that COVID-19 is an airborne bug in some very common medical situations. This was why China was keeping the CDC and WHO experts out of China. It is also why they had such heavy casualties with medical workers. You need a PPE-4 level independent oxygen supply to entubate a COVID-19 pneumonia sufferer.
“Airborne transmission” has a very specific medical-technical definition. See the figure below.
This graphic explains the technical definition of airborne transmission. (Peak Prosperity video screen capture)
See this, the opening sentence of which is the technical description of “Airborne Transmission” —
China admits aerosol infection possible in coronavirus outbreak
China’s health authorities have admitted that people may contract the pneumonia-causing COVID-19 coronavirus by inhaling small virus-containing particles floating in the air, or so-called aerosol infection.
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Updated diagnostic and treatment guidelines published Wednesday say a person can be infected if they are “exposed to a high concentration of aerosol in a relatively closed environment for a long time.
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This is the sixth edition of the guidelines for treating patients of the new virus in China. The guidelines posit that the main routes of transmission are “droplets from the respiratory system” and “close contact.”
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Previous versions of the guidelines said the possibility of aerosol infection had yet to be clearly established.
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Aerosol infection is said to be prone to occur during medical procedures, such as when inserting a tube into the windpipe to ensure an open airway.“
And airborne transmission beyond the narrow medical procedures have been confirmed in South Korea. ROK public health officials tracked a single asymptomatic church lady to a Christian mega-church service of a 1,000 people. Below is the result:
China also announced a prison had 200 prisoners and seven guards get COVID-19 last night. Essentially any institutional situation with poor/unfiltered circulation will see mass COVID-19 infection.
And it gets worse. How much worse? This much worse:
The Fight Plan of China’s Biological Chernobyl — 60,000 airline flights with poor air circulation where up to 12 million souls (assuming 200 unique people per plane flight) were exposed to an airborne transmitted SARS-CoV2 virus.
WELCOME TO THE WORSE CASE SCENARIO
The heart of the issue for 2019-nCoV is that it is a virgin fields epidemic. Everyone who hasn’t got it, will get it, absent a genetic gift or vaccine…and there will be no vaccine for a year, assuming this coronavirus is amenable to a vaccine.
This is compounded by the issue that the COVID-19 coronavirus infection takes a very low SARS-Cov2 viral load for the initial infection…
…and that low viral load initial infection takes a very, very, very, long time to manifest as either positive test result or as
“symptoms.”
Additionally, four of five people that test positive for COVID-19 have either no or very minor symptoms while being infection spreaders.
Case in point is the South Korean church-lady who seems to have given COVID-19 infections to 544 people either by giving out communion or singing.
The infection rate right now is over 20% for the souls aboard Diamond Princess and it will take at least 24 days from their last
exposure to be detectable in new cases. The chaos and ineffectivness of the Japanese quarantine was such that every passenger, crewman or Japanese health ministry body on the Diamond Princess were likely exposed to infection causing viral loads right up to and through the flights back to their home countries.
There is now no chance stopping COVID-19, short of a vaccine, because China’s Communist Party allowed those 12 million exposed souls to travel the world.
COVID-19 is not just a flu. It is 20 times deadlier (2% death rate) with an intact medical system and 50 time deadlier (5% death rate) in a collapsed medical system. And every medical system in the world will collapse under the weight of SARS-CoV2 infections.
