The Year of the Virus

We are here

Total Confirmed 12,740,971

My Model is showing 300,000,000 cases by December

summary of #COVID__19 @SandroDemaio https://twitter.com/SandroDemaio/status/1282087397191151618

• 1,424,892 cases were confirmed in the last week • 229,759 just in the last 24 hours @MaxCRoser

The #COVID Daily Case Count is above 200,000

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cases doubled worldwide in 6 weeks

Malcolm Gladwell spoke of the Boiling Point

Malcolm Gladwell ‟Tipping Point‟ moment in an epidemic when a virus reaches critical mass. It’s the boiling point. It’s the moment on the graph when the line starts to shoot straight upwards. #nCoV2019 http://j.mp/2RxwB2l

We are not there yet. The exponential moment is still in front of us.

a virulent plague that “travelled through the air as if on wings, it burned through cities like fire”.

This is the Comet NEOWISE BBC

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I was reading Ibn Khaldun’s Muqaddimah which sought to explain the intrinsic relationship between political leadership and the management of pandemics in the pre-colonial period.

Historically, such pandemics had the capacity to overtake “the dynasties at the time of their senility, when they had reached the limit of their duration” and, in the process, challenged their “power and curtailed their [rulers’] influence...” 

Rulers who are only concerned with the well-being of their “inner circle and their parties” are an incurable “disease”. 

States with such rulers can get “seized by senility and the chronic disease from which [they] can hardly ever rid [themselves], for which [they] can find no cure”

To thwart calamities, rulers should possess certain qualifications. Khaldun recognizes wisdom, logic, honesty, justice and education as the most desirable qualities in a ruler. 

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Countries that I'm worried about. @MaxCRoser

 Angela Merkel: “You cannot fight the pandemic with lies and disinformation...the limits of Populism are being laid bare.” Angela Merkel

The Correlation between the Case Load and Populism has a stupendously high correlation coefficient.

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political decision-making is now driven by often weaponized babble. @FukuyamaFrancis

Madagascar 435 nouveaux cas confirmés #covid19mg @NCoVAfrica

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Africa has a Problem

COVID-19 pandemic in Africa is now reaching ‘full speed’ @AP #COVID19 and it’s good to prepare for the worst-case scenario, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention chief said 

’We’ve crossed a critical number here,” he said of the half-million milestone. “Our pandemic is getting full speed.”

There has been a 30% increase in the number of confirmed cases of #COVID19 in the African Region in the past week. @WHOAFRO

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Cumulative total of *reported* #COVID19 cases in Africa @Covid_Africa From 1st case to 100,000 cases: 98 days  100,000 to 200,000 cases: 18 days  200,000 to 300,000 cases: 12 days 300,000 to 400,000 cases: 9 days 400,000 to 500,000 cases: 7 days

South Africa is the Precursor for the rest of Africa

A Lot of People whom I follow and who should know better by now keep repeating tat the CFR rate is very low. Understand this

A reminder that # deaths from COVID is a *lower bound* not an estimate. Many people will die months later @nntaleb https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1280097818317860865?s=20

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Here we go round the prickly pear Prickly pear prickly pear Here we go round the prickly pear At five o’clock in the morning.

The WHO are going to China for a break.

This is a time for self-reflection, for all of us involved in the #COVID19 response to look in the mirror; to look at the world we live in and to find ways to strengthen our collaboration as we work together to save lives and bring this pandemic under control. https://twitter.com/DrTedros/status/1281331220706668544?s=20

.@WHO experts will travel to #China this weekend to work together with their Chinese counterparts to prepare scientific plans for identifying the zoonotic source of #COVID19. @DrTedros https://twitter.com/DrTedros/status/1280561265740582912?s=20

“An inquiry that presupposes — without evidence — that the virus entered humans through a natural zoonotic spillover and that fails to address the alternative possibility that the virus entered humans through a laboratory accident, will have no credibility,” said Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University in New Jersey.

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“To have any credibility and any value, an investigation must address the possibility that the virus entered humans through a laboratory accident and must also address the further possibility that the ability of the virus to infect humans was enhanced through laboratory manipulation — ‘gain-of-function research of concern’.”

Dear @MaEllenSirleaf & @HelenClarkNZ The starting point of your enquiry has to be precisely what is being precluded below because “If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers.” #COVID19  https://twitter.com/alykhansatchu/status/1281941183716110336?s=20

I am convinced that the only ‘’zoonotic’’ origin was one that was accelerated in the Laboratory.

There is also a non negligible possibility that #COVID19 was deliberately released – Wuhan is to the CCP as Idlib is to the Syrian Regime – and propagated world wide.

According to Daszak, the mine sample had been stored in Wuhan for six years. Its scientists “went back to that sample in 2020, in early January or maybe even at the end of last year, I don’t know. They tried to get full genome sequencing, which is important to find out the whole diversity of the viral genome.” However, after sequencing the full genome for RaTG13 the lab’s sample of the virus disintegrated, he said. “I think they tried to culture it but they were unable to, so that sample, I think, has gone.”

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America and China Are Entering the Dark Forest @bopinion @nfergus  https://j.mp/3gsWaev

"The Dark Forest," which continues the story of the invasion of Earth by the ruthless and technologically superior Trisolarans, introduces Liu’s three axioms of “cosmic sociology.”

First, “Survival is the primary need of civilization.” Second, “Civilization continuously grows and expands, but the total matter in the universe remains constant.” Third, “chains of suspicion” and the risk of a “technological explosion” in another civilization mean that in space there can only be the law of the jungle. In the words of the book’s hero, Luo Ji:

The universe is a dark forest. Every civilization is an armed hunter stalking through the trees like a ghost … trying to tread without sound … The hunter has to be careful, because everywhere in the forest are stealthy hunters like him. If he finds other life — another hunter, an angel or a demon, a delicate infant or a tottering old man, a fairy or a demigod — there’s only one thing he can do: open fire and eliminate them. In this forest, hell is other people … any life that exposes its own existence will be swiftly wiped out.

Kissinger is often thought of (in my view, wrongly) as the supreme American exponent of Realpolitik. But this is something much harsher than realism. This is intergalactic Darwinism.

The Financial Markets

The Chart of Truth - 10 year yields still heading for sub-zero. @RaoulGMI https://twitter.com/RaoulGMI/status/1281581686401183745?s=20

I expect the US Curve out to 10 Years to be negative by Year End

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Short sterling: first ever 100.00 print in futures -- this means market is pricing for a 0% level in 3-month GBP Libor by March 2022 @StephenSpratt https://twitter.com/StephenSpratt/status/1281488125487808512?s=20

The Nasdaq closed at All time Highs and BIG TECH is leading the Charge

$TSLA +$600 in 9 days @NorthmanTrader https://twitter.com/NorthmanTrader/status/1281677869735870465?s=20

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27-JAN-2020 : "But it is a curve each of them feels, unmistakably. It is the parabola" @Tesla @elonmusk  http://bit.ly/2RxwB2l

''They must have guessed, once or twice -guessed and refused to believe -that everything, always, collectively, had been moving toward that purified shape latent in the sky, that shape of no surprise, no second chance, no return.’’

The Equity Markets are being priced on the basis of Liquidity and are in nose-bleed Territory.

22-MAR-2020 :: I believe Gold will soon turn viral to the Upside I am looking for $2,000.00+ https://bit.ly/2WD1tl0

Cumulative #gold inflows at all-time high (BofA) @chigrl https://twitter.com/chigrl/status/1281862905504436226?s=20

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Gold @ZainZub78512219 https://twitter.com/ZainZub78512219/status/1282268297107394560?s=20

22-JUN-2020 :: Gold is a No Brainer targets $2,000.00 https://bit.ly/3hQcdEE

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#Gold and #cash, not #equities or #bonds have seen the biggest inflows this year! @jsblokland https://twitter.com/jsblokland/status/1281874024008646658?s=20

22-JUN-2020 :: The FED WILL KEEP ON PRINTING THEY HAVE ONLY JUST GOTTEN STARTED https://bit.ly/3hQcdEE

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