https://cnbc.com/2020/04/30/coronavirus ... urope.html
Opening up doesn't save the economy. It just means you have a shit economy and more dead people. The worst of all possible worlds.Sweden has attracted global attention for not imposing a full lockdown, as seen in most of Europe, to contain the coronavirus pandemic.
Nonetheless, data released from the country’s central bank and a leading Swedish think tank show that the economy will be just as badly hit as its European neighbors, if not worse.
Sweden’s central bank, the Riksbank, gave two possible scenarios for the economic outlook in 2020, which it said “depend on how long the spread of infection continues and on how long the restrictions implemented to slow it down are in place.” Both possible economic outcomes are bleak.
In the first scenario (scenario A in the chart below), gross domestic product contracts by 6.9% in 2020 before rebounding to grow 4.6% in 2021. In a more negative prediction (scenario B), GDP could contract by 9.7% and a recovery could be slower with the economy growing 1.7% in 2021.
In the first scenario, the Riksbank predicted unemployment could reach 8.8% in 2020, from 7.2% currently, and in the worst-case forecast could hit 10.1%.
“In both scenarios, production falls sharply to begin with, and more than during the financial crisis. Sharply falling oil and electricity prices will contribute to low inflation this year,” the Riksbank said. It predicts the inflation rate will stay at 0.6% in 2020, in both scenarios.
The growth projections are sobering for a country that looked to mitigate the economic impact of the coronavirus by not shutting down its economy like the rest of Europe. Lockdowns in Germany, Spain, Italy, France and the U.K., aimed at saving countless lives, have all hit their economies severely.
The International Monetary Fund predicted earlier in April that Germany and the U.K. will see their economies contract by 6.5% and 7% this year, respectively. France is expected to see a 7.2% contraction, Spain an 8% contraction and for Italy to see its economy shrink 9.1%.
Sweden’s neighbors Finland and Denmark, which also imposed lockdowns, are also expected to see their economies contract by 6% and 6.5%, respectively.
The Swedish government advised citizens to stay at, and work from, home if possible. Bars and restaurants remain open but social-distancing measures have been implemented, while schools for the under-16s remain open.
The strategy has proved very controversial but its chief epidemiologist has defended the approach, telling CNBC last week that the capital Stockholm could be heading for “herd immunity” in weeks.
Still, Sweden’s supply chains and businesses have been damaged by the pandemic and the Riksbank warned that “many companies will be hit hard and many people will lose their jobs,” although it decided to hold its benchmark interest rate at zero this week.
It also decided against adding any new measures to support the economy (it has already introduced a loan package for Swedish companies and increased its bond-buying program) but said it was ready to do more if needed.
“It was not deemed justified at this point in time to try to increase demand by lowering the repo rate when the downturn in the economy is due to imposed restrictions and people’s concerns about the spread of infection,” the Riksbank said in a statement Tuesday.
“However, this does not rule out the possibility of the interest rate being cut at a later date if this is deemed an effective measure to stimulate demand and support the development of inflation in the recovery phase.”
The grim data from Sweden’s central bank has been reinforced by a respected think tank this week. The National Institute for Economic Research (NIER) said in a statement Wednesday that it believed that Sweden’s economy is set to shrink 7% this year and unemployment to rise to 10.2%.
“Developments in April indicate that the Covid-19 pandemic will hit the Swedish economy much harder than anticipated,” the NIER said, adding that “the global economy is developing worse than expected which is hitting Swedish export companies which are also hampered by problems with international supply chains.”
Cuomo reports most of the new hospitalizations in New York are people who were staying at home (presumably infected by others they were in contact with, ie family/friends). The majority were also racial minorities:
https://cnbc.com/2020/05/06/ny-gov-cuom ... -home.html
Remember when people were saying "Old people can just stay home and we'll be fine?" Yeah, no. EVERYONE needed to stay home.Most new Covid-19 hospitalizations in New York state are from people who were staying home and not venturing much outside, a “shocking” finding, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Wednesday.
The preliminary data was from 100 New York hospitals involving about 1,000 patients, Cuomo said at his daily briefing.
It shows that 66% of new admissions were from people who had largely been sheltering at home. The next highest source of admissions was from nursing homes, 18%.
“If you notice, 18% of the people came from nursing homes, less than 1% came from jail or prison, 2% came from the homeless population, 2% from other congregate facilities, but 66% of the people were at home, which is shocking to us,” Cuomo said.
“This is a surprise: Overwhelmingly, the people were at home,” he added. “We thought maybe they were taking public transportation, and we’ve taken special precautions on public transportation, but actually no, because these people were literally at home.”
Cuomo said nearly 84% of the hospitalized cases were people who were not commuting to work through car services, personal cars, public transit or walking. He said a majority of those people were either retired or unemployed. Overall, some 73% of the admissions were people over age 51.
He said the information shows that those who are hospitalized are predominantly from the downstate area in or around New York City, are not working or traveling and are not essential employees. He also said a majority of the cases in New York City are minorities, with nearly half being African American or Hispanic.
Cuomo said state health officials had thought a high percentage of people who were hospitalized would be essential employees, like health-care workers or city staff, who are still going to work.
“Much of this comes down to what you do to protect yourself. Everything is closed down, government has done everything it could, society has done everything it could. Now it’s up to you,” Cuomo said.
A spokeswoman for Cuomo’s office did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for additional comment on the governor’s remarks.
Cuomo said the state’s hospitalization rate has continued to decline, although at a “painfully slow” rate. He said around 600 infected people were still walking through hospital doors every day, although that number has also declined.
While data shows the coronavirus is on the decline in New York, the new survey results appear to clash with Cuomo’s prior assurances that isolation can reliably prevent transmission.
“I was afraid that it was going to infect my family no matter what I did. We’re past that,” Cuomo said at a press conference on April 13. “If you isolate, if you take the precautions, your family won’t get infected.”
The daily figures, including the number of people who have died from the coronavirus, will probably be much higher than what has been reported, Cuomo said. He said the state has not been fully documenting the at-home deaths that may be attributable to Covid-19. An additional 232 people died from the coronavirus on Tuesday.
“I think that the reality is going to be worse,” Cuomo said.
The strain in the US appears to be a new, mutated form, not the original one that appeared in Wuhan, and is more contagious:
https://cnbc.com/2020/05/05/the-coronav ... finds.html
The coronavirus that emerged in Wuhan, China, over four months ago has since mutated and the new, dominant strain spreading across the U.S. appears to be even more contagious, according to a new study.
The new strain began spreading in Europe in early February before migrating to other parts of the world, including the United States and Canada, becoming the dominant form of the virus across the globe by the end of March, researchers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory wrote in a 33-page report published Thursday on BioRxiv.
If the coronavirus doesn’t subside in the summer like the seasonal flu, it could mutate further and potentially limit the effectiveness of the coronavirus vaccines being developed by scientists around the world, the researchers warned. Some vaccine researchers have been using the virus’s genetic sequences isolated by health authorities early in the outbreak.
“This is hard news,” Bette Korber, a computational biologist at Los Alamos and lead author of the study, the Los Angeles Times said she wrote on her Facebook page.
“But please don’t only be disheartened by it,” she continued. “Our team at LANL was able to document this mutation and its impact on transmission only because of a massive global effort of clinical people and experimental groups, who make new sequences of the virus (SARS-CoV-2) in their local communities available as quickly as they possibly can.”
The study has yet to be peer-reviewed, but the researchers noted that news of the mutation was of “urgent concern” considering the more than 100 vaccines in the process of being developed to prevent Covid-19.
In early March, researchers in China said they found that two different types of the coronavirus could be causing infections worldwide.
In a study published on March 3, scientists at Peking University’s School of Life Sciences and the Institut Pasteur of Shanghai found that a more aggressive type of the new coronavirus had accounted for roughly 70% of analyzed strains, while 30% had been linked to a less aggressive type. The more aggressive and deadly strain was found to be prevalent in the early stages of the outbreak in Wuhan — the Chinese city where the virus first emerged.
The Los Alamos researchers, with the help of scientists at Duke University and the University of Sheffield in England, were able to analyze thousands of coronavirus sequences collected by the Global Initiative for Sharing All Influenza, an organization that promotes the rapid sharing of data from all influenza viruses and the coronavirus.
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To date, the researchers have identified 14 mutations.
The mutation impacts the spike protein, a multifunctional mechanism that allows the virus to enter the host.
The research was supported by funding from the Medical Research Council, the National Institute of Health Research and Genome Research Limited.
It's real easy for you to say that, but what if you're the one that is alone on the track? Answer honestly, now.