Today's COVID-19 headlines (24 of March)
Plus the chart of the week
Chart of the week
In Bergamo and Lodi, the number of COVID-19 deaths in March 2020 so far (red bar) exceeds the number of deaths in all of March 2019 for any cause of death (blue bar).
This is extremely important to determine how many incremental deaths might the virus cause.
Also, mortality in Bergamo seems to be 17%, based on official data (link)
Columbia NYP hospital running out of ICU beds and PPEs soon
Full statement here. Of course, that was fully foreseeable since the 5th of February, when China began the construction of makeshifts hospitals.
Yes, some countries have better healthcare systems or more ICU beds than others, but I fear that this could become a Fence Paradox in which people rely on a fence which is sturdy but too low for the incoming tsunami and end up not doing what they should have been doing: preparing.
Italian numbers seem to be trending now, but
Official numbers for new cases show the first decline. On the other hand, the head of Italy’s emergency response team said that it’s possible that the true number of infections is 10x higher.
There are also reports that deaths might be undercounted, by a lot. My full analysis here.
UK announces lockdown
My guess: governments got caught clueless for weeks. Then they “cargo-cult” copied and pasted an Italian-style lockdown, which is very different from the Chinese one. My prediction: soon they will be caught clueless regarding the “now what?” after two weeks of lockdown.
Spain reports ~4500 new cases
That’s a lot, and the big problem is that they are way more distributed than in Italy (in which they’re concentrated in 3 regions only).
Having lot of hotspots makes it way more difficult to control the epidemic, and predicts much longer sustained growth.
Why does Spain have so many hotspots? Because it waited until it had more than 3000 cases to put the first city under quarantine. Italy did so with less than 100 cases.
The Olympic games are postponed
Why does it take so long? Spencer Wells answers: “The party that 'cancels' or 'postpones' that agreement, unless mutually agreed by the other party, will put itself in breach of contract and expose itself to huge [billions of dollars] damages claims..."
Virus RNA found on a cruise ship after 17 days
…but don’t panic: this doesn’t mean that the virus found there is still able to infect people. However, let’s also remember that it’s always good practice, when tail risks are at hand, to overestimate how viruses can survive.
Real estate down
I read the first stories of people bailing on their leveraged Airbnb schemes.
This might deflate real estate prices in city with lot of Airbnbs.
Also, this:
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