
Coronavirus: Why Investors Are Wrong to Panic - spaceman26
https://www.worth.com/stocks-are-crashing-because-of-coronavirus-heres-why-investors-are-wrong/
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jonrcooper
> Attention seekers include academics vying for the limelight or media vying
> for ad revenue.

Classifying the most educated people on the subject as "attention seekers" is
so dangerous. I can't believe we're still at this stage.

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allovernow
>First of all, the cumulative death toll from all the feared infectious
pandemics of the past-quarter century—mad cow disease (1996), SARS (2002),
bird flu (2004), swine flu (2009), Ebola (2014), Zika (2016) and the ongoing
coronavirus, or COVID-19 (2020)—doesn’t add up to the death toll of a single
season of influenza.

This is irresponsible journalism. Not all pandemics are created equal. We know
the R0 of this virus is at least as high (3-6+) as any of those listed, and
the true mortality rate is still unknown, but likely to be high given the >15%
critical illness rate, requiring ICU care.

Just look at the unbelievable response by China. To dismiss this as "just
another pandemic" is not only foolish but at this point dangerous. China and
Iran have been brought to their knees. Government officials are getting sick.
Young people are dying. The primary figures we have so far are at least 10x
underreported because they come from China.

The disruption to the global economy is just starting and there's a good
chance it will last for many months as the pandemic spreads, and with multiple
reports of reinfection this pandemic may be impossible to control without a
vaccine or drugs or a fortunate series of mutations, though even from the
perspective of mutations the virus is already showing to be unusually prone
and dangerous.

Literally everything published about this virus is bad news. This is an
unprecedented geopolitical event and anyone seriously buying the numbers from
China or following the advice of the corrupt and/or incompetent WHO is putting
everyone else at risk. But we will know for sure in 1-3 weeks as cases run
their courses in Korea and Italy and true R0, critical illness, and CFR rates
are reported.

Edit: this article doesn't even question the veracity of the Chinese figures
while it bends backwards to explain why the figures we have are
overrepresenting severity. While this may be true, again, look at the unheard
of response in China, which still has the majority of it's GDP shut down, 2
months later.

