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Whalatane

03/06/20 1:16 PM

#250402 RE: Lemmiwinks #250397

Lem. re your comment

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Expect markets to recover and life to go on in the next three weeks.



Very unlikely IMHO. ...think more in terms of 3 mths.

We have seen how this plays out in China , HK , parts of Italy. We need SERIOUS efforts to mitigate the spread of this virus otherwise will will see economic damage like we did in 08-09 .

Look at the figures we have out of Italy ...20% of those infected need to be hospitalized ...and I think about 10% of the hospital staff treating them now also infected .
By the end of next week will will have a lot more testing data which IMHO will show thousands infected ....which could overwhelm ER's and require ..if Italy is a guide ..a lot placed in hospital isolation wards .

The spread of this virus ..unless we get serious mitigation efforts ..will have many self isolating , some of which we are now seeing. Service companys ( hotels , restaurants , airlines etc) will face serious drop off in income and face difficulty meeting their loan payments ...the second derivative effect .

There is a cruise ship off the coast sth of SF with almost 5,000 on board ( passengers and crew ) ...where about 200 are undergoing testing ( last night and today ) ...with results in next few days .

If there's spread of COVID19 on this ship ...where exactly are we going to quarantine all these folks ?
Kiwi