AlexRich

14 hours ago, scubascuba3 said:

Yeah ride it out, maybe back to normal in 2 years. I guess the worse case scenario apart from getting corona is the locals go crazy

Tosh. Common sense tells you that Thailand can not sustain this for more than a month ... the locals cannot survive much longer than that ... so the cost benefit analysis leads to them opening up commerce and inbound and outbound flights.

46 minutes ago, Andycoops said:

There was a Brit couple on the BBC news stranded in Phuket who have lost 7000 GBPs because of cancelled flight bookings. Beware. 

Yes, from Glasgow. But they are not the only ones to experience that.

I don’t think climate makes much difference. Countries like Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea and Hong Kong have more experience on epidemics and have learned a great deal from previous mistakes. So they are more on the ball than western countries ... although Germany and Norway have made a decent effort. Sweden will be an interesting case study after this is done and dusted. 

NO.

20 hours ago, Assurancetourix said:

Aren't you tired of this old joke? 

Nope.

9 hours ago, DavisH said:

The distribution of infection is similar across age groups, but not many are infected less than 10 years old. There aren't many deaths in Thailand so far because the median is 34 y.o. One son got infected at the boxing match, took it home, and killed his elderly father. This is the problem we face. 

Yes. And that’s why we need a support group around the vulnerable people. Isolate from the rest of society but taken care of with food and support. Until this virus clears.

27 minutes ago, Brewster67 said:

I watched a video compilation of thais commenting on having their livelihoods removed and it is becoming clear that they would rather risk getting COVID-19 and take their chances than to starve to death.

This is not a country’s that can survive long in lockdown. I suspect more people will die from lockdown than from covid-19.

At some point every country will need to adjust their strategy. Put support groups around the vulnerable, but let everyone else get back to commerce. The younger people who get this will be in lower numbers, and a small % will need ventilators. A vaccine is not guaranteed, and will not protect everybody even if one is produced.

In the farm, rule number one is take care of the Buffalo.

I’m reading a book about the 1918 pandemic. The author told the story of a man in Cape Town who jumped on a tram for a three mile travel home. On the journey the ticket collector collapsed and died along with three passengers, all in the space of a few minutes. He jumped off early and walked home. It was just influenza, but it was devastating.

Walk away. You are being taken for a mug. You’ll never have any say or involvement in your son’s life as a child, so don’t even try. Save your money for yourself and get on with your life.

If the big miners get cheap, like BHP, they are worth looking at. They’ll survive a downturn and soar with fast economic growth down the line. Not a short term trade.

13 hours ago, Logosone said:

"Whoever thinks that governments end viruses is wrong."

 

Dr Yoram Lass is an Israeli physician, politician and former Director General of the Health Ministry. He also worked as Associate Dean of the Tel Aviv University Medical School.

 

Thankfully the German health system was well prepared and is even able to take in patients from Italy and France as it has spare capacity. 

 

So clearly this particular country had the hospitals and equipment and skilled manpower.

 

Why not the UK or US? The point is that many reputable people warned a long time that a pandemic was coming. Governments failed to prepare. They should have. You think inreasing testing capacities would not have made a difference early on? It certainly would have.

 

The governments have failed. Miserably. And the people who will end this virus will not be government. Even while Boris Johnson and Neil Ferguson, the biggest social distancing fanatics, espouse their social distancing religion for which there is no hard data that it works with Covid19 whatsoever, they are lying in bed nursing a Covid19 infection. They are fortunately contributing to herd immunity, however, the economic cost of their lockdowns will be payed for by our children's children. The governments have failed on all fronts.

The Germans got their act together and tested. If they hadn’t they’d be having the same issues as other countries. So far Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea have done likewise, with good results. They all learned the lessons from previous outbreaks like SARS. 

7 hours ago, Krataiboy said:

You should know.

I do. I’ve read your posts before.

8 minutes ago, scubascuba3 said:

100% of Thailand cases seem to end up in hospital, experts say maybe 20% are ending up in hospital so this means most cases are not being diagnosed so 100%\20% x 1,245 cases = 6,225 is approx the real number

I suspect that the real number today is much higher, given time lag factors between contracting and presenting at hospital, as well as Government number manipulation.

21 minutes ago, Krataiboy said:

That's three guesses in one posting. Take some beating.

Still beats three brain cells.

13 minutes ago, Logosone said:

The problem with this statement is that the government is not isolating the virus. It is isolating the healthy. Yes, it should isolate the virus, ie the carriers. However it has failed to do so when it would have made a difference, at the start of the pandemic.

 

Given the unusually fast spread of the virus, so many people are now likely to be infected that herd immunity will most likely arrive sooner than an effective vaccine.

 

Hospitals will be overwhelmed anyway, there is no evidence that lockdowns have helped hospitals cope. The opposite though has been bemoaned by hospital staff that the lockdowns make their work harder and result in less staff and less supplies. 

 

The government is most certainly to blame. This pandemic was totally foreseeable, countless people warned about it, yet they did not prepare. Even when the virus ravaged Wuhan there was a month or two to react. Our governments did nothing until it was too late. The government is most certainly to blame here for its reckless inaction. It was a major contributing factor to the disaster. Their whole job was to protect the people. It failed miserably and comprehensively on all fronts.

A Government reaction to a pandemic, however well prepared, will result in massive disruption. No country can have the hospitals, equipment and skilled manpower ready to move in case of a pandemic ... there is no easy solution. It’s just easy to blame Government.

8 minutes ago, marqus12 said:

This comic panic has caused a massive sell-off on stock exchanges around the World.

That everyone knows.

What not everyone knows is that although US stocks are still not cheap,
shares of fantastic enterprises on emerging markets are dirt cheap,

even quasi monopolists on local markets have p/e 5-7
and p / e forward even lower.

 

The mass-printed dollar should start weakening this year
and it always led to a bull market on EM...300-500% in USD

 

Maybe it will be different this time..

 

But one thing is certain ... This virus will have many "children"

It certainly will, in no small part due to the condom factory in Malaysia closing down, and causing a shortage.

10 minutes ago, URMySunshine said:

It's a good job we don't live forever or we would have to sort this mess out. and what a mess it truly is. I find myself thinking how the hell did this year turn out so badly and when will the whole bloody thing end ? Hopefully soon. 

My guess is that we’ll be back to normal by June in the sense that there will be no lockdown. Vulnerable people will be advised to restrict their movements. Everybody else will be building up immunity in the herd. It will come back but perhaps be less lethal in the future. I don’t like Trump but the world cannot afford to stop because of this, it’s unavoidable.