China was in recession/depression before shutting down their entire economy for almost 2 months and have barely recovered. They suffered a supply shock. And now because the entire worlds demand has declined, China is now suffering from demand shock. And foreign manufacturers are now FLEEING which adds to massive loss of permanent jobs. That’s on top of a debt overload and they don’t control the worlds main currency
Japan and Germany were close to recession before the virus hit. Plus they are mainly exporters. Plus automobile is their big export...which now the demand has collapsed around the world.
Do you have a source about the claim that manufacturing leaving china? I could find US companies leaving the country because US policies — not covid-19.
The reason we don’t have enough face masks is because we have moved all our medical supply chain to China. The reason we were able to do that is because during the Clinton administration we allowed US businesses to destroy US manufacturing capability by granting permanent normal trade relation with China.
I like how the liberal/Democrats always ignore China/offshoring during their discussion of economic crisis. (Probably because they benefited from the slave labors in China more)
This isn't it. It has nothing to do with China, these could have been made in the USA over the course of years, and stockpiled in some giant DR warehouse somewhere in the USA that the USG runs currently for weapons designed to wipe out cities.
The USG doesn't because it isn't a priority to the people in power.
> It has nothing to do with China, these could have been made in the USA over the course of years...
This seems not true to me. Indeed, they could have been manufactured in the USA, as could essentially anything, yet the majority of manufacturing happens to have migrated to China over the past 20 or so years. Does it not seem reasonable, or at least possible, that the much lower cost of production in China had something to do with them being manufactured over there?
Of course, but the point is that proper preparation/intervention from the government would have led to maintaining enough domestic manufacturing capacity and stockpiles. Businesses have different incentives and won't do the same.
> Of course, but the point is that proper preparation/intervention from the government...
Pardon me for being obsessive about accuracy, and I hope you don't take this in a disrespectful way, but the point (topic) of this particular sub-thread (the comment to which I'm replying, which I excerpted, in turn defining the topic) is not that.
It is this: "It has nothing to do with China, these could have been made in the USA over the course of years..."
The media redefining reality is one thing (perhaps they are just doing their best) - but doing it on HN, when the truth is a few centimeters above, seems like taking it a bit too far, to my style of thinking anyways.
Nope that’s not it. Do you see China running out of masks right now? No of course not. They have so much they are “donating” to other countries. They have the world’s capability to make masks.
The U.S. is out of masks because the shelves were cleared in January and February by people buying for relatives back in China, and by local Chinese associations bulk buying and sending them there.
I have family in China. I watched this happen. I saw emails and chat posts organizing donations.
This is getting back to OP's point too, if the US government had actually prepared for this, there would be a stock of these types of items in a government DR warehouse somewhere not available to the public, but ready to be shipped around the USA when needed.
The thread's point is that the other way the US government could have prepared for this would have been to prevent the offshoring of mask production (and other national-security related items), thus keeping the necessary production capacity here instead of in China.
Offshoring isn't the issue, the issue is the GOP wanting to decimate all public health infrastructure and let companies step in and make money off of it instead. The capacity could be here if the USG wanted to make it a priority but it isn't a moneymaker so they are not.
The issue is that you either need a strategic stockpile OR domestic production capabilities, and ideally both. You seem to be ignoring the latter entirely.
(And it was Obama that depleted the strategic stockpile of N95 masks without replenishing them - a stockpile created by Republicans, mind. If you want to point fingers, please point them in the right direction)
They have been "donating" simply to get headlines so the American people complain until Trump apologizes for calling it a "Chinese virus", then China will agree to sell the US masks and price gouge the US. Trump apologized last night and wouldn't you know it, Beijing gave manufactures the go ahead to contact various State and City governments to start price wars internally.
You are correct, China has the capacity to manufacture and supply the masks, but they haven't because they are politicizing this and otherwise price gouging. What they don't realize what they are actually doing is lending legitimacy to the Chinese-made virus conspiracy theories by doing these things...this will back fire against China in a very big way.
Translated: On March 20th, A local community management issued a notice, stating that one of the unit has 2 patient found, the unit will be sealed and no one is allowed to enter or exit.
It essentaily means that they are starving to death in the room.
So, I'm not to trust a government - which is fair; I don't - but a totally unsourced and unverifiable Reddit post is 100% okay? When its claim is that the CCP is competent enough to enforce the murder by starvation of two innocent people, while the existence of the post that makes the claim implies that the CCP is too incompetent to prevent word of such a crime getting out, even to the point of issuing an official document to prove they're doing it?
Do you see what I mean about seeming like a conspiracy theory? Heinlein's Red-baiting about Soviet cosmonauts unpersoned when their early space capsules failed and stranded them, despite being nonsense, had at least the virtue of originality. But that was over half a century ago. I'd like to hope our standards have risen in the interim.
You are being a bit naive about journalism in an authoritarian country that has control over digital media coming out of the country. The fact that this picture made it out (suggesting that image recognition/AI censor rules are still naive in China) is proof enough that there are voices desperately trying to tell the outside world - don’t trust their government!!
Have you considered it takes a while for cases to filter up or down? Incompetence is usually a better candidate than malice. It could be they'll report it a few days from now, or that these cases were found and reported a few days prior to the 20th and were folded into earlier reportings. For instance, if the cases were identified and reported on the 18th, and the notice was posted on the 20th, that would remain consistent.
Stop with the unfounded speculation and fearmongering.
Game over is an exaggeration. There’s 3.4 trillion sideline cash. China’s economy collapsed 80-90% in the last month and will take months to recover, on top of exploding debts. Japan and Germany was in recession before coronavirus hit.
On the other hand, US was growing a steady 2% and had record low unemployment before this. If US can flatten the curve, with only ~3000 cases thus far, US will recover quickly and come out way ahead. And the sideline cash will rush into US
> Do you have a source for 80-90% collapse in China? That sounds way high
I live in Shanghai. It normally takes about two weeks for things to go back to normal after Lunar New Year ends, which was two months ago. Things are not yet back to normal. Maybe 30% of office workers are back at work, 50% maximum. Gyms, bars, restaurants are almost all still closed. The dental hospital is still closed. You can basically write off February and at least half of March for economic production.
> Also 3000 confirmed cases does not mean 3000 actual infections.
That's exactly what it means. 3000 cases of positively identified infections in individuals, if you want to get more wordy. Some of those have recovered, some have died. Still the number is over that today.
3000 cases tested positive but from what I know, we're barely testing.
Here in California as of today -- if you have a cough, and a fever, you will not be tested unless you have had international travel or known contact with a victim. This I know because I've spoken to two doctors and a nurse through Aetna.
You don’t have an accurate sample size if you don’t measure. Based on the growth rates over time in every other country, the US should have way more cases. There are only a few thousand because we aren’t measuring.
FYI the governor of Ohio estimates 100,000 people in Ohio are infected. So there is that.
He's way off, he's a Republican and more cases = better for them, because that means this has a CFR of < 1%... my guess would maybe be more like 100-1k, but that doubles in 6 days to 200-2k, then 300-3k...etc... in 20 days it could be 100k though.. but the hospital's would be extended beyond belief, and I haven't heard reports of that yet.
Cases are recorded. If it's not in a medical record, it's not a case. Technically, the reference was to ~3000 but someone then wanted to dispute that cases was not the same as infections. The number is irrelevant. If it's not known for sure, it's not a case and it's not a known infection, medically. I don't understand how factual correction gets downvoted, but here we are.
This is a pedantic word splitting argument. The relevant measure is number of people infected no the number we happen to know for sure because we finally got around to testing. If we had South Korea’s level of testing then maybe your argument would warrant breath behind words, under the current circumstances save your breath.
>> > Also 3000 confirmed cases does not mean 3000 actual infections.
This statement is factually incorrect.
> The relevant measure is number of people infected no the number we happen to know for sure because we finally got around to testing
That is irrelevant to the response I gave. It seems to be a popular interest today, in trying to clarify a concept, which is unrelated. I am done engaging with this derail.
Well systemically remember Americans are out-of-the-box more “socially-distanced” than Italians. We all commute one person to a car, we have an outsized sense of personal space. We are less community oriented by and large.
Closing down schools, banning large gatherings, setting up drive thru testing, ramping up test kits next week, letting employees to work from home, closing borders to China and Europe (25k cases), etc
Yes, if practiced as intended, which there is no guarantee.
Did Italy do that?
Perhaps not as quickly as they should have. The rest of the world is learning from Italy's experience (they should have been paying closer attention to China, but that's another story)
Another thing to realize is that these numbers you are seeing are WITH CONTROLS. Sure, "only" 3,000 Chinese have died. Maybe it's more than that, it's hard to trust Chinese numbers. But even at 2x or 3x, that's far cry from the millions it could have been, had China not both imposed extreme controls to limit the spread of the disease AND allocated emergency resources to healthcare.
Some models show realistic scenarios where 5 million Americans die within a year, if the virus is allowed to spread at its maximum rate.
That would imply 100% infection, at a base reproduction rate of 15 (close to measles), and a mortality rate of 30% (close to Ebola).
If left unchecked covid-19 would infect 100-250 millions Americans. The R0 is 2.5-3. The average mortality rate is said to probably be closer to 1% rather the 3.4% previously advanced, so 1-2.5 millions deaths, which we will hopefully never reach if people follow the current social distancing and self-quarantine guidance.
That would implies 100% infection, at a base reproduction rate 15 (close to measles), and a mortality of 30% (close to Ebola).
If left unchecked covid-19 would infect 100-250 millions Americans. The R0 is 2.5-3. The average mortality rate is said to probably be closer to 1% rather the 3.4% previously advanced, so 1-2.5 millions deaths, which we will hopefully never reach if people follow the current social distancing and self-quarantine guidance.
The government can simply ban shorts, much like 2008, and what other European stock markets have done already. That would kill the shorts dead in its tracks. Then the stock market would stabilize, in time for businesses to stabilize and hopefully by summer everything will be recovery focused.
This is a global health crisis that happens to impact millions of workers who are now worried they might contract coronavirus or they might lose their jobs if they were in some of the more impacted industries.
To be shorting and attacking the economy and businesses during this time (all businesses are interconnected, especially ones that provide food/energy/medical supplies) and be so distrustful of efforts to help ramp up testing and saving lifes, it’s just wrong.
I happen to know many people who works in cruise industries and hospitality. These folks are worried sick right now. Those people are who you are shorting
Seriously what do you want the White House to do? Run around like chickens with their head cut off? I am so damn disappointed at this site often enough to just delete the book mark. The partisan first, TDS, or call it what you will, on display here, makes me wonder if I landed on reddit/politics instead of a tech site.
The government's job is to assure calm, it that requires a little white lie or a bit of misdirection then so be it. the last thing we need is people in authority spreading doom and gloom.
Assure effectual calm, I would say. Not wallpaper a crisis for gain of self, cronies, or political points, which is what the original commenter was describing.
People need direction and understanding of the severity, which has been lacking.
I’m curious as to your definition of a little white lie, and I wonder how durable you think this calm is. People clamoring for tests nationwide don’t need provable lies told to them. They need confidence that the people in charge know what they’re doing and they need to know how they can access the tests. These lies are hurting, not helping.
> it [sic] that requires a little white lie or a bit of misdirection then so be it
If they were doing things that instilled confidence, I'd be happy to give them credit. However, let's review the timeline of statements:
- Jan. 22: “We have it totally under control.”
- Jan. 24: “It will all work out well.”
- Jan. 29: “Just received a briefing on the Coronavirus in China from all of our GREAT agencies, who are also working closely with China. We will continue to monitor the ongoing developments. We have the best experts anywhere in the world, and they are on top of it 24/7!”
- Jan. 30: “We think we have it very well under control. We have very little problem in this country at this moment — five. And those people are all recuperating successfully. But we’re working very closely with China and other countries, and we think it’s going to have a very good ending for it. So that I can assure you.”
- Feb. 2: “Well, we pretty much shut it down coming in from China. … We can’t have thousands of people coming in who may have this problem, the coronavirus. So we’re gonna see what happens, but we did shut it down, yes.”
- Feb. 7: “Nothing is easy, but [Chinese President Xi Jinping] … will be successful, especially as the weather starts to warm & the virus hopefully becomes weaker, and then gone.”
- Feb. 10: “I think the virus is going to be — it’s going to be fine.”
- Feb. 14: “We have a very small number of people in the country, right now, with it. It’s like around 12. Many of them are getting better. Some are fully recovered already. So we’re in very good shape.”
- Feb. 19: “I think it’s going to work out fine. I think when we get into April, in the warmer weather, that has a very negative effect on that and that type of a virus. So let’s see what happens, but I think it’s going to work out fine.”
- Feb. 24: “The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA. … Stock Market starting to look very good to me!”
- Feb. 25: “You may ask about the coronavirus, which is very well under control in our country. We have very few people with it, and the people that have it are … getting better. They’re all getting better. … As far as what we’re doing with the new virus, I think that we’re doing a great job.”
- Feb. 25: “CDC and my Administration are doing a GREAT job of handling Coronavirus, including the very early closing of our borders to certain areas of the world.”
- Feb. 26: “Because of all we’ve done, the risk to the American people remains very low. … When you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero. That’s a pretty good job we’ve done."
- Feb. 27: “Only a very small number in U.S., & China numbers look to be going down. All countries working well together!”
- Feb. 28: “I think it’s really going well. We did something very fortunate: we closed up to certain areas of the world very, very early — far earlier than we were supposed to. I took a lot of heat for doing it. It turned out to be the right move, and we only have 15 people and they are getting better, and hopefully they’re all better. There’s one who is quite sick, but maybe he’s gonna be fine. … We’re prepared for the worst, but we think we’re going to be very fortunate."
- Feb. 28: “It’s going to disappear. One day, it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.”
- Feb. 29: “We’re the number-one travel destination anywhere in the world, yet we have far fewer cases of the disease than even countries with much less travel or a much smaller population.”
- March 4: “Some people will have this at a very light level and won’t even go to a doctor or hospital, and they’ll get better. There are many people like that.”
- March 5: “With approximately 100,000 CoronaVirus cases worldwide, and 3,280 deaths, the United States, because of quick action on closing our borders, has, as of now, only 129 cases (40 Americans brought in) and 11 deaths.”
The list goes on [1].
Let's not delude ourselves. This isn't a few white lies, this is a pattern of denialism and ignoring the warnings and advice of public health professionals.
I have taken a short position in the last couple weeks because I believe the market will go down, rather than up. I have given some thought to the effects of my actions, and I haven't yet been able to figure how anything I'm doing is harmful or unethical. Every transaction requires more than just my consent, somebody had to be on the other end of that deal thinking they were going to be the one making money, and they might be right.
But in the current one, who gets on Fox seems to be a more reliable indicator of the thinking of the ruling clique than official pronouncements. Stuff that gets repeated on Fox enough tends to end up coming out of the President's mouth eventually. Official pronouncements from Secretaries of Suchandsuch get countermanded by tweet. One of the President's closest advisors broadcasts on Fox nightly.
"Blame China" is a simple message and it would not be rational to think it is not going to be tweet-official policy soon enough.
Senators are from the legislative branch and have no executive power, however. Their power stems from what they can vote on, eg what justices they can confirm. China for all effective purposes lacks an independent judicial or legislative branch, so it is difficult to compare the two governments.
Senators are within the top 100 most powerful people in the US.
Since there are exactly 100 Senators, you place every Senator over the President, the Speaker of the House, House party leaders, and all Supreme Court justices. And Oprah.
US ability to make and distribute medicine and medical supplies is falling apart and it’s a direct result of consolidation of supply chain and factories that make it. 4 power buyers buys control over 90% of generic drug for US. And probably similar percent for medical equipments.
Good news is that now all eyes are on the medical supply chains, and introduction of the medical supply drug act bill, we should see some supply chain move back to US.
Folks. Companies listed on the stock market hire average folks who need the money to provide for their spouses and kids. Companies that provide staples to you like food and gas and transportation and medical supplies.
These are the companies you are actively shorting. Think about that. This isn’t the same as 2008.
Company's welfare is somewhat connected to their stock price, but it's a really weak relation. The stock market is mostly a gambling simulator that runs beside the economy as it's own little micro-economy - this doesn't make it worthless but it does make this sort of a statement ring really hollow.
Only when those companies are trying to raise money. In the meantime, it is the speculators and the institutionals that hold a large chunk of what has been floated.
China was in recession/depression before shutting down their entire economy for almost 2 months and have barely recovered. They suffered a supply shock. And now because the entire worlds demand has declined, China is now suffering from demand shock. And foreign manufacturers are now FLEEING which adds to massive loss of permanent jobs. That’s on top of a debt overload and they don’t control the worlds main currency
Japan and Germany were close to recession before the virus hit. Plus they are mainly exporters. Plus automobile is their big export...which now the demand has collapsed around the world.
US comparatively is safer.