Tuesday, April 21, 2020

COVID-19 # 58

Governor Gavin Newsom of California was asked straight up on national TV this morning if schools would open in September in a normal way, and his answer was "No." Do note that's not saying they won't open, but rather that if they do, it won't look like a year ago.

Harvard researchers suggest that fully re-opening the U.S. economy will require 20 million tests per week. That's everyone doing a test, on average, every 2 weeks. They expect that capacity to be available by late July. Note that this doesn't mean that politicians couldn't re-open sooner, but what the doctors say is necessary for it to work well.

Yep. Giving away crude oil.
And it's not the crappy stuff either. Crude oil can be produced at any well, but any price for that oil and its transportation is unofficial and not usually public. When it gets to a location called a price point, oil from different wells is blended and then graded to a benchmark, and the benchmark determines the price it's sold for publicly. WTI and Brent are not the best, but they are very good, and they are sold in the high volumes (it is surprisingly difficult to get any information on volumes by benchmark — no one wants to let anyone else know the true quality and volume each well produces, so they hide info through decentralized sales).

Rioting in Paris today.

Just out from The New York Times is "28,000 Missing Deaths:Tracking the True Toll of the Coronavirus Crisis". They looked at publicly available data on deaths in 7 countries and 3 large cities with major outbreaks. The compared average deaths in past years to currently counted deaths, and subtracted out those associated with COVID-19. This gives them an estimate of how many COVID-19 deaths there are around the world that have not been counted. That's the 28K. And, just to make things worse, their data does not include Italy, China, or Iran at all, and only the largest city in each of the U.S., Turkey, and Indonesia. Need a picture?
Do note that the red is showing total deaths, which is a median of 30% higher in red. This is before subtracting out the ones that have already been identified as COVID-19 deaths.

The University of Texas has an interesting simulation site. You can break it down by state level, and it tells you the probability that daily deaths have peaked.

Interestingly, the Governor of Georgia is going to re-open the state very soon, and this site indicates that it's nearly certain that Georgia is past their peak.

Here's a good quote:
A good sign from China would be rescheduling Lianghui (the nationwide bureaucrats convention). A still fair to good sign would be having it using Zoom.


Zhejiang (province) is on China's east coast, south of Shanghai. Getting cities to do their Lianghais would be a step in the right direction. As always with China (and good advice more generally), watch what governments do, not what they say.

All exercise facilities in Beijing were closed abruptly today. Rumor is there was a positive test result from someone using one.

Still keeping an eye on factory fires: today in Chengdu and Zhengzhou, yesterday in Wenzhou and Nanchang. Before about a few weeks ago, videos of factory fires were not a thing. Now they are. What's up with that?
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