Real GDP growth since 2007 lags the Great Depression era by 42% and the post-war by 52%

And Trump thinks this is the greatest economy ever.

Climate update for KGRR February 2020

Climate Update for KGRR February 2020

Max Temp 51, Mean 50

Min Temp 4, Mean -2

Av Temp 27.5, Mean 24.5

Rain 1.2, Mean 1.79

Snow 15.9, Mean 13.2

HDD 1081, Mean 1136

HDD to date 4517, Mean to date 4892

By heating degree days the winter has been milder than the mean winter in Grand Rapids, Michigan, by 7.7%.

  

How Wuhan/Hubei deaths from coronavirus might have been 27,000 or 33,000 not 3,177

From the story here:

Urns are reportedly being distributed at a rate of 500 a day at the mortuary until the Tomb Sweeping Day holiday, which falls on April 4 this year.

Wuhan has seven other mortuaries. If they are all sticking to the same schedule, this adds up to more than 40,000 urns being distributed in the city over the next 10 days.

Already on Jan 26 there was evidence, quickly removed, that China deaths from coronavirus had reached 81% of the official figure as of Mar 28. Remember that the closing of Hubei Province didn't occur until Jan 23, so on Jan 26 there was still chaos in China as authorities scrambled to secure the actual as well as the information environments.

Based on widely discussed figures, if one assumes Wuhan's 11 million population normally experiences a death rate of 0.7%, then 77,000 residents die annually from all causes under normal conditions. This yields 211 deaths per day on average and 6,417 deaths per month, or 12,833 over the two-month epidemic. Call it 13,000. 40k-13k = 27k dead from COVID-19.

The problem is that it was asserted that as many as 5 million residents of Wuhan had already departed the city for Chinese New Year of the Rat celebrations ahead of the Jan 23 closing of the city. These remained outside Wuhan during the epidemic because they were not permitted to return. If you leave 6 million in the city, the normal mortality rate of 0.7% yields 42,000 deaths annualized, or 3,500 a month. So there would have been just 7,000 deaths normally over the two-month period of the epidemic from non-epidemic causes. 40k-7k = 33k dead from COVID-19.  

But we'll probably never really know.

China drops to third in world coronavirus cases behind US and Italy: China's numbers look less credible by the day

MI moves up to 4th in COVID-19 rankings thanks to high-density Detroit metro, but no place compares with NY

I am so sick of all this winning, Donald Trump

Welcome to hell, courtesy of "just a cold"

Hospitals across U.S. consider universal do-not-resuscitate orders for coronavirus patients:

The conversations are driven by the realization that the risk to staff amid dwindling stores of protective equipment - such as masks, gowns and gloves - may be too great to justify the conventional response when a patient "codes," and their heart or breathing stops.

Trump The Libertarian to America: We have to get back to work and infect the whole country in order to save it

“Our country wasn’t built to be shut down. This is not a country that was built for this".

“America will again and soon be open for business. Very soon. A lot sooner than three or four months that somebody was suggesting.”

'Trump very strongly hinted that he planned to ease federal guidance on social distancing at the end of his administration’s “15 Days to Slow the Spread” initiative, which ends next Monday, despite an expected explosion of reported cases as tests for coronavirus become more widely available.'

'Trump began broadcasting his growing impatience with public health measures meant to combat the pandemic — even as public health officials have offered contradictory forecasts — on Twitter over the weekend, a shift that continued throughout the day on Monday.'

Read the whole thing here.

We've gone from 0 cases here in Michigan on Mar 10 to 1,324 on Mar 23, putting us 5th in the nation

Our mortality rate is 1.2%, 12x worse than for influenza.

A week ago I expected the nation would have only 25,000 cases by now at a 5x rate. We have 41,701 and 537 deaths, for a mortality rate of 1.28%.

Increased testing is occurring.

Michigan is staying at home to prevent spread.

Every day you stay at home increases the chances someone hospitalized for COVID-19 will survive.

You do your part just by doing nothing, at home. 

Gramps, born in 1926, says this is worse than 2008

Dad will be 94 this year if the coronavirus doesn't get him first.

He's been through a lot, seen it all. Darmouth graduate. Served in the US Navy from World War II to Vietnam, retired as a captain.

He was just a little kid during the Great Depression, didn't really know any better. But he's watched America become a lot better since then, and now it suddenly isn't.

Things may end for Dad the way they began, with Great Depression II.

Long war on terror, coronavirus, economic meltdown.

We've had war, plague and depression before in this country, sometimes in rapid succession. WWI ended with a whimper as the Spanish Flu pandemic killed tens of millions, followed quickly by the depression of 1920. That one was very deep and severe, but ended quickly because the government . . . did nothing.

Free market economies, if left to be free, quickly recover from catastrophes because debt overhangs are allowed to clear through bankruptcy. Bankruptcy is the cure.

But we can't stomach that, same as we haven't been able to say No to our children. Self-esteem and all that.

So, expect the suffering and disorder to continue.

Sad. 

Why coronavirus spread in the USA

Because instead of issuing a travel stop on Feb 1, Trump let everyone keep flying hither and yon, except for Chinese nationals.

Do you know how many that is?

On average 1.75 million people move through America's nine busiest airports EVERY DAY, as of the first half of 2019.

And the planes still fly to this day.

Things on my list I couldn't get at Sam's Club today due to coronavirus panic shopping

butter

bacon

lettuce

Got everything else I wanted, though. 19 items.

Interesting that I wasn't permitted to buy two bags of mandarin oranges or two bags of frozen flounder, only one of each, but I was permitted to buy two 1.75 liter bottles of vodka and two bags of bagels.

Politically speaking about coronavirus . . .

The virus and the economic problems themselves have basically drowned out the Democrat race for the presidency. Trump is front and center in all of it, dominating the news cycle.

The news is very bad for Trump, but the focus is on him and the problems, not the Democrats.

Neither Biden nor Sanders have much going for them personality wise or policy wise. Their voices sound frail and small in the face of these enormous challenges.

Trump is clearly in his element . . . for now.

But wealth destruction, massive unemployment and death now stalk him politically as much as they do the rest of us in reality. It's not going to help him to insist he knew this was a pandemic all along as he did yesterday when he's on camera denying it was not long ago. Besides, if he already knew, he should have taken drastic action like canceling jet travel on Feb 1. Instead he simply canceled the jet travel of a few Chinese nationals. Had he been knowledgeable, he would have known too that all those travelers by jet from China had asymptomatic spreaders in their midst. That's in part why we have an explosion of cases everywhere. They also came from other hotspots on jets to America. Trump bungled this badly and allowed the pandemic to come here.

Anecdotally people in my orbit are heeding the call to stay home. Commuter trains into Chicago are nearly empty, says a close friend. Road traffic is very light on workdays here in Michigan. Work orders have dried up and employees are on-call, if they haven't been furloughed outright. Work-from-home for the $40k or less crowd is estimated to be possible for just 17% of all individual wage earners in the US. Higher earners have more opportunity for that, but it will probably not last long for some as the economy nose dives. Many will soon be underwater, if they aren't already. This is going to cost an enormous sum and do tremendous damage to the people and the economy.

And to think it was mostly preventable with a little common sense, something neither party seems capable of providing.

This is a catastrophe, a pathetic display of human incompetence.    

America is truly great again: Trump has the best stock market losses, I mean, they are YUGE! Top shelf stuff!

Top 20 daily percentage losses Dow Jones Industrial Average

Top 20 daily percentage losses S&P 500

West Virginia still has no cases: Boomers say it's the moonshine, zoomers say it's the meth, I say it's because they don't fly and no one flies there, at least on purpose

Still waitin' for Trump to lockdown the country, eh?

US coronavirus cases are exploding, up 4.4x in 7 days, current mortality rate is 1.92%, 19.2x worse than for influenza

The real reason Trump & Co. didn't want you to panic

To avoid the Federal Reserve Bank having to intervene to rescue the economy, that's why. But, too late.

The Fed dropped its benchmark interest rate to 0% this afternoon and will restart QE with $700 billion in Treasury and mortgage security purchases. It knows tomorrow is going to be rough.

The reason isn't to boost the stock market, though there is no doubt they hope that would be a happy by-product of their action.

Because economic activity has dived with all the cancellation going on in order to stop the virus from spreading, there is extreme pressure on overnight funding markets which businesses use to fund their operations. Their income has tanked but they still have bills to pay. Borrowing in the funding markets is critical for the survival of far too many companies. The addition of so many more entities having to go to the funding markets than is usual, and in larger quantity, under these new and dire circumstances means money markets will not have enough liquidity to meet these new demands. So, the Fed will step in to keep things well lubricated.

That's it.

This could have been avoided if Trump had simply shutdown the country on Feb 1 like Xi Jinping shutdown Hubei on Jan 23. China is over the hump on the epidemic there because it acted early to contain the infection. We are just getting started, and unfortunately we are looking more like Italy than South Korea. The virus was still capable of being isolated here on Feb 1. Since then it has spread everywhere because we foolishly permitted travelers to come and go, creating hot zones everywhere. Now it's payback time.

This is going to be really ugly unless Trump acts immediately to do what Fauci wants, which is a 14-day shutdown. People need to shelter in place for a few weeks.

You won't care about an economy in flames if you can't breathe because a killer pneumonia has you gasping for breath.

Death rate from COVID-19 remains a catastrophe in Italy, China and Iran less so if you can believe them, USA France and Spain form another group, South Korea Switzerland and Germany all are under 1%

The USA is, unfortunately, not looking more like South Korea.

If the USA gets 30 million COVID-19 cases, a mortality rate of 2.15% translates into 645,000 deaths, 21.5 times the number who die from flu in an average year with 30 million influenza cases (mortality rate of 0.1%).

Coronavirus spread in the US and in Michigan

On Tuesday morning there were still 0 cases in my state of Michigan. Late Tuesday there were two. Yesterday we found out there were 12, and this morning we wake up to 25, according to this NYT map.

News broke yesterday that 3 of the cases were right here in my own county of Kent, 2 women and a man, all over 60, all three travelers to international hot spots. Gee what a shock.

At least one of these cases had been up and down a main shopping drag where I do some of my shopping. He or she went to the gym, a pizza joint, a steakhouse, and two (!) submarine sandwich shops between March 6-8. How pedestrian the tastes of these jet-setters.

Trump is criticized by Democrats because of his Feb 1 travel restrictions on China.

I fault him for not going far enough. He has brought Wuhan into my backyard because of what he has not done and easily could have done.

Trump should have shut down all travel on Feb 1, especially by air, to protect America from the spread of this disease and its impact, which has been enormous. Every plane was a missile. Every passenger was a warhead, and now they are all going off all over the place. 

Local and state governments are scrambling to shut down everything they can, disrupting the lives of millions because Trump couldn't bring himself to disrupt the privilege of a class of jet-setting globalists, elites and wannabes, among whom the disease is spreading, according to the headlines and in fact. Trump himself may come down with it because of this.

I carry no brief for the Chicoms, but Xi Jinping is the great man Trump only wishes he could be because he did what he had to do to protect his country from the virus by locking down Hubei Province. Who cares what the motivation was, whether it was saving face, saving the power and privilege of the communist party, saving his economy, or some other more broadly understood conception of patriotism. In the end Xi Jinping understood what he had to do to survive and prevail before it was too late for China. It took him about one month. We are going on two months, have an Emergency declaration as of yesterday, but you are still free to move about the country, spreading the disease.

There were just over 1000 cases in the US on Wednesday. This morning over 2000, which will be 4000 in a few days, then 8000, then 16000, and so on. The time for locking down travel is long past, but locking it down even now would help. 

University of Washington researchers are finding 7-9% positivity results for coronavirus in their daily testing of sample lots approximating 1000. If that turns out to be the morbidity rate and this virus spreads like the common cold, our country could easily have 30 million SARS-CoV-2 infections, 20% of which will be serious. Those 6 million serious cases will overwhelm our healthcare infrastructure, and many will die because of that. There will simply be too many people to treat effectively.

All for muh freedom.

What Dr. Anthony Fauci really said today, contrary to Rush Limbaugh: Many, many millions could die

When pressed by lawmakers for an estimate of eventual fatalities in the U.S., Fauci said it will be “totally dependent upon how we respond to it.”

“I can’t give you a number,” he said. “I can’t give you a realistic number until we put into the factor of how we respond. If we’re complacent and don’t do really aggressive containment and mitigation, the number could go way up and be involved in many, many millions.”

Read.

Rush Limbaugh's ignorance is invincible

He doesn't grasp that a disease 10x more deadly than flu (0.1% vs. 1% in his example) means 10x more deaths.

If flu normally kills 30,000 in an average year in the US (30 million infections times 0.1%), that means 300,000 deaths (30 million infections times 1%).

But hey, no big deal to Rush Limbaugh, because 300,000 dead isn't the old higher estimate of 3% (30 million infections times 3% = 900,000 deaths).

Incredible.

Trump's 15 coronavirus cases going to zero now number 1,015 through 3/10/20

Monday situation summary 3/9/20

The CDC basically urged people 60 and over to become hermits at home to avoid infection with SARS-CoV-2. High blood pressure appears to be the one thing most who die of the virus have in common.

The COVID-19 outbreak in Italy is killing off parents and grandparents at an alarming level because the healthcare system, though quite advanced up north, is overwhelmed by the disease outbreak. Reports say many patients die in hospital untreated, just as in China in the early days of the epidemic there, because of inadequate infrastructure and doctors for so many patients. The quarantine has been extended now to the entire country. That is not being done to make Donald Trump look bad. 

Stock market losses today were sizable. The decline in the S&P 500 made the top 20 list for daily percentage losses. The stock market is a confidence game, and valuation has grown to outrageous levels and stayed there for a couple of years already, so it has been vulnerable to a confidence shock. People just didn't believe it was. The virus hysteria is undercutting that confidence. 

The price of oil plunged as OPEC failed to agree to production cuts. Expect big trouble for the economy as a result, which was already in decline, which is why OPEC wanted the cuts. Declining demand. Max von Sydow died to mark the occasion. Hint: He played Joubert.

People are afraid to fly and some flights are nearly empty. It's a good thing, too, because a study from China is out indicating infected persons can infect others in enclosed, air conditioned spaces like buses, even after they've disembarked. One person infected 11 this way. This also happened in Japan you will recall, where a bus driver was infected by tourists from Wuhan on his bus.

US cases of COVID-19 soared to 654 from the 15 President Trump said back in February were headed to zero. Can't make this go away with the Power of Positive Thinking.

The full time jobs deficit in Feb 2020 in the US is enormous, in the many millions

There is reason to think this epidemic might result in just 100,000 deaths or so in the US at the very worst

And probably a lot fewer.

The US is too robust compared with places like China and Iran to descend into their chaos, but South Korea's can-do spirit in the face of this epidemic reminds me of nothing so much as Yankee ingenuity. If the bureaucracy in the US can be tamed, we may well have an experience similar to South Korea's.

Just four candidates left in the race for the 2020 Democrat nomination heh heh

Coronavirus has been more severe in Asia likely due in part to insanitary squat toilets

Coronavirus mortality rates in countries with 100+ cases as of 10am 3/4/20

Super Tuesday 3/3/20 results for AR, MN, NC, OK, TN, VT, VA, AL with 100% of the vote counted

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So much winning from Donald Trump, even with coronavirus: "We have the best mortality rates"

Here.

Unfortunately, the mortality rate for COVID-19 in South Korea has suddenly rebounded to 0.60%

Here.

The mortality rate from COVID-19 has already dropped from 0.54% to 0.48% in South Korea

Here.

If you want to know how COVID-19 is going to go, watch South Korea, they are doing just about everything right

Here.

The good news is, outside China, the mortality rate from coronavirus is only 7x worse than for influenza, not 30x

Data.

I know NOTHING!

Huge GDP slowdown predates coronavirus: Look for Trump eventually to flip and blame a slowing economy on the disease instead of on his ineffectual GOP

Here.

Rush Limbaugh, a household name for dumbass in every corner of the world

Trump promised to appoint only the best people, this one totally botches death rate from flu

The global death rate from coronavirus at this hour stands at 3.36%, 33x higher than for ordinary flu.

In Hubei Province, where ground zero Wuhan is located, the coronavirus death rate is 3.88%

Contrary to Jewish opinion about whiteness, Bernie Sanders identifies as white

Rush Limbaugh is a fool and an imbecile, says coronavirus epidemic is just the common cold, kills fewer than the flu

Here:

The coronavirus is the common cold, folks. ... The survival rate of this is 98%! You have to read very deeply to find that number, that 2% of the people get the coronavirus die. That’s less than the flu, folks. 

The maximum survival rate from the Spanish flu pandemic 100 years ago was 96.6% when at least 17 million died globally. The death rate was 3.4%. Coronavirus death rate on the Chinese mainland is nearly that right now.

Ordinary influenza kills at most not quite 650,000 people globally every year.

Final results for Nevada Democrat Caucus 2020: Bernie crushes the field

Update to coronavirus death rate outside mainland China per WHO: 1.1%

CNBC's update:

10:56 am: WHO says new cases in Iran and Italy are ‘deeply concerning’

While cases in China have slowed, the “sudden increase in new cases” outside of China is “deeply concerning,” Tedros said. Outside of China, there are 2,074 cases across 28 countries, including 23 deaths, he said. “What we see is epidemics in different parts of the world, affecting countries in different ways and requiring a tailored response,” he said. —Lovelace

Coronavirus death rate climbs to 3.3%, just shy of minimum estimated Spanish flu pandemic death rate 100 years ago

A minimum of 17 million died worldwide in the Spanish flu pandemic 100 years ago when 500 million globally were infected, yielding a minimum death rate of 3.4%.

The estimates of deaths go up from there, some claiming as many as 50 million or even 100 million died.

CNBC reports this morning that total infections from Wuhan, China coronavirus number 79,400 and deaths 2,621.

The numbers are puny by comparison, but the death rate is not: 3.3%.

Absent draconian restrictions on movement and assembly this virus could kill millions similar to the Spanish flu pandemic.

The new outbreaks outside the Chinese mainland will foretell the true future for the world as many doubt the veracity of the Chinese numbers, both death counts and case counts.