Upstate/Eastern New York

[Thinksnow18]

37 minutes ago, WNash said:

People panic-buy. It’s weird but it happens. My worthless suggestion, based on nothing, is that buying things is an action that people think will help them when they feel completely powerless over a risk. Look what happens in the south with an inch of snow - all the milk and bread gets bought up.

I decided to take this seriously and told my mother not to fly up here next week. She’s old, and while she probably wouldn’t get sick from travel, the consequence if she does get sick is extreme. 

That’s the important issue. The outcomes are terrible for people who get very sick, and there aren’t enough ventilators for acute respiratory distress patients in even a moderately likely scenario.

Flu is a valid comparison but *not* to minimize this virus. With widespread vaccination that both lowers the transmission rate and the often the severity of flu cases, we still have tens of thousands of deaths every year. With *no* vaccine, more people will get sick and the number of severe cases will be higher. So flu may be a baseline, but prevention of COVID-19 transmission will be far lower with no vaccine, and severe cases will almost certainly be far higher.

It has been a genuinely long time since economic activity was disrupted so extremely. I lived in NYC on 9/11 and what happened did shut everything down for a few days. Gradually economic activity came back. Wars in this country, except the civil and revolutionary wars, tend to see increased productivity. We are accustomed to thinking that economic activity is as natural as the tides, but it’s really just stuff that people do, and if they can’t do things, it stops. It’s not the end of the world, but it is a real shock and nobody likes a shock. We don’t have to be making money all the time. In Italy they suspended mortgage payments! We have to consume essential goods to live, but there’s still enough economic activity to keep food on the shelves, so it wouldn’t be a total social breakdown. We just have a belief in this country that people have to be making money all the time, and that’s just not true.

What is the best comparison is 2009 and the H1N1 virus that mutated and was not prevented from spreading due to its mutation. That seasons flu shot was not effective against it and was not available in the US until that fall some 6 months after the first case. The CDC also listed this as a pandemic as well. It was responsible for over 80000 is deaths and the CDC estimates it might have approached 120k plus. There were a confirmed 60 million cases in the US. I had a co-worker who had that strain and was Ill for about 10 days with the worst symptoms he had ever had. We never budged as a society. We did not panic. We did not isolate. The hysteria in this case is worse than the virus itself. Senior citizens, young children, people with immune disorders, cancer, respiratory ailments etc...have been and will always be the most susceptible to the flu, pneumonia and other viruses. Panicking about this in the manner we have only shows how knee jerk reaction we have become in this world. The economy world wide will see great deficits from this in the short and long term. All because we are trying to stop a virus not all that much different than the viruses before it. 

[BuffaloWeather]

43 minutes ago, Thinksnow18 said:

What is the best comparison is 2009 and the H1N1 virus that mutated and was not prevented from spreading due to its mutation. That seasons flu shot was not effective against it and was not available in the US until that fall some 6 months after the first case. The CDC also listed this as a pandemic as well. It was responsible for over 80000 is deaths and the CDC estimates it might have approached 120k plus. There were a confirmed 60 million cases in the US. I had a co-worker who had that strain and was Ill for about 10 days with the worst symptoms he had ever had. We never budged as a society. We did not panic. We did not isolate. The hysteria in this case is worse than the virus itself. Senior citizens, young children, people with immune disorders, cancer, respiratory ailments etc...have been and will always be the most susceptible to the flu, pneumonia and other viruses. Panicking about this in the manner we have only shows how knee jerk reaction we have become in this world. The economy world wide will see great deficits from this in the short and long term. All because we are trying to stop a virus not all that much different than the viruses before it. 

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/2009-h1n1-pandemic.html

[rochesterdave]

I researched the Spanish Flu several years ago (before it was cool) because I was heading up the flu vaccine campaign in the imaging department at RGH. That was a fascinating virus! 
Old folks actually had a better mortality because they had been alive when a similar strain had traversed the planet. Young people were vulnerable and died by the millions. The overall mortality rate was an astonishing 6% (if I remember correctly) but closer to 10% in the 20-35 cohort. Just incredible. 
Which is a good argument for getting every annual flu vaccine. Even if it is wrong it could still protect you years down the road. 
I just purchased 10k in S&P ETF IVV. I’ll be making several more purchases of the like in the weeks to come. This isn’t a recession, it’s a panic. 
I love being a part of this group. I can get more info here just reading a few posts. I’m thinking, “just wait til the statistic nerds get ahold of this topic on AWX”, lol. Thanks guys!

[BuffaloWeather]

Harvard statistical modeling projects 1/3 of the US population will be infected and 20-60% of the world.

[BuffaloWeather]

CDC Data for Influenza, US

2018-2019 : 35.5M cases, 35,157 deaths
2018-2018 : 45M cases, 61,099 deaths
2016-2017 : 29M cases , 38,230 deaths
2015-2016 : 24M cases, 22,705 deaths

Typical US mortality rate for influenza is around 0.1%.

Current US mortality rate is 2.8%. [ 1323 cases, 38 deaths.] This percentage is likely inflated due to the lack of test kits available to positively confirm infection rates, but it's still an order of magnitude higher than the annual influenza mortality rates.

==

Large parts of the US have some resistance to influenza from annual vaccinations, although each year tends to see a different strain of the same virus.

Coronaviruses are a different virus family, and there is not much resistance to them. This is why they spread rapidly the way they do. A higher mortality rate with ease of spread makes the current actions very prudent, and influenza comparisons generally irrelevant.

[WNash]

1 hour ago, Thinksnow18 said:

What is the best comparison is 2009 and the H1N1 virus that mutated and was not prevented from spreading due to its mutation. That seasons flu shot was not effective against it and was not available in the US until that fall some 6 months after the first case. The CDC also listed this as a pandemic as well. It was responsible for over 80000 is deaths and the CDC estimates it might have approached 120k plus. There were a confirmed 60 million cases in the US. I had a co-worker who had that strain and was Ill for about 10 days with the worst symptoms he had ever had. We never budged as a society. We did not panic. We did not isolate. The hysteria in this case is worse than the virus itself. Senior citizens, young children, people with immune disorders, cancer, respiratory ailments etc...have been and will always be the most susceptible to the flu, pneumonia and other viruses. Panicking about this in the manner we have only shows how knee jerk reaction we have become in this world. The economy world wide will see great deficits from this in the short and long term. All because we are trying to stop a virus not all that much different than the viruses before it. 

During the H1N1 flu outbreak, I went to the funeral of the father of a childhood friend. He was a healthy guy who had just retired, ran a fever one day, then was on a ventilator four days later. His funeral was eight days after his first symptoms.

Within days of the funeral, I got sick, as did many other attendees. I was careful about washing hands and physical contact but I still got sick. I have never been more ill. It turned into bronchitis. I couldn’t stop coughing and couldn’t sleep because of it. I got into see my PCP and there was nothing they could do other than treating the symptoms. I was told to go to the ER if I showed signs of hypoxia. I made it though after a week of being very sick (and my wife also got terribly ill).

I was in my 30s and felt genuinely scared for my life. The flu shot was famously only partially effective that year, but it was actually 62% effective: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pastseasons/0910season.htm#good-match. This doesn’t mean that COVID-19 will only be 62% worse - with zero effective vaccination measures and no natural antibodies, it would be dramatically worse even with a transmission rate as bad as the flux and by all accounts, this thing spreads more easily.

[BuffaloWeather]

3 minutes ago, WNash said:

During the H1N1 flu outbreak, I went to the funeral of the father of a childhood friend. He was a healthy guy who had just retired, ran a fever one day, then was on a ventilator four days later. His funeral was eight days after his first symptoms.

Within days of the funeral, I got sick, as did many other attendees. I was careful about washing hands and physical contact but I still got sick. I have never been more ill. It turned into bronchitis. I couldn’t stop coughing and couldn’t sleep because of it. I got into see my PCP and there was nothing they could do other than treating the symptoms. I was told to go to the ER if I showed signs of hypoxia. I made it though after a week of being very sick (and my wife also got terribly ill).

I was in my 30s and felt genuinely scared for my life. The flu shot was famously only partially effective that year, but it was actually 62% effective: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pastseasons/0910season.htm#good-match. This doesn’t mean that COVID-19 will only be 62% worse - with zero effective vaccination measures and no natural antibodies, it would be dramatically worse even with a transmission rate as bad as the flux and by all accounts, this thing spreads more easily.

That is a crazy story. Just goes to show you, take this very seriously. A lot of companies are banning international travel. Going to be canceling my trip pretty shortly I think.

[WNash]

25 minutes ago, rochesterdave said:

I just purchased 10k in S&P ETF IVV. I’ll be making several more purchases of the like in the weeks to come. This isn’t a recession, it’s a panic. 
I love being a part of this group. I can get more info here just reading a few posts. I’m thinking, “just wait til the statistic nerds get ahold of this topic on AWX”, lol. Thanks guys!

By the way, I think it’s probably inevitably recessionary. The loss of economic activity will be dramatic over the next few months.  A lot of people are likely to lose their jobs, and the current government has reduced countercyclical measures , trading then for tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefit the highest earners. It only takes two consecutive quarters of lower GDP to be called a recession, and with a mess like this in March, 2020Q1 is almost certainly going to see a decline. Even if the reduction in activity were to wrap in May, it would be hard to bounce back to a non-recessionary GDP for Q2.

That said, if you’re thinking on a 2-5 year or greater timeframe, it makes a lot of sense to buy. There *is*  a panic, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a recession.

 

[wolfie09]

Women seem to be less likely to die from coronavirus than men, and children appear to be less likely to die than other age groups.

Most people will get a mild infection, but the pattern is clear in the most severe cases. So what is going on?

All the information we have is coming from a massive study by the Chinese Centres of Disease Control.

It looked at 44,000 people and showed 2.8% of infected men died, compared with 1.7% of women.

And 0.2% of children and teenagers died compared with nearly 15% of people over the age of 80.

Are women and children less likely to catch coronavirus?

There are two ways of explaining the findings.

Either these groups are less likely to be infected in the first place, or their bodies are more able to cope with the virus.

"Normally with new viruses circulating, everybody gets infected: that's the important point," says Dr Bharat Pankhania, from the University of Exeter.

This is because there is no immunity to the virus as nobody has been exposed to it before.

However, in the very early stages of an outbreak children may be less likely to catch the virus.

"One reason we haven't seen so many cases in children is they are protected at the beginning of outbreaks: parents keep children away from the sick," said Dr Nathalie MacDermott, from King's College London.

What's saving women's lives?

You might be surprised there's a difference between men and women's death rates from coronavirus, but scientists aren't.

We see the same effect in a wide range of infections, including flu.

Part of the answer is men are generally in worse health than women owing to lifestyle choices like smoking.

"Smoking damages your lungs - that's not going to be a winner," says Dr MacDermott.

This may be a particular problem in China, where estimates suggest 52% of men smoke compared with just 3% of women.

But there are also differences in the way the immune systems of men and women respond to infection.

"Women have intrinsically different immune responses to men. Women are more likely to suffer from auto-immune diseases, and there is good evidence that women produce better antibodies to vaccines against flu," says Prof Paul Hunter, from the University of East Anglia.

Can children get coronavirus and what are the symptoms?

Yes, they can catch the coronavirus: the youngest cases have been only days old.

There is very limited information on the symptoms of Covid-19 in children, but they appear to be mild - fever, runny nose and a cough.

You would normally expect the very young to be quite sick. That is certainly the case in flu when children under five (and especially those under two) are at higher risk of complications.

"People tend to get more ill at the extremes of age as they have lower resilience," says Dr Pankhania.

There have been some cases with more severe complications. Those with other health problems, such as a weakened immune system or severe asthma, will be at greater risk. But overall the virus appears to be milder in children.

So can children's immune systems contain the coronavirus?

There are important differences between a child's immune system and an adult's.

In childhood, our immune systems are immature and they tend to overreact: it is why fevers (a high temperature) are so common.

An immune system going into overdrive is always a bad thing because it can damage the rest of the body and is one of the reasons the coronavirus can be deadly.

"You'd expect it to go haywire and it's not doing that," said Dr MacDermott.

"There must be something this virus does that is not as readily stimulating the immune system in children, but what that is is unclear.

"They don't seem to be mounting a disproportionate immune response and some seem to be asymptomatic."

There are some diseases that it is better to have in childhood, chickenpox being a prime example, because of the way the body responds at different points in life.

However, it is worth remembering we have relatively little information in children.

"My concern is we haven't had enough cases to really know what the mortality is, particularly in the under-ones and newborn infants," Dr MacDermott says.

[wolfie09]

From everything that we've seen, and for reasons that are unclear to us, it does seem that this is primarily impacting adults," Richard Martinello, an associate professor of infectious disease at the Yale School of Medicine, told Business Insider in early February.

A low case count among kids is a good thing, according to health experts, because children are less likely to wash their hands, cover their mouths, and refrain from touching others — behaviors that can spread germs.

"If we can protect kids — one, it's good for them, but two, it's good for the population," Aaron Milstone, an epidemiologist and professor of pediatrics at Johns Hopkins University, told Business Insider. "If it does penetrate the pediatric population, that might amplify the outbreak."

[BuffaloWeather]

4 minutes ago, WNash said:

By the way, I think it’s probably inevitably recessionary. The loss of economic activity will be dramatic over the next few months.  A lot of people are likely to lose their jobs, and the current government has reduced countercyclical measures , trading then for tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefit the highest earners. It only takes two consecutive quarters of lower GDP to be called a recession, and with a mess like this in March, 2020Q1 is almost certainly going to see a decline. Even if the reduction in activity were to wrap in May, it would be hard to bounce back to a non-recessionary GDP for Q2.

That said, if you’re thinking on a 2-5 year or greater timeframe, it makes a lot of sense to buy. There *is*  a panic, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a recession.

 

And 6 quarters of negative GDP for a depression. At this moment I'm studying for my Series 65 license and learning so much about markets. This administration is a joke. Making the rich...richer. The trickle down theory does not work at all. In one of the videos I had to watch for my training the top tax bracket used to be 91% in the 50s. It should go back to that.

I'm 32 so just raised my 401k contribution to 20%. Perfect buy low opportunity. Was even tempted to use my emergency fund to throw some money at some stocks. Or my new zealand trip money

[WNash]

3 minutes ago, BuffaloWeather said:

That is a crazy story. Just goes to show you, take this very seriously. A lot of companies are banning international travel. Going to be canceling my trip pretty shortly I think.

Yeah, I actually told my mother to cancel her trip here and to see her sister in Louisiana next month. That’s a 180 from me in 24 hours. For people who are older than 60, or who spend time around people who are older than 60, you have to do whatever you can to minimize risk.

Not to get political, but the secrecy, manipulation of truth, and shortsighted attempts to calm markets by our government is about the worst thing to prevent mass casualties. This is very real and potentially the biggest crisis of our era. We need to accept that controlling this will require genuine sacrifice, and *ask* for sacrifice, rather than concealing it and taking dumb symbolic steps to try to pass the buck and lure people into thinking everything is fine.

[WNash]

2 minutes ago, wolfie09 said:

From everything that we've seen, and for reasons that are unclear to us, it does seem that this is primarily impacting adults," Richard Martinello, an associate professor of infectious disease at the Yale School of Medicine, told Business Insider in early February.

A low case count among kids is a good thing, according to health experts, because children are less likely to wash their hands, cover their mouths, and refrain from touching others — behaviors that can spread germs.

"If we can protect kids — one, it's good for them, but two, it's good for the population," Aaron Milstone, an epidemiologist and professor of pediatrics at Johns Hopkins University, told Business Insider. "If it does penetrate the pediatric population, that might amplify the outbreak."

Yeah, they probably should be closing schools, which is going to make the economy worse because we have decided as a society not to scale childcare appropriately to our real needs.

[BuffaloWeather]

We were due for a recession very soon anyways, this is just amplifying its effects. Corporate balance sheets are loaded with high debt loads. (although interest rates look to remain very low for those debt loads) Other indicators were offsetting the negative ones. Low unemployment, home buying, wage growth. But with this virus and the effects its already had I can see it going pretty far south. 15-18k DOW range. Almost everything is created in China and they've been on lock down for awhile now. There is going to be a shortage of supply. Our system of trade is so delicate. It will have a trickle down effect through the numbers being reported the next few months which will result in a further decline in the market.

[BuffaloWeather]

consumer durables up 6% today.

Get that toilet paper!

[WNash]

19 minutes ago, BuffaloWeather said:

We were due for a recession very soon anyways, this is just amplifying its effects. Corporate balance sheets are loaded with high debt loads. (although interest rates look to remain very low for those debt loads) Other indicators were offsetting the negative ones. Low unemployment, home buying, wage growth. But with this virus and the effects its already had I can see it going pretty far south. 15-18k DOW range. Almost everything is created in China and they've been on lock down for awhile now. There is going to be a shortage of supply. Our system of trade is so delicate. It will have a trickle down effect through the numbers being reported the next few months which will result in a further decline in the market.

It’s very frustrating that despite a huge increase in capitalization over the last few years, corporate debt rose so high. Maybe supply side support shouldn’t be a priority in good or bad times.

[DeltaT13]

The US is a service based economy with an enormous amount of workers in restaurants, daycares, ubers, etc.  These people will be decimated by this prolonged downturn.  Couple that with the fact that half this country doesnt even have 400 dollars total in savings and the impending financial crisis will be one for the record books.  If you don't think this pushes us into a deep recession you are being willfully ignorant.  The house of cards is coming down hard and fast.  

[BuffaloWeather]

[wolfie09]

I tell you, the wifey is Killing me lol

Pure doomsday, I might as well live at the grocery store..

Tops and Aldi no more toliet paper because we rather wipe our ass then eat... I'll use a damn leaf lol

In-laws bought us a 9cu feet mini freezer to get more meat, shit getting ridiculous..

I'm going to be broke as a joke by the time this hopefully ends..

I take it seriously too just not to those extremes..

Tops is loving it, they are finally doing business..

[BuffaloWeather]

What a lame winter. Hoping for a 2014-15 repeat next year.

[wolfie09]

Going to be a bit windy tomorrow with about 1/2"-1" liquid..

.WIND ADVISORY IN EFFECT FROM 9 AM TO 11 PM EDT FRIDAY...

* WHAT...West winds 20 to 30 mph with gusts up to 50 mph
  expected.

* WHERE...Monroe, Wayne, Northern Cayuga, Oswego, Livingston,
  and Ontario counties.

* WHEN...From 9 AM to 11 PM EDT Friday.

* IMPACTS...Gusty winds could blow around unsecured objects. A few
  tree limbs could be blown down and a few isolated power outages
  may result. Travel in high profile vehicles may be difficult.

[BuffaloWeather]

https://www.narcity.com/news/ca/sk/coronavirus-vaccine-made-in-saskatchewan-is-now-in-the-testing-stages

[wolfie09]

[BuffaloWeather]

Surprised at forecasted temps with that EPO. PNA, NAO, and AO driving things.

[SouthBuffaloSteve]

2 hours ago, wolfie09 said:

I tell you, the wifey is Killing me lol

Pure doomsday, I might as well live at the grocery store..

Tops and Aldi no more toliet paper because we rather wipe our ass then eat... I'll use a damn leaf lol

In-laws bought us a 9cu feet mini freezer to get more meat, shit getting ridiculous..

I'm going to be broke as a joke by the time this hopefully ends..

I take it seriously too just not to those extremes..

Tops is loving it, they are finally doing business..

Low blow dude!  We are on pace for an all time record sales week!  This is bowling post snow ember shopping out of the water.  I’ve worked in the store for 19 years NEVER seen anything like the last few days.  This weekend is going to be a joke people have officially lost their minds.  My staff thought I was nuts when I told them to order an entire trailer or TP last week... I might be one of the last stores in Buffalo with this stuff!

 

[wolfie09]

I'm a price chopper guy 

I'm also into grocery retail myself, working at the chopper in Fulton for about 4 years until I moved lol

 

[SouthBuffaloSteve]

Local Wegmans stores are completely wiped out of almost every thing...









.

[Buckeyes_Suck]

I think my biggest takeaway from all this is how fragile our civilization is. Not to downplay the deaths but the reaction is having a larger economic and social effect than the virus itself. We've gone to war with less of a panic.

[wolfie09]

Boy do the models stink lol

Litterly almost every piece of guidance had 3/4"-1" liquid today, I'm at 0.29" and it's ending.. Doesn't matter what time of year it is , they still suck lol

[wolfie09]

Starting to get Gusty out, wind gusts between 35-40mph, finished with 0.43" liquid..