Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[DGuller]

Holy crap, I knew things were bad in South America, but I didn't realize how universally devastating they were.  It's not just Brazil and their imbecile president, the countries to the west of the Andes all seemed to have been hit hard.

[Sheilbh]

Holy crap, I knew things were bad in South America, but I didn't realize how universally devastating they were.  It's not just Brazil and their imbecile president, the countries to the west of the Andes all seemed to have been hit hard.

Yeah - it's not on there but Mexico is not looking good either. Uruguay appears to have contained it well. But the situation in Latin America is really grim.

[DGuller]

Holy crap, I knew things were bad in South America, but I didn't realize how universally devastating they were.  It's not just Brazil and their imbecile president, the countries to the west of the Andes all seemed to have been hit hard.

Yeah - it's not on there but Mexico is not looking good either. Uruguay appears to have contained it well. But the situation in Latin America is really grim.

I guess poor governance and pockets of desperate poverty make for a pretty lethal combination.

[viper37]

What's up with Belgium?  Covid is almost at a point of saving lives there.  Was it hitting age 100+ population exclusively over there?

people are travelling less, working from home and going out less.
That translate into a reduced risk of accident or other fatalities.

[mongers]

Holy crap, I knew things were bad in South America, but I didn't realize how universally devastating they were.  It's not just Brazil and their imbecile president, the countries to the west of the Andes all seemed to have been hit hard.

Yeah - it's not on there but Mexico is not looking good either. Uruguay appears to have contained it well. But the situation in Latin America is really grim.

I guess poor governance and pockets of desperate poverty make for a pretty lethal combination.

I think often it'll be more general pervasive poverty; in Peru iirc something like 70% of workers are in informal/casual work, if they don't go out and work their families risk starving vs catching the virus.

[Razgovory]

No excess deaths in Israel.  Even the virus is afraid of the Mossad.

[Tonitrus]

No excess deaths in Israel.  Even the virus is afraid of the Mossad.

Well that, and practically being a fortress surrounded by enemies already.

[Zanza]

Israel faces a second wave though.

[Sheilbh]

Israel faces a second wave though.

Yes, so far quite a bad one. They apparently didn't really have any track and trace capability when they re-opened.

[Josquius]

I really feel bad for these guys. They believe the hoax BS, and they pay the price. I feel like there's going to be plenty of them.

Ideal world nobody would die and this whole thing would fuck off.
But if people are to die then I really hope you are right. That it is the people dismissing the whole thing as a hoax and behaving like idiots who snuff it.
As things stand karma is rarely so perfect and others who did follow the rules will suffer.

[Tamas]

Yeah I mean, if the careless stupid people were only endangering themselves than I would actually be fully supporting their right to do so, because worst case scenario would be them ridding us of their idiocy for good. But that's not the case, if enough of these aholes are being careless, all the efforts of the rest of us are in vain and a lot of other people will die with them.

[The Larch]

Darwin award worthy.

30-year-old dies after attending 'Covid party' in Texas
Patient said: 'I think I made a mistake, I thought this was a hoax, but it's not', according to health official

A 30-year-old patient died after attending a '"Covid party", believing the virus to be a hoax, a Texas medical official has said.

"Just before the patient died, they looked at their nurse and said 'I think I made a mistake, I thought this was a hoax, but it's not,'" said Dr Jane Appleby, the chief medical officer at Methodist hospital in San Antonio.

Appleby said: "I don't want to be an alarmist, and we're just trying to share some real-world examples to help our community realise that this virus is very serious and can spread easily."

A "Covid party" is a gathering held by somebody diagnosed with coronavirus to see if the virus is real and to see if anyone gets infected, she explained.

Appleby said in her filmed comments at the weekend that she had been spurred to reveal the case after seeing a "concerning" rise in infections. She said 22% of tests were revealing a case of Covid-19, up from just 5% a few weeks ago.

A broader age range were being affected, with several 20 and 30 year olds critically ill at the Methodist hospital, she said.

[Eddie Teach]

Not if uniqueness is a requirement.

[Sheilbh]

Some very interesting (and I think good?) ideas here on dealing with the debt (backed by government) businesses have accrued through lockdown:

Coronavirus: City calls for new body to clear £35bn crisis debt burden
Top City figures will call for a new body to be set up to tackle the vast debt burden facing SMEs, Sky News learns.
Mark Kleinman - City editor
Monday 13 July 2020 01:22, UK

The government should establish a "UK Recovery Corporation" to help tackle a £35bn state-backed debt burden accumulated by British businesses during the coronavirus crisis, a panel of top City figures will say this week.

Sky News has exclusively obtained the principal recommendations of the Recapitalisation Group (RCG) - overseen by TheCityUK lobbying organisation - which will call for the new entity to be set up urgently in order to address the mounting crisis facing millions of companies.

Sources said the RCG's final report, which is due to be published within days, is expected to support the creation of three new types of capital instrument to help debt-laden businesses.

These would all be administered by the UK Recovery Corporation (UKRC) which, according to the panel, would issue funding on more manageable terms for SMEs and provide a vehicle in which private sector institutions could invest in order to gradually reduce the government's exposure.

One source said the UKRC would, if implemented, have separate governance, and in many ways replicate the role of UK Financial Investments, which was set up in 2008 to manage taxpayers' interests in Lloyds Banking Group, Royal Bank of Scotland and other stricken lenders.

Since Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, set up emergency lending programmes including the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme and Bounce Back Loan Scheme in the spring, more than £40bn of wholly or partially state-backed government loans have been issued.

The first of the RCG's proposed new instruments, called the Covid Business Repayment Plan, would convert tens of billions of pounds of loans issued under the BBLS, along with smaller CBILS loans, into a tax obligation.

These obligations would be administered by the UKRC but repaid through the tax system on a means-tested basis similar to that applied to the repayment of student loans.

The second mechanism, called Covid Business Recovery Capital, would convert government-guaranteed loans into subordinated debt or preferred share capital agreements, but without voting rights attached to them.

A source said that primary legislation might be required to pave the way for the first two forms of instrument to be introduced.

The third mechanism, dubbed Covid Business Growth Shares, would consist of different instruments such as preference shares, ensuring the provision of growth capital to allow companies to replenish their cash reserves and invest in working capital.

The report will be the most significant document published to date on the subject of how to alleviate a financing crisis that looms large for huge numbers of business-owners, with the government's job retention scheme starting to taper off from next month.

One banking source said the RCG's final report was likely to be welcomed by Mr Sunak and Andrew Bailey, the Bank of England governor, who have been kept closely informed about its progress.

One source said the RCG now estimated that roughly one-third of the approximately two million businesses which have taken on a CBILS or BBLS loan during the crisis could struggle to repay their new borrowings, leaving them on the brink of collapse.

In its interim report last month, the group said that roughly £35bn of the £100bn of unsustainable debt that it expects will be held by SMEs by next March will have been generated by the government's own coronavirus lending initiatives.

One City insider said the RCG's final recommendations would be a "measured and sensible" way to transfer the wall of taxpayer-guaranteed business debt into more sustainable solutions that would help to mitigate the additional strain on the battered public finances.

"If left unresolved, these levels of unsustainable debt could inhibit employment, research and development, investment and ultimately a smooth economic recovery back to growth," the RCG said in a letter to Mr Bailey in May.

The grandees' panel includes includes Sir Adrian Montague, the former chairman of Aviva, Lord Blackwell, the outgoing chairman of Lloyds Banking Group, Peter Harrison, chief executive of the asset management giant Schroders, Sir John Kingman, chairman of Legal & General, and Catherine McGuinness, policy chair at the City of London Corporation.

"The economic lockdown created by the pandemic has required unprecedented interventions," TheCityUK chief executive, Miles Celic, said during the early phase of the group's work.

"Businesses have been put into suspended animation until they can safely reopen.

"This was absolutely the right thing to do, but it means the job is not yet done.

"The economy will need to be reawakened as part of its process of recovery."

TheCityUK could not be reached for comment on Sunday night.

Also interesting note in a Times story that some of Sunak's recent announcements have been based on previous policies binned by Cameron and Osborne as "wasteful and badly targeted" that were, subsequently, discovered to be rather effective. Which is good but another indicator of how bad the coalition government was for this country

[Tamas]

Interesting, thanks Sheilbh.

I am already growing tired of Sunak I have to say, but of course he is a politician he needs to be in front of cameras.