The last few days have clearly shown that in those countries that are willing to sacrifice economics for the health of their people and in the end human life's, are doing significantly better in slowing down the spread of the V.
Those interested in being prepared for possible draconian measures to come probably have already stacked up on the most essential things.
I'm sitting in the hearth of Europe atm, Germany to be exact, and around Germany and in Germany the measures are slowly being ramped up because now it seems to be clear that without those the health care systems will be overwhelmed.
Italy has just closed down huge regions of their country (northern Italy) but atm they're still letting people "get out" and possibly carrying/spreading COVID19.
It's not so easy in the western democracies to ramp sufficient measures up quickly.
All what is going on right now could've been significantly slowed down if measure would've been taken in early/mid January.
It's all about slowing this thing down imho!
Once the regarding national health care systems are overwhelmed the death tolls will rise dramatically. Treatable/survivable infections will then have turned into fatalities. I assume that in certain area's on the globe triage protocols apply already.
Clearly the highest risk groups are around the elderly and chronic ill people (100+-64 yrs. age) but the fatalities in the age bracket down to 59-44 yrs. are still at an "moderate" risk level.
For me, from an analytical standpoint, in many regions (or almost all areas!) the data is still inconclusive especially regarding the fatality rates and total numbers of fully recovered people.
But it seems to be clear, the earlier and more thorough counter measures are implemented the greater the slowdown of the spread or even reasonable containment is achievable.
We are far beyond this point imo.
What is at play in the infection chains seems to be this...
- Case + (single case "imported" from China, Italy and so on...)
case (officials saying: "no need to panic, you don't need masks... and so on) - case (#DontTestDontTell at play...)
- cluster (5, 10, 50, 100 infected... infection chains not reviewable anymore)
- cluster (further spreading)
+ BOOM! (exponential growth in infected numbers, therefore growth in fatalities)
In Germany for instance they slowly ramped up in closing down mass events/conferences/sports/concerts and so on. Up to today the still keep the national soccer league games going for instance!
At the same time, the German healthcare minister Jens Spahn tries to ease people into the need to ramp up measures slowly. He had before tried to steer clear of certain supply chain issues by telling the people "You don't need breathing masks unless you work in health care". The ongoing balancing act between economic interests and saving human life's clearly show a huge disregard for human life's imo. This is no German phenomenon but can be seen around the globe with just a few exceptions.
We must understand that neither the transmission ways, the number of possibly different virus strains with varying contagion risks, nor other factors like lethality or long term health issues for the "recovered" like permanent lung tissue damage are clear the moment not to mention that a reasonable time frame for a medication against this threat to be developed and come to market is probably at least 12-18 months or longer.
Imho we could soon see more and more supply chains crumble with widespread consequences to the world economy.
The more the situation drifts towards uncontrollable we also must take into account the possibility for social unrest and worse.
Personal protection beyond protective measures against the virus will possibly become equally important the longer this crisis lasts.
This is the same almost everywhere besides China. China did an outstanding job with their draconian measures/close downs/quarantines and so on.
Please do not take my estimations and opinions as your "truth". Just dyor like we all should be used to being in crypto, right?
Here some interesting information sources and further analytics.
A to me very interesting thread by Liz Specht showed up yesterday on Twitter.
For those who aren't on twitter I share the threadreaderapp.com link to this thread:
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1236095180459003909.html
I just paste a part of the closing note to this thread on here but I recommend checking the complete thread!
"These measures are the bare minimum we should be doing to try to shift the peak – to slow the rise in cases so that healthcare systems are less overwhelmed. Each day that we can delay an extra case is a big win for the HC system. 27/n
And yes, you really should prepare to buckle down for a bit. All services and supply chains will be impacted. Why risk the stress of being ill-prepared? 28/n
Worst case, I’m massively wrong and you now have a huge bag of rice and black beans to burn through over the next few months and enough Robitussin to trip out. 29/n"
I looked into this thread after watching this YT video:
https://twitter.com/EpsilonTheory (Ben Hunt)
https://twitter.com/chrismartenson
his YT channel...
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCD2-QVBQi48RRQTD4Jhxu8w
What I have done/will do... (I'm not claiming this to be sufficient in any form!)
Limit exposure as good as possible
I try to stay away from mass events (no problem for me I don't attend these anyways). I also try to pick locations/shops and so on where I can make sure a certain free space around me. At the moment I'm not wearing protective gear (masks and so on) but I'm ready to use them if things get worse, and yes I've bought different breathing masks with the right filtration levels (P3/FFP3).
Source/stack basic goods/protective gear
- Water (in case of issues/breakdown of drinking water supplies)
Food (canned food, dry goods and so on) - Medication (very important! Especially because of possible supply chain issues because most meds/ingredients aren't produced/sourced locally... but - you probably already guessed it - in China for instance. How long will it take that Nations close down exports of meds for instance to ensure supplies for the own population for instance?)
- Gas (Gasoline and propane for heating/cooking if issues with the power grid come up).
- Power generator (minimum 1.2 kVa for heating, fridges, communication, TV/Radio). I'm thinking about buying a bigger generator up to 10 kVa also)
- Keep up to date with new developments
I try to have my stacks cover us (Wife, Dogs, me) for at least 4 weeks without needing to resupply in case there are local or even bigger lock downs/quarantines like we see in China, Italy, Iran...
Try to inform other's...
This is most important to me, at least for my friends and family because most are not used to do basic analytics/research. Being prepared is key! Not telling them what I think about this would make me possibly in part responsible for their harming thus it's so easy to tell them my thoughts around this.
I can easily live with being called an alarmist or fear monger or laughed at when things evolve in a more positive way.
Stay frosty out there and most important stay healthy!
I'm not advocating slipping into full panic mode but I highly recommend that everybody should look at the data available and come to your own conclusions!
I do not trust the mainstream media in this because they've shown again and again that they fulfill the "official" agenda of mass control which - as sad as it is - seems to be important especially because in most countries the chances to slow things down or maybe even contain #COVID2019 were wasted.
Wasted because of flawed risk management & analytics in the flat out gamble that things "won't be so dramatic" to "keep the economy" going.
Again... I'm fine with being ridiculed or laughed at so come € me ;.)
Shoot me an comment what you think about this and how you've prepared for things getting worse if you like!
Cheers!
Lucky