ShareholdersUnite Forums

Quote:In a sealed lab at Columbia University, researchers say they have found a way to destroy coronavirus in the air and thus make it safer to resume using public spaces like subways, theaters, stores, offices, airports, restaurants and even bars. If the scientists have it right, their invention would address one of the most daunting challenges to reopening businesses that depend on crowds of people or to workers getting to their jobs. Even with hand washing and social distancing, the virus is transmitted in at least a portion of cases by floating in the air until someone breathes it in, scientists report.

Quote:The race to find effective coronavirus treatments has led to an unlikely hero: a 4-year-old Belgian llama named Winter, whose antibodies show promise in blocking the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19 from infecting cells. Researchers from the University of Texas at Austin, the National Institutes of Health and Ghent University in Belgium began researching llama blood four years ago while looking for antibodies to fight the 2003 SARS virus and the 2012 MERS virus, which are also coronaviruses. And members of the camel family, such as llamas and alpacas, produce two types of antibodies to detect bacteria and viruses: one similar to human antibodies, as well as smaller antibodies called nanobodies that are about a quarter of the size. And these nanobodies are not only easier for scientists to work with, but they can also be nebulized and used in an inhaler.

Quote:To Giesecke, a mild-mannered veteran World Health Organization virologist, Covid-19 is “a tsunami sweeping the world”, but he notes that it threatens older, sick people above all. He admits that Sweden’s higher-than-average death rate shows it made mistakes. “At first we failed to shield the old and vulnerable.” Its economy has suffered from a collapse in exports, but it has kept itself open and at work, and has not seen the surge in “all-causes excess deaths” of the UK and other high-lockdown states. This surge seems to be increasing due to a partial collapse in other areas of critical health care.

Where I find Sweden’s policy more of a gamble is in its faith in developing a “collective immunity” that will protect it from future outbreaks. Giesecke talks of half of all Swedes probably infected in some degree, and tests suggest that a quarter of people in Stockholm have the virus and will probably – but by no means certainly – be protected against any resurgence. This compares with just 2% of people in Oslo. That divergence in vulnerability can only be tested in the event of a second spike..

Quote:This poll — and others like it — suggest reopening may not solve the US’s economic problems. The picture that emerges from the survey is that while there are a substantial number of people inclined to resume their habitual activities, many of them — and sometimes more of them than not — aren’t yet ready to do so. And that Americans on the whole are not ready to resume life as usual. This would suggest that reopening nonessential businesses may have a limited effect on a struggling economy. As Vox’s Matt Yglesias has explained, the economic crisis is not one induced simply by government shutdowns of nonessential businesses designed to contain Covid-19, but genuine, widespread concern about contracting the coronaviruss

Quote:So what happened? One big difference that sets Ceredigion apart was that even before it had recorded its first case of Covid-19, it had set up a "homemade" in-house test track and trace system. The man behind it, Barry Rees, the corporate director for Ceredigion Council, is a scientist by training. He believes contact tracing is the only way of "pursuing the disease then rather than following it". Is this the reason for why the county has emerged unscathed? Has a simple contact tracing system saved hundreds of lives, and what does it mean for the population in life after lockdown who haven't yet built up immunity?

Quote:When throngs of tourists and revelers left their homes over Memorial Day weekend, public health experts braced for a surge in coronavirus infections that could force a second round of painful shutdowns. Two weeks later, that surge has hit places like Houston, Phoenix, South Carolina and Missouri. Week-over-week case counts are on the rise in half of all states. Only 16 states and the District of Columbia have seen their total case counts decline for two consecutive weeks. 

But instead of new lockdowns to stop a second spike in cases, states are moving ahead with plans to allow most businesses to reopen, lifting stay-at-home orders and returning to something that resembles normal life. “There is no — zero — discussion of re-tightening any measures to combat this trend. Instead, states are treating this as a one-way trip. That sets us up for a very dangerous fall, but potentially even for a dangerous summer,” said Jeremy Konyndyk, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development who oversaw the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance during the Obama administration.

Quote:One indicator that helps fill this explanatory void is market sentiment. Only this week did bullishness among short-term market timers start to reach a dangerous extreme; contrarians therefore were not particularly surprised by Thursday’s decline. As recently as a week ago, short-term stock market timers were “surprisingly subdued.” Because of that, contrarians were predicting that “the Nasdaq is likely to hit an all-time high.” The Nasdaq Composite COMP, -5.26% did indeed reach a new high earlier this week, closing above the 10,000 level on Wednesday — only to lose 5.3% a day later. Unfortunately for stock investors’ near-term prospects, market-timer sentiment won’t shift back to supporting higher prices until there’s a lot more skepticism. Thursday’s plunge started that process, but there’s a long way to go.