Activity Suspended
Italy suspends all activities including church, theater, bingo, schools, and nightclubs.
Over a Quarter of Italy’s Population is Under Quarantine but Trump is unconcerned.
Over 25% locked Down
Italy has formally locked down more than a quarter of its population in a bid to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus, as the outbreak reached Washington DC and a political convention attended by Donald Trump and Mike Pence.
In the early hours of Sunday, Italian prime minister Giuseppe Conte signed a decree enacting forced quarantine for the region of Lombardy – home to more than 10 million people and the financial capital, Milan – and multiple other provinces, totalling around 16 million residents.
The lockdown decree includes the power to impose fines on anyone caught entering or leaving Lombardy, the worst-affected region, until 3 April. It provides for the banning of all public events, closing cinemas, theatres, gyms, discos and pubs. Religious ceremonies such as funerals and weddings will also be prohibited, and leave for healthcare workers has been cancelled.
Rome is also prolonging the closure of schools across the country until at least 3 April, while major sporting events, such as Serie A football games, will be played behind closed doors.
Trump Cool as a Cucumber
The escalation in Italy comes as the US struggles with its own response to the outbreak. In Washington DC, authorities reported a “presumptive positive” test result in a man, aged in his 50s, who had no identifiable contact with the virus.
Asked about the development on Saturday, Trump told reporters in Florida he was not concerned and planned to continue to hold political rallies.
How Can Trump Be So Cool?
- Trump “I Know So Much About the Coronavirus Because of Natural Ability”
- Tweets of the Day: More Trump Narcissism and Incompetence
Spotlight Crude
Note that Crude Dives to $30, a Whopping $20 Below Cost of Production
Over 25% of Italy in lockdown
But hey, Trump is not concerned, sho why should you be?
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
Yup, Italy just quarantined all 60 million Italians today. Schools closed, restaurants ordered closed unless they can prove patrons remain at least one meter apart which is just silly really, a sneeze can contaminate every surface within 15 feet. People are told not to leave their houses EXCEPT to go to work, because as we all know virus will obediently not infect others in a workplace. And, just how can people get to work with all public transport closed? And I thought DC was a clusterfuck of non action or stupid responses.
If radical quarantines are to be effective, sooner is better than later to stop the spread. This is not the time for wait and see. We have already seen. They should have been radical after the first confirmed case. Maybe shutting down the country would not have been necessary.
The illusion that covid-19 would be a nothing burger is beginning to dissipate. Initially, President Trump had tried to shrug this off as “no big thing” and continues to boast that “We have a perfectly coordinated and fine tuned-plan.” This narrative is rapidly losing validity as huge areas in America declare they are under various states of emergencies. Events have grown to where Trump’s fantasy-land approach is in disarray, his “See, Hear, And Speak No Evil” method of containment has proven disastrous. The fact is, if all goes poorly in the coming months, covid-19 may someday be looked back on as Trump’s Katrina moment.
BIZARRE
All that matters to Trump is his own glory. The nation can rot as long as everyone praises his name. There is not a more worthless human being alive than this POS.
Just sayin, this ain’t no party 🙂
Seems the vid didn’t make it. 2nd try~
This ain’t no disco. It ain’t gonna post I guess…
China Put Export Restrictions on N95 Face Masks – Then Nationalized a US Factory that Produces Them There
Silly fools should have listened to Matteo Salvini who wanted to shut down flights from China. The left called him a jackell and accused him of being racist. Now look at where they are.
Oil at $30 and the 30-year with a zero handle. Interesting times to say the least. Thanks for the updates Mish.
It would seem that we now have two methods of stopping coronavirus. There is the Chinese solution – mass quarantine, and when you go out, you wear a mask. Then there is the S. Korean alternative: Make tests free, and easy, and test anyone and everyone that wants it, and also provide everyone with an app that tells them places to avoid, places where COVID19 has been seen recently.
I personally like the S. Korean approach because it is much less disruptive to society and the economy, but I can’t image a circumstance where the US makes tests free and fast, so instead we are following the EU approach to controlling it (which hasn’t worked at all for any EU country).
Carl, you are clearly forgetting this important suggestion:
True, Mish, but I’m pretty sure Trump isn’t considering following India. He wants to take the EU approach that is working so well in Italy, Germany, Franch, Belgium, Netherlands, and the other EU countries.
There is no EU approach, or it is same as US approach – once there are high numbers lock down. That’s about it.
No masks, still limited testing, just more than US so far.
The EU/US approach is that “it’s just the flu, and not a big deal”. They figure that there was a huge iceberg of unreported cases in China, so the reported CFR of 3.4% isn’t close to reality. Once it gets to the US and the EU, it will be revealed that it’s not so bad, and only .03% will actually die because for every reported case in China there must be 100 more. Read the CDC page, and the “It’s just the flu approach” is clear. It’s just the flu, people. Most cases are mild. Like the flu, in rare cases, people may die of this. People who cancel public events are over-reacting. People who stockpile masks, hand sanitizer, and food are over-reacting. The stock market will quickly recover. It’s just the flu, nothing more.
Or, maybe it’s not. Maybe there is a reason why China, after initially downplaying it, instituted Draconian controls, and why the nearby countries addressed it aggressively. Maybe it’s not the flu.
please tell me, where do i get the mask?
I presume we would all make one out of an old T-shirt. The point is to cover your mouth, so if you are infected, you can’t spread water droplets very far when you cough. That way, even if you can’t detect everyone who is infected, you know that all infected people are wearing masks since all people are wearing masks.
Seoul’s approach is the best, but we all knew the US would never go that route. We’re determined to emulate the black knight in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”.
This may ultimately be a great thing for the country, forcing us to adopt some sorely needed humility for the first time in ages.
It’s an ill wind indeed that blows no good: Collapsing oil prices mean lower gas prices for Uber drivers, many of whom may now even approach break even, as they drive the newly unemployed to the unemployment office in pools.
So in order for uber drivers to live, the oil industry must die. . . but dont the uber drivers die too at that point?
Note to Truthseeker
Maven investigating delays on your comments
I am looking at the futures market. DOW stopped at 24531 down -1334. Down 5.15%.
Been like this for 20 minutes
It went limit down and closed.
They are back up after 45 minutes.
Nikkei down nearly 6%. Ouch!
Buckle up everybody, it’s going to be another interesting week.
Shanghai down 3.01. That’s a hoot. Tomorrow they will jack everything around and make it all look good. Rinse, repeat… ditto, ditto, ditto to infinity.
FTSE over 8%
Sky
“Despite the lockdown, dozens of flights reportedly landed in the UK from the affected areas on Sunday.
Seventeen came from Milan Malpensa airport alone, according to the Daily Telegraph, which said passengers were not tested or quarantined.”
They’ll never learn!
Crude back below $31 for over an hour
This looks more and more like the tale of two viruses: Hubei, Iran, Korea and Italy are being plagued (literally) by one that is extremely infectious and kills with abandon, and all the rest of China and the world are seeing a far more benign beast. It’s infecting and killing at “only” the rate of the flu.
If I ran Italy, I’d call Wuhan and listen…very carefully.
I disagree. Obviously the cases in most of Europe came from Italy, and the cases in most of the middle East came from Iran. Iran and Italy could have different strains, but I doubt it. S. Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, etc, all came directly from China, so that could be a different strain.
What I think we are seeing is clearly a reporting problem. The death rate in Iran is very high, and the death rate and critical rate in Italy is really high. I’d rather guess that Italy has a normal strain, but really has 40,000 cases, and that the only ones they are catching and testing are the ones at an advanced state.
I think the US is in the same boat as Italy. They haven’t been testing, but have been content to just let it spread and see what happens. Now they are starting to catch the most advanced, and most obvious cases, but meanwhile it continues to spread. The US death rate, like Italy’s looks crazy high as a result, and I except the US “serious/critical” numbers to jump a lot this week.
It seems to take about 6 weeks from showing up to start snowballing, its been about 3 here in the US.
Don’t think so. The new cases look a lot like Wuhan’s when they started to ramp, as do the daily death rates. Early projections had Wuhan peaking at 500,000 cases before they shut everything down. The simplest answer: it’s mutated.
Too many variables to draw conclusions, but for sure being fast in tracking new cases will slow the contagion. Maybe Italy missed the start, maybe it is a different strain, maybe culture, but I don’t think Italy is missing mild cases now either, maybe just catching up so severity of effect could be exaggerated. South Korea could just have been fortunate enough to catch first cases and to be able to stay ahead by testing, might still end up like Italy. Here are case charts for the two, Italy is going completely parabolic, probably same will occur in many other countries – they know it but aren’t reacting.
Italy dashboard of cases
Several jails rioted now there, some killed, hostages taken then released
Didn’t Italy say that were going to stop testing and counting mild cases?
They have stopped testing background or tracing is what I understood, i.e. they will only test if there are symptoms – so they will be missing some of the lighter/asymptomatic cases I suppose. I cannot guess what that % will be, and I don’t know if when a person asks to be tested because of light symptoms if they will be. Most of the severity due to fatality we are seeing so far is due to age of infected, but that might only be because they succumb faster. A lot of unknowns, but yes there will be cases missed I expect. Even that is not as positive as might seem because they would enable contagion.
I looked it up…
“The rules for those who will have to be subjected to swabs: no longer only those who have had close and prolonged contact with people who have tested positive or come from risk areas and have flu-like or more demanding symptoms, as has been the case until now, but also those who, even if there are no connections with infected people or frequency of areas at risk, there is a situation characterized by a particularly compromised respiratory situation with specific altered values. In short, the clinical element prevails.”
From OK!Mugello, or at
7 March.
However at gov site says asymptomatic will not normally be tested. So, I expect they are not doing so much background and concentrating more on very close contact with or without symptoms , and those with flu like symptoms.
Therefore, the question is % asymptomatic or very light symptoms that are not in very close contact with known infected ?
I think resources are limited for testing, hence redefining to where more important.
Yes, so their case count is way low. You can’t compare Korea’s count, where everyone gets tested, to Italy’s where only the serious cases are tested/counted. The CFR reported from the two, and the serious/critical ratio of the two will be very, very different.
Case count is behind serious cases, further behind than Korea, but guessing nine of ten show symptoms that they would want to test, and guessing they do, then by about five days or so and a permanent 10% asymptomatic. Lots of guessing, I don’t know really what is happening at ground level – maybe they miss a third, maybe they miss one in a hundred. So the rest of the figures are a guess also. As you know, I’m not optimistic that once it gets evened out over the next few weeks that severity will be much lower, possibly the opposite.
Another possibility is that deadliness, and symptomaticness in general, is a function of initial infection load. Such that if you get infected by a low initial “dose”, it takes long enough for the virus to reach critical levels via exponential reproduction, that the immune system has a shot at staying ahead of it. But, if the initial dose is higher, the immune system can’t catch up until the viral load has reached critical levels.
If that is the case, as long as few are infected, they spread the stuff, but outside of densepacked settings like nursing homes, the concentration of virus particles stay fairly low. Such that those who do get infected, in general aren’t infected by high doses. Hence will get infected, spread it, but fight it off before their situation turns critical.
Over time, as more get infected, though; there are more spreaders. Contributing to increasing the concentration of viruses in the environment. Hence increasing the expected initial infection dose. Which over time leads to worse outcomes. Parts of Iran and Italy, may have reached the point where enough people are spreading the stuff, that those who get infected are more likely to pick up a decent dose of it. If so, America will as well, although more spread out cities may provide a bit of a break.
Hubei, and other Chinese provinces, does seem to have turned the corner, right around when it started not just quarantining, but also massively disinfecting every nook and cranny of public, and perhaps private, space on a continuous basis. Hence inevitably reducing background concentration of virus particles. That does seem to be a path South Korea is adopting as well. If particles can stay infectious for days to a week or more outside the body, it’s almost impossible to quarantine people long enough and severely enough to prevent them from coming into contact with the virus. So you need to both quarantine, and aggressively kill the particles which are already laying and/or floating about.
Couple of thoughts. Probably the cheek kiss greeting not very helpful. Think i also read where schools are closed. The kids ard being sent to the grand parents while the parents work. Which i would think is not a good combo.its gonna be havoc in syria and other places with war zones and refugees. Yeah lots of variables.
You may be right. Saw a research paper I think it the latest Chris Martenson video where outcomes were improved by decontaminating the rooms they were in regularly.
Because of a dysfunctionality of medical research compared to “harder” and more purely academic sciences (an overemphasis on immediate, narrow, empirical studies, with a corresponding under-emphasis on formal theory), near noone has bothered looking into initial viral (and pathogen in general) loads, as they are just not available by the time a patient presents to health care practitioners. The bioweapons/anthrax guys, are darned near the only ones who seems to have ever bothered, and outside of internet conspiracy forums, that’s has been a dead field for decades.
“You may be right. Saw a research paper I think it the latest Chris Martenson video where outcomes were improved by decontaminating the rooms they were in regularly.”
If that turns out to be corroborated and generalizable, spending resources on building more hospital beds, may turn out less helpful, than preparing to treat people somewhat spread out outside, with plenty of airflow and with the sun as a disinfectant. At least for poorer counties in warmer parts.
If radical quarantines are to be effective, sooner is better than later to stop the spread. This is not the time for wait and see. We have already seen.