Figured having a single spot to drop info might decrease clutter. We shall see.
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A good place for a link to the Johns Hopkins virus tracker to live:
https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6
As of today, 02/06/2020, there are 28,344 confirmed cases worldwide.
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According to the WaPo, Li Wenliang, the Chinese doctor who sounded the alarm about this novel corona virus, has now died of the illness.
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I said elsewhere that when the frontline medical personnel start going down, the shit is getting real. Whether is will ever make a significant mark outside of China is still up in the air, but it will go down as a huge impactor in that country.
Which of these scenarios is most likely is debatable, but none are what I would call particularly good.
ETA: yeah, and this really sucks
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https://www.nature.com/articles/s41422-020-0282-0
Key words are in vivo. Chloroquine is a very old antimalarial drug, available generically, seems to effectively block the ability of the virus to infect new cells and is available now, relatively cheaply. This could be a game changer.
(Not sure what is up with oneboxxing, but hereās another article. Which also doesnāt one box. Well, hell.)
https://www.asbmb.org/asbmb-today/science/could-an-old-malaria-drug-help-fight-the-new-coron
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Really interesting views from above Wuhan showing human activity before and after the shutdown and quarantine:
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Hopefully correct.
That was a problem in Toronto during SARS.
All that First World medical care donāt mean squat when itās not available.
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"If all goes as planned, the vaccine could be made available to the public by early this summer - which would be a record time frame for Inovio Pharmaceuticals. "
Didnāt trump blurt out recently that this would all be ok by Summer? Somebody check his financial ties with Inovio Pharm stat!
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These arenāt as bad as they seemed at first glace.
So-called āpandemic bondsā were first introduced by the World Bank in 2017 as a response to the Ebola virus. Investors holding the bonds enjoy higher-than-average interest rates, but stand to lose their cash in the event of a pandemic.
If certain criteria are met, the bondsā principal is transferred to the World Bankās Pandemic Emergency Financing Facility (PEF) to fund containment and relief efforts.
With that much money in play, someone might want to fix the outcome. (I forget the technical term, but thereās those side-bet derivative thingies.)
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My phoneās Google News feed keeps sending me weird stories from the Bitcoin alt-verse.
The Birth Of The CoronaCoin (NCOV): An ERC-20 Cryptocurrency āBackedā By The Coronavirus
The spread of the coronavirus continues, and more countries appear to take serious measures for its containment. Amid the tragic effect on peopleās health, the cryptocurrency space recently saw the birth of the CoronaCoin ā a coronavirus-backed token.
The Creation of CoronaCoin
Earlier today, the discussion of the new coronavirus-backed coin was published in a Reddit post. It informs that CoronaCoin (NCOV) will be an ERC-20 token.
Its primary purpose, according to the website, is to spread awareness across the board. Interestingly enough, the total supply is based on the world population, which means that for each living person, thereās one NCOV. Yet, the token will be burnt once every 48 hours, depending on the number of casualties and infected people from the virus.
The post also indicates that investors will benefit when the virus continues spreading. Most of the community seems somewhat skeptical regarding this feature. They commented that investors would have to hope for more infected people; in this way, their NCOV value will rise.
The CoronaCoin website states that āportion of funds will be donated to Red Cross for nCov relief.ā However, it doesnāt specify how significant that portion is.
Surely someone has created Fizzcoin, based in the rules of Fizzbin?
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The World Bank also offers derivatives:
The interest rate is ā¦generousā¦
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So long as itās generous on the side of the Coronavirus not spreading, I guess we shouldnāt worry, right?
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I think it promises 6.5 percent above LIBOR, but you stand to lose the principle, if the worst happens.
Donāt know what the class B tranche is for.
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ah, here we are
Pandemic bonds give you a very attractive return, sometimes more than 11% per year. You may get these returns by putting your money in stocks, but that wonāt give you fixed payments periodically (a key feature that makes bonds popular investments). Whatās the catch, you may ask. If there is an unfortunate occurrence of an epidemic in one of the affected areas, and the epidemic meets the requirements of the World Bank, a portion of the principal invested by you will be allocated to the affected areas immediately. This means that this portion of funds would not be returned to you, as an investor, at maturity.
To demonstrate this, if you invest $100 in pandemic bonds for 10 years, with a coupon (or rate of return assuming you do not sell this bond before maturity) of 11%, you would receive $11 every year for 10 years and then your $100 at the end of 10 years, only if there is no epidemic outbreak that meets the requirements of the bond. However, if there is an outbreak, and 80% of the total invested amount is required for combatting this, you would stop receiving your coupons and only receive $20 back ($80 are used to fight Ebola, SARS or other horrible diseases). So yes, you get enormous returns compared to the rest of the market, but there is a chance that you may not receive your money back at all.
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Idiots gotta idiot, I guess. Sigh.
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We could be royally screwed now:
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Or at this point, at least much of East Asia might be screwed. There still havenāt been many cases in the US and Europe, but if itās spreading further afield in East Asia, that might change soon enough.
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